Punakaiki and the Drive to Fox Glacier

Monday morning, we left Kaiteriteri and headed down the western coast of the south island. We began in fields and farmland. We saw LOTS of sheep. After a few hours, we ran into the coast.








The coast was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of the coast of California, in that we were driving on the road on the sides of hills overlooking the ocean (not like the flat beaches on the east coast of the U.S.).












I think that I liked the New Zealand coast even better than the California coast, because there were lots of huge boulders along the coast, but in the ocean.


Punakaiki National Park is known for the Pancake Rocks, shown in this picture. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see the lines cut in the rocks, making them look like pancakes (thus the novel name).

There were also many caverns cut by the ocean tides. It was fun to watch the waves crashing into the banks.








This is a good shot of Tim and Liz with the shore and the pancake rocks in the background.

The video shows a panoramic of the area.