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Published: February 12th 2011
We drove from west point towards Able Tasman where we planned to do another not so "Great walk", sorry to sound a little dissapointed with this, but when we got to able Tasman our fears where realised again. Everywhere we would like to park for the night, or camp there is a great big sign, we have come to the conclusion that we have arrived in NZ 5 years to late, it shows that such a tourist boom, which NZ has had, has turned "wild NZ" into "tame lame NZ".
its a shame.
We will write a conclusion on our stay here in our final NZ blog. any way we checked out the great walk, and it would cost us a further $80 for hut passses on a coastal walk, then a further $100 dollars for water taxi or Kayak hire......no thanks, we have had more than one unfullfilled promise in a brochure!!!!
so we hopped back into the car and drove another 200k past various "do not do anything signs"
Finally we arrived at Pancake rocks, this is an exceptional area, a must see especially at high tide.
with a big blow hole where water rushes in the chasm below
and is vented out of a large blow hole, on the land surface 15m above the sea! Along the coast here is beautiful, massive limestone formations made us wish we had not sent back our climbing gear. we took the time to explore a natural cave and have lunch on the beach.
I nearly lost another pair of shoes when the strong tide came in and neary washed them away.
(i should have had a seperate shoe budget)
We planned to do a 6 hr walk the next day, but again could not get parked anywhere. so we pressed on down to the mountains and the Glacial region of Franz Joseph.
the west coast is beautiful with many small beaches to visit!!!
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Richie Carr
non-member comment
Pancake Rocks..
Them Pancake rocks look fantastic..!! they look perfect for climbing..!! even i might manage to climb something like that (as long as there only 12ft high..!!) So by the sounds of it Rich NZ has been a bit of a let down in terms of doing some wild camps and nice walks..! it's the schits when they commercialize everything and charge you for the privilege of going on a walk..!!