This one’s kinda long. TL;DR: I made a friend and saw pretty mountains.

Just when I thought I’d absolutely mastered the Metro, my confidence got the best of me.

My latest adventure included a ride on the TranzAlpine train. This train travels from coast to coast on the South Island and boasts scenic mountain views the whole way. I began in the east coast in Christchurch, and rode about 4.5 hours to Greymouth, a town sitting on the west coast. I booked a hostel in Greymouth to stay overnight, officially marking my first hostel stay of the trip.

My train ride was off to a sweaty start when the bus stop I got off at proved to be a further walking distance to the train station than I had anticipated. It was about a mile away, but I had scheduled in a 5-10 minute walk as opposed to the 25 minute one my map routed for me. (I later found out that there was no closer stop, but at that moment, I was cursing myself. Seriously though, why wouldn’t the bus stop at the train station?)

I’d never been in this section of town before, and luckily there was no one else around to witness my on-and-off running in the dark, my daypack bouncing along behind me. I’d passed several Lime scooters on my brisk morning jog, but I hadn’t researched enough about how to rent them. I probably could’ve paused for a moment to look it up, but I was too anxious to stop and ditch my half-baked plan to run.

Did I mention I was also slightly hungover from my Sketch & Sip the night before?

Somehow, I still got to the train station just a little after their recommended arrival time of 20 minutes before departure. Of course, I got my ticket in no time and had plenty of time to take my seat and strip off the layers I was beginning to sweat through. Luckily for me – or maybe more lucky for every other unsuspecting stranger – I didn’t have any seat-mate take up residence beside me.

I’ve been working on my running in recent months, and seeing how poorly this delightful run went, I feel like I’ve just been set back about 1,000 steps in the process.

Once the train was underway, things went much more smoothly. The train’s views lived up to the hype throughout the whole journey. On their website, they used the word “scenic” so many times it felt like they were making up for something. However, I guess that was just the only word they could think of that truly encompassed the journey.

We passed vast stretches of farmland on our way out of the city. I’d never seen so many sheep in one place before, and I had to fight the urge to fling myself from the train and find myself in a wooly cuddle pile.

As we started nearing the mountains, the lady over the loudspeaker informed us when it was a good time to head out to the viewing car at the front of the train. While the view seemed a bit more limited compared to the one provided through the windows in the seating cars, it was worth freezing my ass off outside to see the land without a pane of glass hindering the view with pesky reflections.

The snow capped mountains began to rise around us, inviting us into their home. As we traveled deeper in, the snow faded, but deep gorges with beautiful, ice-blue water flowing through made themselves apparent. I’ve been to many mountains before (humble brag, I guess), but experiencing views like that from a train was something unique.

It was hard to decide when to finally head back inside, but by the fifth tunnel we passed through, the crushing smell of diesel encouraged me to sit back down. Then, I was able to enjoy a flat white and thick slice of chocolate cake from the cafe car at 10 A.M.

The rest of the ride was beautiful, the views changing ever so slightly throughout. I wasn’t entirely sure of my game plan when I got to Greymouth, but I figured I would find something to do.

Turned out, Greymouth really didn’t have much going on. It’s referred to as the “gateway to the west coast” or something to that effect. That meant that it was close to many great adventures all within a relatively short driving distance. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a car.

I made the most of it, finding a walkway along the water that I followed for a small while. I didn’t walk all the way to the ocean, as my phone battery was getting low, and for some reason my portable charger wasn’t cooperating with me. I decided to turn around and grab another coffee, where I could charge my phone and regroup.

I could only do one of those things at my chosen coffee shop. For some reason, the outlets were all sealed over so that customers were unable to use them. I still sat down and enjoyed my coffee anyways, and used my iPad to do some research instead to save my phone’s battery.

Monteith’s Brewery is one place that made itself apparent as the thing to do in Greymouth. It’s known as the original home of craft brewing in New Zealand, and seemed like the place to be. I love a good brewery, so this was an easy sell for me.

I planned to walk a bit more along the water, up until the gray clouds moved in and the rain started pouring down. I figured I’d make my way to the hostel about a mile away. About halfway there, I saw Monteith’s cross my path, and figured I might as well stop in to get out of the rain.

I’m never opposed to drinking alone, so I ordered myself a beer and a lamb burger with a side of fries. The food was amazing, and for some reason those fries were some of the best I’d ever had. I still think of them fondly several days later. The beer was good as well, and I wish I’d done a flight to try even more of them than I was able.

Oh, and they weren’t stingy on the outlets, so I was able to charge my phone, finally.

Once the rain cleared up and I’d finished my solo meal, I decided to head to the hostel. It was a cute set up, and was very clean and well put together. I said hi to a few other residents, but no one seemed very chatty or open to friendship, so I took a seat in the common area and did some scrolling on my phone and reading. It wasn’t until about 7 P.M. that I saw a new girl enter the common area, looking like she was on a mission. Not finding who she was looking for, she asked me and the other girls keeping to themselves if the heat was working in our rooms. I’d only poked my head into mine a few hours earlier, so I wasn’t sure. I asked her what room she was in, and it turned out we were in the same one. That gave me something to look forward to with returning to my room later – both good and bad.

She was a very open person and our conversation flowed from there. I was excited to finally meet another traveler and create a friendship for the stay. She’d already been traveling the world for 7 months, and New Zealand was one of her last stops. Antarctica had been her first. Coincidentally, we found out we were taking the same train to Christchurch the next day, and our bond was sealed.

After talking for several hours, we decided it was time to brush our teeth and go to bed. It felt a bit like college with us brushing our teeth together, and having a shared bathroom again. Although, come to think of it, I never did the communal bathrooms in college, so I was finally getting that experience when I was 4 years out.

The room, of course, was freezing, and despite the comfy bed, I didn’t get that great of a night’s sleep. I woke up at 7 to take a shower, where my mom surprise FaceTimed me right before I stripped down to let me know that my family was fully booked to come visit me around Christmas. Woo!

I got ready for the day and hung around, waiting for my friend to be up and about, too. We’d talked about buddying up for the day, so I waited to make sure she was still on board with that. We later went to get breakfast together at a cafe that was attached to a hardware store (still unsure why that was) and took a walk around a nearby park.

Again, there wasn’t much to do in Greymouth, so when we got back from our walk around noon, we just hung out in the common area of the hostel again and waited until our host would take us to the train station at 1. The host often would do pick up and drop off from the train and other various buses that pulled into the station. I had decided to forgo that option to be picked up the day before, opting to walk around. Now, however, I wished I’d taken him up on it. My friend had been picked up from her bus and went to the hostel, so I could’ve met up with her earlier and had a buddy at the brewery. She had found the rest of our roommates to be rather quiet and unfriendly as well.

When we got to the station and waited to board, my friend recounted some more of her travel stories. An older lady nearby jumped into our conversation at one point, sharing that she also loved to travel and had been dragging her husband across the world for years. Her husband showed up soon after that, and definitely fit the good-humored husband who reluctantly followed her lead.

At one point, the lady reached into her bag and pulled out a brown paper bag full of necklaces. She said they were all from her favorite designer back in San Diego, where they lived. She’d brought a whole bunch with her, intending to hand them out to other travelers. We were both told to pick our favorite and keep it.

My friend and I got our necklaces just as the train pulled up and we began to board. When we checked in, we asked if we were able to sit together, and luckily they were able to rearrange our seats and make that happen. We got ourselves situated and before the train took off, we saw the husband we had been talking to earlier walk past us with two bottles of wine. Feeling inspired, we got a bottle of bubbly and a cheese tray to share.

When we opened the cheeses, one of them looked like it was moldy, and not in a good way. My friend was more outspoken and asked about it. Apparently this wasn’t a new problem, and we ended up getting a second cheese tray for free.

The journey was even more enjoyable with a travel buddy. Before the sun fully went down, we went out to the viewing car and got to see more beautiful views with the full moon hanging above the mountains.

The five hours passed in no time, and while I only had a daypack, my friend had her whole backpack, as well as 3 other smaller bags she hadn’t worked on consolidating yet. Unfortunately, that bus stop I had initially gotten off at was in fact the closest one, so I helped her haul all of her things a mile down the road.

We went our separate ways once we got back to the interchange, but were able to meet up and check out the Christchurch Art Gallery the next day before she headed on to her next adventure. Even though Greymouth ended up being a fairly mediocre town, the journey surrounding it was one of the best.