Day Fifteen

So today’s very tenative plan that I came up with last night was to go see the Pancake Rocks at high tide (9:20am) and then drive south to the glaciers. But this morning as I waited for high tide I looked over my various maps and brochures and one thing kept jumping out at me. Arthur’s Pass. It’s always managed to get excluded from my itinerary. This has always bothered me but it was just something that didn’t fit into my routes. That changed today. I just decided to make a detour up the mountain and I’m SO glad I did. (I kind of like mountains) I’m not going to say it’s beautiful because that’s becoming a bit redundant. But it’s certainly not ugly ;) I figured I could do a hike or two and then head back to Greymouth to find a campsite for the night.

I did two hikes upon my arrival – Devil’s Punchbowl (1 hour) and Temple Basin (3 hours). The latter was the toughest so far. It was like going up the CN Tower stairs if the tower was taller and if the stairs were made of nothing but loose rocks (of a wide range of size). The upside was the view – it wasn’t Toronto!

After the hikes I went back to Arthur’s Pass Village to get some food before heading back to Greymouth. That’s when I discovered two things. 1. Everything in Arthur’s Pass Village closes at 5pm; 2. I can camp right in the village for $6. So that’s what I’m doing. There’s a 6-8 hour hike I can do tomorrow (weather permitting) after which I’ll decide where to spend the night. I figure the glaciers can wait – I mean, it’s not like I’ve never stood in snow before (that’s actually one of the “selling points” in the tour brochure!).

The downside to camping at this particular location is that I have the highway on one side of me and train tracks on the other. Something tells me I won’t be getting the best sleep of my life tonight. Oh well, did I mention the views?