2024 New Zealand: Days 21-22 Trans-Alpine Railroad and farewell to New Zealand

We drove three hours through drizzle to Greymouth, a former gold rush town that now serves as one terminus of the TransAlpine scenic train between Christchurch and Greymouth. After covering 2,000 miles between the North and South islands over the last 3 weeks, we dropped off the car at the Greymouth train station. The car was a great way to cover a wide range of the country, allowing for flexibility and spontaneity as we chose our route. The only limitation was self-imposed: no driving after dark.  Except for major highways in the immediate vicinity of cities like Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, all roads are two lanes. Bridges in the mountains are often one-lane, with cars yielding to oncoming traffic. There are occasional passing and slow-vehicle lanes in the mountains, which most drivers are considerate about using. Nearly all intersections are traffic circles.

The TransAlpine railway, completed in 1923, is considerd one of the world’s great train journeys. It takes almost 5 hours to cover 139 miles, crossing 4 viaducts and 16 tunnels. There are horseshoe bends, rapid glacial-blue rivers, tiny towns (one had a population of 1) and historic sheep and cattle stations. The route was a challenge to build and continues difficult to maintain. Floods, snow and rockslides can disrupt travel for days. The route runs along a long fault line; on one occasion, the tracks at the end of a bridge had moved several feet to the side. 

One of the sheep stations we passed is the third largest in NZ. With the advent of good synthetic fibers, the sheep industry has decreased dramatically. Forty years ago there were 25 sheep for every person in NZ. Today, there are only five. The commentary on the train said that deer (venison) are now the largest meat export from the country, though we did see a lot of cattle and sheep. 

There is a running commentary activated by GPS location available in each seat. You can listen in English or Mandarin (there are a LOT of Chinese tourists in NZ). The narration covers history, geology and industry along the route. The railroad provides headphones so you can tune in as much or as little as you like.

When we reached the 5.3 mile Otira tunnel, the dining car and toilets were closed. The train stopped to add an engine at the rear to help push the train fifteen minutes up the 820 ft climb to the other side. The weather on the eastern end of the tunnel is often dramatically different; they get more rain and it’s greener. These photos are in no particular order - just sights out the window as we chugged along.

We stayed in the same Christchurch hotel as we did a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty easy to find:

We were free the next day until our 1 PM airport transfer. We visited Quake City, a small museum commemorating the experiences and heroism of the February 22, 2011 Christchurch earthquake. We weren’t sure what to expect, but found it interesting and moving. There are eyewitness testimonies (with10-year follow-up interviews with some of the subjects), photos, and real-time videos. They have hands-on demonstrations of liquifaction, explanations of fault lines and artifacts such as the fallen spire from the Canterbury cathedral. There were 1,800 damaged buildings in the center of Canterbury. Almost everything you see there today is either new, or in the case of some heritage buildings, restored. It is hard to believe this happened only 12 years ago. 

The rest of the very long day was dedicated to travel: By the time we completed our flights to Brisbane and Cairns and checked into our hotel, it was 3 AM Christchurch time (midnight in Cairns) and we were quite done for the day. 

We did enjoy the cheeky luggage carousel delivery system at the Cairns airport.