Today Jenny and Barry did the Pancake rocks, but we’d done it 3 times before and skipped it. All the cars in the carpark put us off too, and you now have to pay to park. Instead we walked the Truman track down to the bottom where there were amazing views of the sea rolling in and smashing against the rocks.

By then it was lunchtime, and we turned off onto a gravel road  and found a beautiful spot overlooking a swing bridge to have our lunch. It is also the start of the Pike river memorial walk, but it was about 16km there and back and decided against doing it.

The drive down the west coast was incredible. There were plenty of pull over stops, just to stop and admire the wild waves crashing on the shore.

We arrived in Greymouth about 2pm. Barry had to bid at an auction here. Jenny said they saw dolphins down at the point, so we went down to check it out and there was an amazing freedom camp at the end with flash toilets (flushing with water and hand soap). We grabbed a park at the freedom spot for just in case, then took a walk to the end of the pier.

We watched a guy catch a kahawai off the end of the wharf, but we didn’t see any dolphins. When we got back to our van, the freedom camping spot had filled up. So we decided we would stay as it’s such a beautiful spot.

That  night we sat on the beach watching the sunset. It was unreal how pleasant the evening was. There was no wind and the temperature was very mild. There was this cool structure on the beach made from driftwood. It was quite elaborate with different rooms and a firepit. We met the guy who built it, and he’s been working on it for 5 years. He had a warm fire going inside and music playing, and the views of the sunset through the driftwood walls were unreal. It was the sort of thing you might expect to see at a festival, but here it was, right on the beach. It felt surreal!