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Photo by 13OED

West Coast Wilderness Trail

Amelia-Jane Kempthorne and Emily Morrison —

On our first day of our adventures we set off from the Greymouth railway station. Not even 2 minutes in, we were already drenched from the typical Greymouth weather. 

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We missed the turn off to Shantytown by 6 km so we ended up backtracking and adding more distance to our trip. We arrived at the Greenstone retreat in Kumara where we were lucky enough to have showers, although the water tasted strongly of chlorine. 

Image by: 13OED

On Day 2 we set off for a 50km ride. We had torrential rain and flew down the switchbacks biking straight through cowboys paradise. We were enjoying a flat ride until we looked up to this steep uphill and some of our jaws dropped.

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We then flew down the other side of the hill to Hans Bay where we were welcomed with a jump in the lake and a small shelter to hide from the rain. 

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We were woken by the weka and possum roaming around for our food. On the last day we sped through to Hokitika to the 100km mark where we rewarded ourselves with hot food. 

Image by: 13OED
Image by: 13OED