Trip Report: NZ west coast by bus
Connecting from the Chch-Greymouth Tranz Scenic train, I took an InterCity bus to Franz Josef where I would see the glacier. InterCity seems like a Greyhound type bus service, with big buses and pretty no-frills unlike Argentina or even Thailand.
There was really cool scenery along the way, but what was most interesting to me was that the driver delivered packages and newspapers to small stores in small towns along the way. I guess this bus service is sort of a lifeline. Here he is carrying a bundle of newspapers inside of a general store.
From Franz Josef, I took an Atomic bus to Queenstown. Well, I actually booked with nakedbus, but when the confirmation page came up, it said to look out for Atomic. Their buses are more like hotel shuttles, less like Greyhound buses. Theis schedule on the Franz Josef to Queenstown route was about 2 hours faster than InterCity (though still long at 6.5 hrs), because I think we didn't make stops to deliver packages.
This might well have been marketed as a "scenic coach trip," since the scenery along the way was magnificent. Here we are passing Lake Hawea. The little dots in the foreground are sheep. People say there are 4 million people in NZ, and 40 million sheep! Plus lots of cows, and deer along the way. And they all look really healthy, roaming around and eating grass.
