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Undertaking the Wilderness Trail


Reefton to Kumara via Greymouth for our 24th day.  What a sight for sore eyes is Greymouth and finally hitting the coast.  That little town has never looked so good to me.  It was a lovely day too which added to the experience.

After lunch, we grab the control photo of the Greymouth Bar and head out onto the Wilderness Trail.  Our booked bed for the night is at Kumara about thirty kms along the trail.  

The first part of the trail is coastal and we had a remarkable experience when a walker passed us about four kms in.  I happened to recognise the walker as possibly the only friend we know to be living in Greymouth.  She flatted with Jan 34 years ago and we had hardly seen her since.  It was incredible to happen to meet her as we passed through.  We chatted, and I took a photo of her and sent it to Jan.  Look what we found! 🤣

We carried on at a steady pace into a river and forest section of the trail.  It took us about an hour and half to come to Kumara and the Theatre Royal Hotel which was the main building for our accommodation.

I say main building, because Kumara is a historic village of original wooden buildings from its hay day in the 1900s, many of which are now used for accommodation.  There is a card2fuel petrol station and one cafe I think, but otherwise a lot of old cottages, a bank building and a theatre, amongst others, where you can stay for the night.  We were booked into the Undertaker’s cottage which was set up as backpacker accommodation with shared kitchen and bathroom.

An Irish bike packer and a couple of girls from England and France shared the place with us and we chatted with them all quite a bit before and after dinner.  Dinner was back at the Theatre Royal building, a nice pizza, soup and a bean patty dish followed by dessert that was not cheap, but yummy and fuelled us pretty well.

A decent continental breakfast for $18 the next morning prepared us for a long remote ride through the wilderness to Hokitika.   There we put our bikes in to get serviced checked into a shared room at Stumpers Hotel.  Dinner at the hotel was good, but again a la carte, so not cheap.  


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