Cape Foulwind, Coastal Drive, Pancake Rocks

December 15, 2011

Cape Foulwind, Coastal Drive, Pancake Rocks

Monday, November 14^th

We hiked the Cape Foulwind trak (trails are generally called traks here – forest lands are sometimes referred to as forest, but more generally they are the bush; small cottages usually by the sea are called bach’s) and start the hike around 8:30 AM. We had the trail to ourselves on the way out – all along the ocean. This portion of the coast down to Greymouth was ranked by Lonely Planet as one of the ten best drives in the world and they compared it to the Big Sur coast in California (we have been there a few times and agree it is a magnificent coastline and one which we highly recommend.) On the way back we ran into a very large group of young people on the trail, who as it turned out were in a big tour bus that had disengorged all of them while we were hiking. In an effort to move out of their way (specifically someone running to catch up with friends) as they came along the trail (you know you are a bit self absorbed at such an age, and lots of chatter, not much awareness of others), Donna slipped and fell hard on her left side (Fall number three for those of you keeping count) – she was to develop a lovely bruise, but it never slowed her down – no surprise to those of you who know Donna.

After Cape Foulwind, we drove down the “Big Sur like” coast to the Pancake Rocks, stopping for a short hike on the "Truman track". Donna “turned in ”the illegal dumpers” to the NP staff there, and then we toured the Pancake rocks at around 11:30 AM. High tide was at 1:15PM that day, and high tide is when the Pancake Rocks “spouting water” is at its peak. So we went back to our campervan, ate lunch, and then headed back to the Pancake rocks a little after 1PM. The pancake rocks are basically unique blowholes, that under very high tides have dramatic spouts that can shoot up very high. The tides weren’t as powerful this day to produce the huge swells that really spout way up into the air, but it was still impressive, and after a number of photos, by 2 pm we were on our way to Greymouth, arriving at the i-site at 2:30PM.

We located the library where I used the free internet to check back with the home front, and Donna wrote a few postcards. Did a bit of grocery shopping, filled our LPG bottle (only took 80 cents worth of LPG – attendant says “no worries mate no charge”, and Donna finds an All Blacks Flag for only $3. We sadly left our All Blacks flag in our campervan when we returned it in Christchurch – so we have yet another reason to return. Drove down to our campsite for the night, a DOC site at Lake Mahinapua (another Peter and Glennis suggestion), where we are as usual off by ourselves with a view of the lake. Donna makes a wonderful meal of wheat penne with sundried tomatoes, olives, feta cheese, spinach and pesto (this was the best one yet of our many wonderful campervan dinners).