New Zealand, Punakaiki: Stubborn Pancake Rocks Refused to Show Off

The well-known Pancake Rocks outside Punakaiki were a marvellous natural wonder
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The main attraction in Punakaiki that we were interested in seeing was Pancake Rocks, a section of limestone rocks that had undergone stylobedding, a layering and weathering process that has caused the rocks to look like stacks of thin pancakes, at least for those with any semblance of an imagination. The rocks were visible at Dolomite Point, a coastal overlook about fifteen minutes' walk from the Punakaiki information centre car park. The important thing was for us to check the best time to view the rocks, since the accompanying geyserlike blowholes would only spurt water into the air when a good tide was running.

We had pretty decent weather during our hike to Pancake Rocks, and loved looking out onto the Tasman Sea, where we watched hector dolphins playing in the water
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Punakaiki was situated on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island and was one of our last stops before making our way back to Picton, so we could catch a ferry back to the North Island and head north again to Auckland, the last stop on our month-long trip in the country, and the city that served as our first stop. The day before we arrived in Punakaiki, we left the small village of Franz Josef Glacier after having completed a hike on the enormous slab of ice there. The drive to Punakaiki was quite long and we ended up taking a dinner break in the town of Greymouth.

The water was slowly filling up the pool and was swirling around violently, crashing against the steep rock walls around it

We really enjoyed the short walk to Pancake Rocks and the viewpoints along the way
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It was our second time to visit Greymouth in as many weeks. The first time was during a day trip on the TranzAlpine train, as we travelled from the east coast city of Christchurch to the west coast town of Greymouth, via Arthur's Pass, through the Southern Alps. The first time we visited Greymouth, we had very cloudy, rainy and cold weather, but the second time was much more pleasant, with a clear blue sky and no rain. It was even warm when arrived in town the second time!

There weren't many towns on the west coast of the South Island, and Greymouth was certainly the largest. It made sense to make stop there for dinner, knowing that we would be hard-pressed to find places open, on a Sunday evening, anywhere else on the west coast, between Franz Josef Glacier and Punakaiki. To solidify our desire to eat in Greymouth, we had read an advert for a Thai restaurant in a local South Island newspaper, and the article advertised free wireless internet access at the place.

The flax plants and New Zealand palms framed the trail we took to Pancake Rocks quite well
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Tuk Tuk Thai Restaurant was the name of the joint, and they did indeed have free wireless internet access. We had both wanted to eat Thai food really badly for the past few days and crossed our fingers, when we arrived and parked in the empty town centre, hoping that Tuk Tuk would be open, since everything else around us was closed. We walked a couple of blocks to the restaurant and, as luck would have it, it was open and serving customers.

The first thing we did was sit down and look at the menu - Dan eagerly suggested that we share a few things: spring rolls, chicken satay and a chicken red curry. Whilst waiting for our food, Kyle noticed the waiter had a laptop open on one of the other tables in the small restaurant. He nonchalantly asked the waiter if the restaurant had wireless internet access (as if we didn't know!), and the waiter returned by saying that there was free wireless internet access, to which we gasped in mock surprise and said thank you very much.

The trail to Pancake Rocks was a pleasant one with many beautiful coastal views
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After eating the food, we obtained the password from the waiter and checked our emails, catching up with friends who probably thought we had fallen down a bottomless ice crevasse, during our heli-hike on Franz Josef Glacier, earlier that day. By the way, the food at Tuk Tuk was average; we had yet to find really good Thai food in the southern hemisphere and were starting to think ahead to our return to London in January, when we would be guaranteed excellent Thai food, and Indian food, for that matter.

It's not everyday that you can see a penguin crossing sign, is it?
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When we left the restaurant, it had gotten dark outside and we needed to continue our drive towards Punakaiki. The highway north of Greymouth was very curvy and it was really dark outside, so we limited the amount of driving and found a picnic area to sleep in for the night, about half an hour north of town. In the morning, we ate breakfast before setting out on the highway again. That morning's meal included hash browns and chicken and sweetcorn pot noodles that we wanted to eat up so they wouldn't go to waste.

We saw several weka birds in Punakaiki and thought they were similar to kiwi birds, in some ways
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On the highway, we backtracked a few miles in order to take a photo of a penguin crossing sign - only in the southern hemisphere! - and were amazed at the incredible landscape. The road was carved into the mountains lining the west coast and ran through a sub-tropical rainforest that was very dense. Every time the mountains opened up on our left, we withheld spectacular views of the rugged coastline.

Upon arriving in Punakaiki, we parked Bessie, our campervan, and walked to the information centre to ask them when hide tide was that afternoon, and whether or not we would be able to see the blowholes under Pancake Rocks explode with water. We were told that the tides should be coming in over the next half an hour or so, and we walked back to Bessie to drop off our daypacks, so we could start the short hike out to Dolomite Point. When we approached our vehicle, we noticed a strange-looking bird walking around the car park. It was a bird that neither of us had ever seen before and we were very excited to have run across one.

Kyle took time out to inspect some of the unusual New Zealand plants and trees on the trail to Pancake Rocks
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After taking a couple of photos of the inquisitive creature, we walked back inside the information centre to ask the staff what kind of bird it was. The bird was a weka, and looked somewhat like a chicken, but with similarities to a kiwi bird. They were native to New Zealand and mostly found in that part of the South lsland that we were visiting. Happy with our discovery, we started out on the trail to Pancake Rocks, whereby we passed many interesting plants and trees along the way.

The trail we took was lined with flax plants, standing tall and dense on either side of us. There were many native New Zealand palm trees, with their fronds growing upwards, instead of outwards and/or downwards. We finally learned the name of a spiky, exotic tree that we had been seeing all over the country - cabbage trees. We initially thought that cabbage trees were some type of yucca tree, like the ones we saw all over the southwest United States during our road trip at the end of the (northern hemisphere's) summer.

The rugged New Zealand coast continued to impress us during our time in the country, especially at the Irimahuwhero viewpoint
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As we approached Pancake Rocks, we looked down into a pool of water where much of the force for the blowholes appeared to be gathering. The water was slowly filling up the pool and was swirling around violently, crashing against the steep rock walls around it. After viewing the pool, we saw Pancake Rocks and thought the striations in the rocks were very interesting and unique. We waited in front of the rocks for about half an hour and nothing happened, so we gave up and continued walking along the trail, heading back to the start of it, very disappointed.

The flax plants were due to flower in summer, so we just missed their red blossoms
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There were amazing views of the coast on either side of the viewing platform for Pancake Rocks. We spent a fair amount of time looking out at the Tasman Sea, and we managed to spot some Hectors dolphins swimming about in the water. Hectors are unique in that they have rounded fins and they are the smallest species of dolphins in the world, something that we found out later as we started writing this journal entry, but something that made us understand why it was hard to spot them from afar. After watching the dolphins for a while, we finished our trek and made our way back to Bessie to leave Punakaiki.

New Zealand had many different varieties of ferns
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Hunger began hitting us once we were in our campervan and back on the highway. There was a small picnic area with excellent views of the sea and coast, and we made that our stop for lunch. We were somewhat creative and made tuna pesto pasta with green peas and cheese, again trying to use up the food in our cupboards to make sure we didn't waste anything by not eating it. We decided that we had had enough sightseeing and walking that day, so we drove as far north as we could without going mental. Richmond was our stopping place for the night, and we ended up staying there for two nights because we liked the little town, and wanted to relax a bit before our ferry crossing to the country's capital, Wellington, on the North Island.