Westport:

Breaking our journey up as we headed up the west coast, we made a stop in Punakaiki to hopefully watch the blowhole and have a look at the Pancake Rocks. As we made the journey to Punakaiki rather quicker than we had planned, we were too early to see the blowhole in action as it was still low tide. Instead of waiting for hours for high tide we had a walk along the cliff edge to get a better look at the Pancake Rocks. The rocks themselves are a collection of sea stacks and parts of the cliff face that appear to be made up of multiple thin layers. The thin layers are created by a process called stylobedding, whereby the pressure of overlying sediment creates alternating durable and weaker bands. The processes of weathering and uplifting have accentuated this effect creating the wonderfully layered rocks. Whatever the process they certainly look very impressive!
From the rocks we continued down the road a short way and stopped for a walk along the beach, before continuing on to Cape Foulwind (named by Captain Cook in 1770) just south of Westport. Our main reason for stopping at Cape Foulwind, apart to have a laugh at the name was to visit the Tauranga Bay Seal Colony. It was really good to see the seal pups at play on the rocks and to see once again more of New Zealand’s dramatic coastline.
After finding a camper park for the night we headed into what the Rough Guide describes as New Zealand’s most dispiriting town. Westport describes itself as ‘New Zealand the way it was’. Either way it certainly couldn’t be described as New Zealand’s most exciting town! We should mention however that the people we met were all really friendly and later that evening we witnessed probably the best sunset we have yet seen on our travels.
Our trip up the west coast was over and it was time to head across country to Kaikoura.