[LCA2019 Chat] Stopping somewhere during the Tranzalpine Journey?

[Ewen McNeill]

On 2019-01-10 13:18, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> I'm going to take the Tranzalpine to Greymouth and back in one day.
> 
> Is it worth either stopping somehere before greymouth for a few hours
> and catching the train on its way back (missing the end of the journey)

I'd say you'll want to stay on the train through at least Arthur's Pass, 
to get the best experience of the Southern Alps.  All the stops before 
that are basically on the Canterbury plains or in the foot hills at best.

There are only two stops after Arthur's Pass on the route:

https://www.greatjourneysofnz.co.nz/tranzalpine/

and both of them (Otira, Moana) are request stops, as is Arthur's Pass. 
Ie, you'd have to specifically book to go to/from there, otherwise the 
train won't stop.

I believe both are *tiny* settlements (Otira -- population 45: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otira, Moana -- population about 250: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moana,_New_Zealand).

For all three (Arthur's Pass, Otira, Moana) I suspect you'd want a 
specific reason to stop, probably involving hiking or similar.  Of the 
three my guess would be Arthur's Pass (another *tiny* village, but a bit 
tourist focused: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Pass), or 
maybe Moana for Lake Brunner, if you found a specific walk you wanted to 
do.  Seems like you could maybe get 4 hours or so between trains if you 
got off in Arthur's Pass.

Greymouth is a reasonable sized town, and *significantly* different 
climate to Christchurch.  It's also an old coal mining area, so if 
that's of interest it might be possible to find something of interest 
near central Greymouth (looks like the train turn around time would give 
you maybe 30 minutes in Greymouth, which definitely isn't enough time to 
get to some of the "outside central Greymouth" things I'd otherwise 
suggest in Greymouth).

Ewen

PS: Of note, Christchurch is *still* rebuilding after the earthquakes 
some years ago caused much of the central city to be pulled down. 
There's not as much "tourist focused" things to do in central 
Christchurch as their used to be.  But there's plenty in "day trip" / 
"afternoon trip" driving distance of central Christchurch / the 
University of Canterbury area (which is outside central Christchurch), 
so renting a car to explore might be a good use of extra days.