Our
adventure continued on to an appointment the following day with a brewery; the
original Monteiths brewery in Greymouth, no less :)
I was
suffering from a cold so wasn’t really as excited as I should’ve been about the
brewery, but it was a welcome diversion from further hours stuffed in the
car. And the free beer was pretty good
too :)
Our guide
was one of the handful of lucky employees, many of whom had been there for over
20 years. I don’t blame them
really! A batch of Monteiths Black was
slowly fermenting while we were shown around the site. At the end of the tour we each got to jump in
behind the brewery bar and pour ourselves a drink. Quite a novelty to be allowed to help
yourself at a brewery :) Thanks
Monteiths! The bar was also something of
a museum, featuring bottles and photos from over a century of West Coast ales.
Our tour
guide had recommended some regional food matches for their beers, which we
tried to remember in case our path wound along to one of those spots. A few days later we did arrive at one of the
recommended eateries, only to be disappointed that they were out of venison
pies! Well, Rachel was disappointed; it didn’t worry me too much. There were other yummy snacks for us there though.
We decided
to bypass the Punakaiki (pancake) rocks that afternoon and take the inland
route, to find more hot springs
:) The Maruia hot pools had developed
into more of a resort since my last visit.
The new Japanese owners were bringing in the style of the onsen resort, with private pools
surrounded by smooth granite and beautiful views of the lush native bush. Rachel was excited to see a bunny rabbit hop
around outside our window too :) “Ohhh,
it’s so cute!”
We
reluctantly left the pool, feeling very relaxed and having forgotten about the
hours and hours spent in the car. A hit
of caffeine was definitely required to get us back on the road. Although we didn’t know where our destination
for the night was. Nelson? Somewhere closer? A random campsite beside the road?
Our free
tourist guide had some good comments about this place in Nelson, so we headed
there. It both was and wasn’t what we
expected. It was on the doorstep of a
peaceful bird sanctuary. But it wasn’t
really a normal campground. More like an
old caravan park / school camp. A
bit strange, but we just found a spot for our tent & crashed out.
We did get
to explore some of the native forest the next day and buy a jar of delicious
homemade lemon honey from the info centre. Yum! :) Rachel also got to imagine herself as a lonely
forest creature, trapped behind the example section of predator-proof
fencing. Lucky she could find her way
back to me from there! :)
