Welcome back readers.
Last time I had crossed the south Island of New Zealand, east to west via a road leading through Arthurs Pass. It was a short but awesome journey through the mountains and by the time I got to Greymouth, it was nearly 6pm. Time for dinner and to find somewhere to stay.
But that's where things went, well bad...
Before you read on, I must warn you that what lays ahead isn't an epic adventure. There isn't any epic photos. There's barely a happy ending. Some people may not even class this as a travel blog, but I can assure you it really is. In fact it's one of the most important parts of traveling.
You may be thinking, why the hell has he put a picture of a yellow pipe as his main image?
Is he trolling us? Is this a joke?
I can assure you, this is NOT a joke. My stay in Greymouth was possibly one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life; and you're about to find out why.
We arrived about 6pm at the latest and thought since we've just driven the width of the country and spent the day walking and hiking to waterfalls and other viewpoints, let's get something to eat...you know replenish the calories.
There weren't many restaurants around and it turned out they were ALL closed.
Hmmm I thought, well maybe there's fast food places open like a pizza or dirty kebab?
Nope
Oh dear, looks like we're going to have to stock up on food.
We were traveling in a car and didn't have any mini stoves or cooking equipment so cooking something was not an option. My vote was just cereal bars and bananas for dinner. Both are reasonably healthy and bananas give off energy slowly which would be ideal for making it through the night.
So we made our way to the biggest store in Greymouth. The one's that are usually open practically 24 hours. In the UK, this would probably be a Tesco's.
CLOSED
Oh dear...
Luckily the wifi from the store reached out to the car park I was in, so I drove as close as possible to the store to use their wifi in order to look for air bnb's, hostels or even hotels to stay.
Nothing.
At this point I started to panic a little, we had no water (again) and about 4 cereal bars (2 each) until the next day.
What really pissed me off is that this was a Monday (Monday 15th Jan 2018) and as far as I knew, Monday's weren't a special holiday in New Zealand. In fact, I went as far as to Google the holidays just to make sure. At least if I saw that it was in fact a bank holiday I could then say something along the lines of "silly me, I should of checked before I arrived"
At least then I could feel better knowing it was my fault.
Nope, just New years and then the next holiday was *Waitangi Day" on Tuesday 6th Feb. More than a month away.
I was starving by 8pm, although it was the water that I knew was priority and by this point I was in survival mode.
There had to be water, maybe a vending machine or something?
Nope
Now at this point you'd think, Tom, you're in New Zealand. It's practically the birth place of drinking water. You could drink from a river and be fine. Well that's true, I've drank river water before, it's no big deal. But there was one slight problem.
This is Greymouth.
It's not exactly known for it's drinking water...in fact quite the opposite and soon I was about to find out what that meant.
Now before I go on, I want to let you know that I told this story to friends and family when I got back home. They laughed at me and told me that I was wrong in saying the drinking water is no good here.
"It's New Zealand Tom", they would say. Laughing their arse off.
One of them was my brothers friend, who was originally from New Zealand. So if I was going to listen to anyone it was them. When I asked him where they were from did he say Greymouth?
Nope
When I asked if he had ever been to Greymouth did they say yes?
Nope
So there I stood with about 15 people laughing at me, none of which had a clue about this place. Yet they were telling me I was wrong. The arrogance of some people is astounding.
Anyway where was I? Oh that's right, in the car park outside a closed supermarket.
9pm - After searching on the wifi for anywhere to stay or anywhere to eat I was searching for anywhere to drink. I'm talking about water of course, not alcohol.
Fountain's were my main goal. If I could find one like in the Rugby grounds back in Christchurch at least it would sort out a major problem.
Nope, nothing.
What about a kids playground in a park?
Nope
Then I found something on Campermate. A very useful app if you're traveling around Australia or New Zealand with a very useful community which help each other out.
It turned out there was a petrol station not too far from where I was parked. Closed of course but apparently there was a water tap there.
Great! I thought, but then I looked at the reviews..
"Tastes like Diesel, I don't recommend it"
"The filling station attendant confirmed the water was safe to drink but doesn't taste so good"
That last one gave me hope so I grabbed my bottle and walked over.
When I got there, I went straight to the attendant to ask where the tap was and if they could confirm it was drinkable. They looked at me like I was some kind of idiot, "yeh, it is". As if to say duh, of course a tap right next to a diesel pump is drinkable, why wouldn't it be?
And here it is
Screenshot from Campermate App
The stench of diesel as I approached was unbelievably strong. There was some diesel spilt on the floor nearby which would probably explain it but still, it wasn't comforting.
I knew that many people make a huge fuss about food and drink these days. They have a steak and if it's not cooked to what they think is perfection they moan about it.
Perhaps the one's on the app were those type's of people?
Nope
As I turned the tap, water did in fact come out. But it came out warm. So I waited a minute as you do for it to cool down.
Nope
Warm it is. I could feel the warmth of the water through the plastic of the bottle I was holding and the colouration? Not clear. It had a slightly yellow tint to it with little bits floating about. I might as well of got a local to piss in my water bottle because that is what it felt like I was holding.
I popped the cap and smelt the "water". I could smell diesel. I'm not kidding.
And the taste? yep you guessed it. Diesel. The most discussing water I've ever had in my entire life. My body was screaming at me not to drink it but I needed water and there was no other alternative.
I thought back to all the survival programs I've seen over the years. If they're unsure about the water but in need, they take a tiny sip and then wait. That's exactly what I did.
From then on I took VERY small sips waiting in between to see if anything weird would happen in my stomach. It was fine but still felt rank drinking it. I ate the remaining 2 cereal bars for some sort of taste. Mmm dinner.
Right enough of this, let's find a campsite we can sneak into. We weren't planning on using any facilities, just literally a parking space would do. Luckily we found one and parked in between two huge RV's hoping to hide there till morning.
5 minutes later...
Knock knock knock "you can't park here without a booking"
I explained my situation to the guy and he couldn't care less.
"You have to leave now" he said
"Can't I just pay you cash?" I said
"No, you have to book via the camping website" he replied.
"But there's no wifi here" I protested
"Not my problem, besides only campervans can stay here. You're in a car." he said
Then he went on to warn me about a fine.
"you're lucky because I could have fined you"
and the fine? 200 New Zealand Dollars!
"Thank you" [you prick] I said, and asked if there was anywhere else around.
"no, you'll have to find somewhere but you can't stay here "
great...
So after getting kicked out of the campsite, with no food and a bottle full of diesel water we needed to find somewhere to park without being fined.
What about the car park I was in earlier?
Nope, cameras and fine in place.
There wasn't anyone about but then I spotted a policeman walking up the road.
"Excuse me" I said, "Please can you help us. We have no food, very little water and a car. We just need somewhere to park for the night then we'll be gone in the morning. We're heading up to Nelson."
"That's really unfortunate" he said. "If you head up the highway a bit you might find a few places to pull off the road which are not owned by anyone" "There's not many patrols up there this time and if you leave early you'll be ok"
What an absolute legend!
Out of all the people that could of helped us (not many as the town was dead) it was a cop! Top bloke!
After driving 15 minutes or so, I found a decent spot off the side of the road far enough to be hidden at least during the night. It was here I spent the rest of the night laying in my reclined seat with unsurprisingly not much sleep.
So there you have it, my night in Greymouth. An unforgettable night for all the wrong reasons. But I like to share my traveling experiences with others, even the bad ones. People who take amazing pictures and say how wonderful a place is probably stay in a flashy hotel somewhere.
I'm here to tell you, traveling is not all wonderful. Some of it is hell, and you have to push yourself to get through it.
But as a result, you come out the other side as a better person. Stronger than before and more independent. You feel better for it and because you made it to the other side, it's not embarrassing to talk about.
I know for a fact many people I work with would seriously panic in that situation. Some would break down in to tears which simply means losing even more water.
Now I'm not saying Greymouth is a horrible place. I'm sure there's places to visit and see during the day (when they're open) and friendly air bnb host's around. But for me this wasn't the case; and it was a struggle to simply get through the night.
That yellow pipe will stay in my memory for a very long time. If I hadn't found it, who knows what kind of state I'd be in the next day.
That's all for now, I have many amazing places to share still and lots of pretty pictures I promise :-)
Till next time, thanks for reading.