Tuesday, Dec 30th, we spent driving along the West Coast of the South Island, a very wild, sparsely populated area of New Zealand. The West Coast is memorable for its mountain peaks, massive glaciers, bizarre limestone landscapes, lakes and raging rivers, lush native rainforests and a magnificent, wild coastline. It is not known for its towns - so fill up on gas in Westport since there won't be another gas station for a long time.
Typical West Coast road with walls of native ferns hugging the highway.
So on this one-lane bridge, south-going traffic has right of way over north-going traffic, but trains have ultimate right of way. Bikes have no right of way. Not sure why New Zealand cannot construct multi-lane bridges.
This is the famous rugged coastline of the West Coast. That's the Tasman Sea -- if you take it far enough west and north, you'll reach Australia.
Here we are at Punakaiki looking at the famous Pancake rocks. Another sunny day in NZ -- seriously, I don't think we've had this many sunny days since we've moved here. We actually had to stop and buy more sunscreen.
These are the famous Pancake Rocks - named because of the layers in the rocks are supposed to look like stacks of pancakes. They were formed 30 million years ago from minute fragments of dead marine creatures and plants landed on the seabed about 2 km below the surface. Immense water pressure caused the fragments to solidify in hard and soft layers. Gradually seismic action lifted the limestone above the seabed. Mildly acidic rain, wind and seawater sculpted the bizarre shapes.
The rocks provide nesting areas for many sea birds which were flying all over while we were there. Also there are blowholes amongst the rocks - so if it is high tide and the waves are high, you'll see big geysers of water. I don't think the waves were big enough the day we were there although there were some waves impressively crashing on the rocks.
We did see a lot of baby seals at the fur seal colony including this little guy.
Here's another baby trying to climb down to his father. This baby was tiny and kept almost falling down that rock. It was pretty scary - poor little guy. Everyone kept gasping when he turned and faced downwards and almost went tail over nose. It was a huge seal colony - we had to tear Mar away; I think she could have stayed watching them all day but we had to drive to the glaciers.
Typical West Coast road with walls of native ferns hugging the highway.
So on this one-lane bridge, south-going traffic has right of way over north-going traffic, but trains have ultimate right of way. Bikes have no right of way. Not sure why New Zealand cannot construct multi-lane bridges.
This is the famous rugged coastline of the West Coast. That's the Tasman Sea -- if you take it far enough west and north, you'll reach Australia.
Here we are at Punakaiki looking at the famous Pancake rocks. Another sunny day in NZ -- seriously, I don't think we've had this many sunny days since we've moved here. We actually had to stop and buy more sunscreen.
These are the famous Pancake Rocks - named because of the layers in the rocks are supposed to look like stacks of pancakes. They were formed 30 million years ago from minute fragments of dead marine creatures and plants landed on the seabed about 2 km below the surface. Immense water pressure caused the fragments to solidify in hard and soft layers. Gradually seismic action lifted the limestone above the seabed. Mildly acidic rain, wind and seawater sculpted the bizarre shapes.
The rocks provide nesting areas for many sea birds which were flying all over while we were there. Also there are blowholes amongst the rocks - so if it is high tide and the waves are high, you'll see big geysers of water. I don't think the waves were big enough the day we were there although there were some waves impressively crashing on the rocks.
We did see a lot of baby seals at the fur seal colony including this little guy.
Here's another baby trying to climb down to his father. This baby was tiny and kept almost falling down that rock. It was pretty scary - poor little guy. Everyone kept gasping when he turned and faced downwards and almost went tail over nose. It was a huge seal colony - we had to tear Mar away; I think she could have stayed watching them all day but we had to drive to the glaciers. 
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