Another viewpoint provides a view of a construction designed to keep the cascades of mountain water off the road surface. When we stop here, the car's windscreen and radio aerial are attacked by three keas (alpine parrots)

The road now descends quickly towards the west coast, but we divert from our plan of reaching Weymouth via Higway 73 and the coastal Highway 6, by diverting along Lake Brunner Road, through a valley used by the TranzAlpine Express. This very quiet road passes the eastern side of the glacially-formed Lake Brunner, and goes through an area made attractive by New Zealand's equivalent of Pampas Grass and some colourful Montbretia. Disconcertingly, we are followed for most of this quiet, pleasant road, by a police car. At the town of Dobson, we find a garage with several ancient British cars (mostly Austin A40s) lined up - presumably a source of spare parts for the old cars that New Zealanders seem fond of driving

Reaching the Grey River, we cross it by means of the Cobden Bridge to get to the site of New Zealand's worst mining disaster. By 1885, the Brunner Mine was producing twice as much coal as any other mine in the country.

On Thursday, March 26th  1896, 65 men and boys were killed. The site, with its old coke ovens and its memorial to the disaster is both fascinating and very sorrowful.

 

After visiting this sad site, we drive on to Greymouth - the west coast's largest town, although its population is less than 10,000. We find the Alpine Rose Motel on the southern edge of town. Our room is plain and functional, but comes with a whirlpool bath

We drive into Greymouth to buy petrol, supplies, and to find somewhere to eat. After examining several options, we decide to eat at the first restaurant we looked at, which was full on our first visit. This is Steamers Carvery, where we have good value starters of scallops, followed by main courses of roast pork and lamb, but the desserts are disappointing. Steamers Carvery is located on McKay Street which runs parallel to, and not far from, the Grey River. This river is deceptively calm, but becomes awesome after heavy rain - the last flood in 1988 led to the building of the Great  Wall of Greymouth; both before and after our evening meal, we stroll along sections of the wall with its views over the river and the town

 

This morning we have set the alarm for 6am, as our plan is to drive north from Greymouth before going south to tonight's destination at Franz Joseph - but the weather is terrible, with the heavy rain and strong wind that prevailed for most of the night. We therefore delay our start to the day, and are fortunate that there is a pause in the rain as we load the car. However, the heavy rain returns as we depart at 9am.

 

Driving conditions are hazardous on the 42-kilometre journey to Punakaiki, the site of the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. Our wet weather gear is essential for touring the rocks and blowholes, and we dress accordingly to walk to Dolomite Point. Here, layers of limestone have been weathered to resemble an immense stack of pancakes.

 

This morning's weather is just right for producing the best performances from the blowholes, and we enjoy some magnificent results produced by the strong wind and the sea's swell

Time permitting, we had originally planned to continue north from Punakaiki to visit the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge - the longest example of the swaying pedestrian footbridges in New Zealand; its 110-metre span crossing 19-metres above the Buller River.

With our late start to the day, this visit is now impossible and at 12:45pm, we start back south towards Greymouth.

The road from Punakaiki to Greymouth is a spectacular drive with sections of it sandwiched between the ramparts of the Paparoa Mountain Range and the Tasman Sea.

As it has now stopped raining, we are able to appreciate the scenery more than on our northward drive. However, at Rapahoe, just north of Greymouth, there is much less water flowing over the fall at Seven Mile Creek, but it is still a lovely spot.

The weather improves as we continue south on Highway 6, a road that contains a number of  'Road and Railway Bridges' (right) - river crossings used by both motor vehicles and trains

It is hot and sunny when we reach the tiny village of Ross, which lies on the top of one of New Zealand's richest alluvial goldfields. Here, in 1909, the largest nugget (weighing 3.1-kilos) ever found in New Zealand was discovered - the Government made a gift of it to George V for his Coronation. A replica is displayed in a museum

At Ferguson's Bush we find a monument placed in recognition of the contribution made by early surveyors, and some fine examples of the tall grasses that we have come to think of being New Zealand's version of Pampas Grass, but may be the local grass known as toetoe.

 

The weather detiorates again as we approach tonight's stopping place, Franz Joseph

We soon find the Glacier View Motel, which is situated on Highway 6, just north of the village. We are allocated Room 6 - which is awful! It is a dismal one-bedroom unit that has beds for four people, very basic furniture, a TV with only two channels, no ironing board, and no clothes hangers. In selecting our accommodation in New Zealand we have used a Government sponsored publication that lists 'Quality' properties. It is difficult to envisage how this awful motel has earned a Q-quality rating. The only redeeming feature is the ability to park the car beneath a sheltering canopy immediately in front of the room's rickety patio door. Even the view of the glacier is hidden by the low clouds. Jeanette fetches some hangers from the proprietor who is amazed that she wants to iron in the room rather than in the detached laundry unit. As we are booked here for three nights, we set out to find alternative lodgings. There are 'No Vacancies' signs everywhere, including our choice of the Westwood Lodge - but we enquire at this seriously upmarket hotel anyway and find that we can stay there for the next two nights. We then eat at The Landing in Franz Joseph, where the service is thankfully very slow, thus delaying our return to the gloom of our awful hotel room - and the rain just gets heavier

 

This morning we have a pre-booked excursion at the White Heron Sanctuary - a 30-kilometre drive to Whataroa. We are therefore up at 6am to check-out of the motel. Neither the heavy rain nor the awful room have prevented us getting a good night's sleep. We settle our bill with the motel owner, who accepts that we are moving on with the irritatingly laid-back attitude that we have met on a few occasions from New Zealanders. He is obviously used to people cancelling when they find that their room does not come up to expectations, but he seems more interested in his begonias (which are excellent) than improving the motel. He bids us farewell with the ubiquitous NZ phrase "good as gold!"

We arrive at the Sanctuary Tour's office about ten minutes early and spend the time watching reluctant children being dropped off at school. As the rain is still heavy, we don our wet-weather gear in the office as we are joined by two Canadians to complete our tour party of four. A minibus then takes us on a 20-minute drive to a jetty on the Waitangitaona River.

At the jetty we put on the offered large, green ponchos, but because we already have our waterproofs on, we decline the matching overtrousers - this proves to be a big mistake. A jetboat then covers some 20-kilometres very quickly before drifting the last kilometre after we enter the Waitangiroto Nature Reserve. A short boardwalk through dense, natural, rain forest gets us to a hide. Here, we take off the ponchos to discover that we now have wet trousers. A few immature herons are on the opposite side of the river - they are very inactive and look as fed up with the weather as we are. There are also some spoonbills here, but their distance away and the low light levels make photography difficult. We get back to the car at 11:30am - the end of a very wet and rather disappointing experience. Next, we drive to the nearby Okarito Lagoon, which is where Abel Tasman became the first European to set eyes on New Zealand - but there are no monuments recording the fact and, because of the poor weather, no views of the Southern Alps. A shed bears an 'Information' sign, but it is closed.