Superman,Superwoman and the Pancake rocks!

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22.11.05
It was another sunny day so we planned to lay on Kaiteriteri beach, but it was a little breezy so we moved on. Along the way we had a look at Little Kaiteriteri beach which was pretty. We carried on to a little town called Murchinson where we went to have a look at Bullers Gorge, which has the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. We went across the bridge ($5 just to walk over or $35 for other ways that you will find out about later) through the annoying, biting sand flies, and then had a walk around the short track. To come back you can either go across the bridge again, sit in a chair and zip wire across or zip wire in the style of superman, (this is what the $35 is for) Of course we did the last one! You step into a harness/suit and get strapped in and then you have to run as fast as you can off the edge of this gorge to fly 160m!! Scarey but very cool. Melissa went first followed by a worried Andy.
From here we carried onto Westport where we stopped for the night.

23.11.05
This morning we went to Tauranga bay (Cape Foulwind-and it does actually smell), in Westport, to see the seal colony. This was good and we saw about 20 seals which were well camouflaged against the rocks, you will have to pick them out on the photos.
We had a walk around the town, went on the internet then continued onto Charlston, we were hoping to see penguins but they are only about at night or early morning, but we had our lunch on the beach.
From here we went to Punakaiki to see the Pancake rocks and blow holes. These were massive layered rocks in the ocean that have been weathered and eroded in such a way over the years that they actually look like layers of pancakes in the sea. This is because the rocks are made up of layers of mud rock and limestone, the mud rock has been eroded faster than the limestone to create the pancake effect. The erosion has also created holes/channels where the ocean is blown up through to create geyser like blow holes.
Unfortunately the wind direction was not right, as you need a good strong southwesterly at high tide to see this. (We came back later in the day at high tide to give it another go, but still no luck)
In between our two visits to the pancake rocks we checked out the Punakaiki cavern (another dark cave) With our torches we went in and it was like a small tunnel that opened into a large cavern. We found a couple of different entrance ways to explore and took the wrong turn off on the way out but we found the correct way in the end.
After our tea we had our usual walk on the windswept beach. On the west side there is a lot of dead wood all washed up on the beach, it looks like a dead tree desert. Andy planted a dead piece of wood and decorated it with leaves and seaweed. He was pleased to see it was still there in the morning.

24.11.05
Today we walked the Truman track which took us to the beach front through the bush. This was only a 20 minute walk, quite pleasant for an early morning stroll.
We drove onto Greymouth, which we had been told had nothing to see, so we had a walk around the town, bought some tinsel for the van and our advent calenders (Bob the builder and Winnie the Pooh) went to the information centre and then moved on. It is actually quite a nice town.
From here we drove to Arthurs Pass, which is the road from Greymouth to Christchurch on the eastside. On one of our stops to look at the views we saw our first Kea at Otira gorge. This is a parrot that is native in the mountain ranges on the southern island and because they are always in contact with humans they have become quite tame. It jumped in our van and tried to steal a bag of food. Then we fed it and coaxed it into the drivers seat for a photo. We later saw lots of signs telling you not to feed the Keas as they are becoming too tame and wrecking peoples cars and property.

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Photos

New driver!
Kea