Pancake Rocks and Beaches

We took 2 days off work and our hosts were nice enough to let us use their van to travel and see some new sights.  We drove 3 hours up the West Coast to Paparoa National Park and Punakaiki.  The town is known for Pancake Rocks and Blowholes.   Below are a few pictures of our road trip.

8:00 a.m. - Fueled up and ready to go.

 After about 2 hours the road turned into a coastal drive - Beautiful!

Arrived at Pancake Rocks and Blowholes.  The rocks around this area formed layers making them look like stacks of pancakes.  We stopped at a little cafe nearby and they also serve pancakes all day; we had a burger.

We continued on north to hike "Truman Track".

Time to turn in for the day.  We drove to Greymouth and made this shelter on the beach but decided it might not be very comfortable so we found a hotel - (just kidding!)

We found a very nice quaint motel called "The Alpine Rose" and enjoyed our evening in Greymouth.

We got up Tuesday morning and went on another hike in Greymouth to "Elizabeth Point."

In the far background we could see the "Southern Alps".  The snow where the mountain range slopes down on the right side is the highest mountain in New Zealand called Mt. Cook.  This is the mountain we can see from Fox Glacier.

 A fern leaf getting ready to sprout

David standing in the land of the Yucca Plants

Back on the road again and we came across a funny little mailbox.  
This guy found good use for his old microwave oven.

We made a stop in Hokitika to stock up on groceries but decided to check out the beach first.  There was a driftwood art competition during the weekend so all the exibits were still up when we came through on tuesday. 

This hand was about 8 feet tall

 Getting closer to Fox Glacier and the sky was incredible

We had a great 2 days and plan on taking a few more while we are here.  We'll post more when we can.