To my library crew and book loving friends, let’s begin with one of the coolest features at Punakaiki – a community book exchange box, with seating area. The container is an old Kelvinator fridge:
Directly across the road from the book exchange fridge is the entrance to the walkway around the Pancake Rocks.
A short walk through a mini jungle later and I found myself on a paved walkway, heading out towards the sea.
You know what is worth the trouble of taking off all the gear? Not getting dehydrated 😬
Anyway, the point at which the people were gathering at turned out to be a lookout. This is the view they offered.
I was fascinated by the layered rocks to the right hand side of that photo.
As with the glaciers, I can’t help but wonder what mysterious and ancient things may be preserved between those layers.
I continued along the walkway and came upon another lookout. The view was essentially just another angle of the first few rocks.
The walkway continued around and from the third lookout, I could now distinctly make out the pancake pattern on the rocks to the right of this next photo.
At this stage, I began to assume that this was about all I was going to see. The novelty of distant, layered rocks can only hold for so long.
Punakaiki’s walkway likes to string the visitor along, ever so demurely giving away only a little at a time.
That is, until lookout four.
Then came the blowholes. Not unlike steam vents, they blow salty ocean mist into the air when the pressure from the incoming waves reaches a threshold.
I’m sorry, but I didn’t grab my tripod for the following shots 😓
I’ve learned first hand that it’s essential for infinitely better quality video.
Incidentally, it’s not raining in this next clip. What you can see is the mist from the blow hole behind me.
The walkway turned to the left to reveal The Teapot, the name given to the hole blowing all that mist into the air:
And so the marvellous views continued.
Another angle of the tide pool from the beginning. From this side, I could make out the caverns that the water was slowly digging out of the rock:
At last, the walkway returned to its origin. I dashed out of there and back to the bike for a much needed drink of water.
Time to finally head onwards to my chosen destination of Westport!
Westsiiiiide!
Westport is a blip on the map, famous for its gold mining past and its coal mining present.
I had a pizza from a local shop called Smiley’s which happened to be run on the night by two siblings who only recently moved back home from Logan.
The pizza was okay, but you’d go more for the friendly local service 👌
A book fridge?! Clever use of a broken one I suppose, keeps them dry at least 😂
The books were probably cool to start with, but now they’re just going off.