Pancake Rocks

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Pancake Rocks
From Franz Josef, we headed north up the West Coast and stopped at Hokitika on route. Then we visited the fanous Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki, which were pretty impressive, lots of layers of mudstone and limestone, although we couldn't see the pancake resemblance. We thought they should be called lasagne rocks (Rach's got lasagne on the brain) or maybe tiramisu rocks. The West Coast is quite wild, and there were a number of blowholes in the rocks, spraying seawater skyward.

Crazy Crazy Golf
We drove further North through Greymouth and decided to spend the night at a Kiwi camp in Westport. It was a lovely evening so we decided to enjoy a spot of crazy golf as there was an 18 hole course at the front of the camp. Amazingly Rach was playing quite well for once, but we both started to struggle on Hole 5, which was a u-shape and had tubes going down to the next level, but we were aiming for a little short-cut hole in the rock straight ahead. After several shots, Jase just went for it and whacked the ball so hard it bounced off the rock and went flying over the fence, landing on the neighbour's corrugated roof and made a terrible clatter rolling down the roof and bouncing into the guttering! Ooops!! After we had finished laughing our heads off, Jase went to the office to get a new ball. Now, for once, Rach's honesty is the best policy would have paid off! Jase decided to tell a little fibb and said the ball had got stuck down one of the tubes, thinking they would just give him a new one. Nope! A sweet little lad came dashing out of the office determined to retireve the golf ball from the tube with the help of a hose. Jase looked guiltily on as the lad struggled to find the ball. Rach was suppressing a fit of giggles on Hole 6. To make matters worse, the poor boy admitted defeat and fetched his Dad to find it. Now Jase was really sweating! Rach was hysterical by this point. The guy thought vandals had blocked up the tube, so trapping the ball, so he blocked the tube off as a feature on Hole 5. Oh dear! In the end, they gave Jase a new ball and we continued play and Jase won, just about! Not that he deserved to with dishonest play!

Seal Colony
It was another sunny day when we woke up, so we visited Cape Foulwind (fantastically named by Captain Cook) and walked to the kekeno seal colony. These New Zealand Fur Seals were a bit of a smelly bunch, but they were very comical and playful down on the rocks. Lots of them were basking in the morning sun, but as it was approaching mating season, the big bull seals seemed to be throwing their weight around and arguing with the ladies. The pups were quite big and cute and we enjoyed watching them for a while.

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Photos

AAhhh the good old couch days!
Just add discovery channel..perfect!!

Comments

[Debra]

Take me home
That little seal looks as if he's saying, take me with you. Bless his little brown coat. niceseals.