Western side of the Tranzalpine Train

The train sounds its horn indicating it’s time to board the train again for the second part of the journey. Service is suspended, toilets locked and everyone is asked to remain seated as we travel through the longest tunnel of the journey. The 8.5km tunnel has a 1 in 33 gradient so two extra locomotives are attached to the train to be able to pull us out in case of emergency.

The tunnel trip is uneventful and we soon burst into the momentarily cloudier western side of the divide. We loose the two safety locomotives shortly after and then the sun comes back and the lunch service begins. One of the crew is so chatty with people that the service is quite slow. Her boss eventually calls her out on it and she then finished serving the rest of the carriage (importantly including me who had spent 20mins smelling the delicious food but not being able to eat it).

Lunch is a slow cooked beef cheek that dissolves as I eat it. Accompanied by a mash and red wine jus, it’s delicious! Now a few glasses deep on the sparkling wine (Oyster Bay naturally in NZ), I get some fresh air in the viewing carriage while bopping away to some music. The countryside here has a lot more foliage and patches of denser forest than the eastern side. The clouds are also lower, but still plenty of sunshine.

After lunch, a pavlova dessert is served which is a fitting end to the meal (even if the dish originates from Australia 😉). We pass a coal mine, which makes sense given the geography, but given NZ’d whole marketing campaign is about pure nature, it seems odd to pass a coal mine. Coal was why this line was built tho, so I guess it makes sense.

As we approach Greymouth we follow the river that gets wider as we get closer. 5 hours of amazing scenery and lovely food is about to come to an end. Day trippers are advised to board the train again in an hour - which even for me seems like a quick turnaround. I grab my bag and walk (a little tipsily) to my hotel for a well deserved afternoon nap.

Would recommend (the train, scenic plus and the nap).Read more