It was a cold and early start this morning as we headed to Christchurch Railway Station.

I had purchased standard tickets for us on this train trip. Mainly because we were to leave at 8.15am and we’d arrive around lunch time. We return to Christchurch tomorrow on a Scenic Plus ticket – and we’re looking forward to that upgrade which includes meals and drinks.

This train trip took us through the Southern Alps (the Great Divide), travelling from the east coast to the west coast of the South Island.

The TranzAlpine train – is one of the world’s great train journeys, covering 223 kilometres (139 miles) one-way and taking just under 5 hours.

It actually took us 4 hours.

Our seats were in a carriage that had lots of vacant seats, unlike several other carriages that were filled with tour groups and bus groups, mostly of elderly people or Chinese visitors. We brought the average age down a year or two for the non-Asian contingent.

There was a commentary like on the train from Auckland to Wellington. We would get a signal that there would be some information and we could see on the screen when we needed to plug our complimentary earphones in to listen.

The first part of the trip, of course, was a climb up the hills. Snow was evident on some of the hilltops.

Mick eventually told me to sit down and stop taking photos!!

But colours changed significantly. You can see the road beside us here in the first hour or so of our trip, but that eventually disappeared and re-joined us for awhile once we came to Arthur’s Pass.

After about 90 minutes, we reached the high country sheep stations, complete with some merino sheep clinging to steep slopes. The stations are not owned outright, rather the large parcels are ‘managed’ on a 99-year lease.

The highest point we reached was 737m above sea level at Arthur’s Pass village and railway station. We stopped here for around 10 minutes and quite a lot of people got off the train, including one of the tour bus groups. I could not understand why, but I actually think they got off there only for a few hours and probably got back on the train later in the afternoon as it headed back to Christchurch.

The engineering of the track and its history are extremely impressive. We went through 15 tunnels, one 8.5km in length, and over 4 viaducts, mostly when we crossed the Waimakariri River. We dropped 350m over 14km. The longest tunnel itself had a huge drop in height while we were in there, but we did not notice it.

And..

It was crazy observing the river’s flow change direction once we were through the pass.

About an hour out of Greymouth we stopped at a small town called Otira where we spent 10 minutes while some (two I think) of the engines were unhooked to wait for the train when it would come back through later in the day.

We walked to our hotel, enjoying some sunshine that was unexpected, albeit briefly. Being Sunday, no shops were open, but there were quite a few pubs and cafes ready to cater for the train travellers who only just arrived and were to return to Christchurch in an hour. Mick and I were some of the few dragging bags intending to stay here.

Our hotel room was on the 6th floor – the highest building by a long way in this small town.

Later in the afternoon we walked to Monteith’s Brewery – a famous landmark for the west coast; touted as the original home of craft beer brewing in New Zealand. So a definite ‘must visit’ for Mick, despite the weather having turned to a very damp, fine drizzle.

Mick chose a tasting board of 3 beers – all IPAs – he was able to select from what was on offer.

Mick did not really like any of them. It was then that he told me that he does not like Monteith’s beer. I would have liked to have known that beforehand as the wine list here was pretty miserable – one offering for each wine type. I tried ‘the’ chardonnay and could not finish it, and then I had ‘the’ Pinot Noir, and that was better.

Monteith’s was OK, but only just. Our hotel has a restaurant which looks great, but it is not open on a Sunday!

Sunday night is not the best night to stay in Greymouth.

We made it back to our hotel room with plenty of time to watch the football. Mick was happy.