Franz Josef to Pancake Rocks

The Arahura Bridge Heritage Park is just north of Hokitika, New Zealand.

We continued north and stopped in Greymouth for fuel. We paid $2.749 x 3.785411 liters = $10.41 a gallon.  But that is New Zealand dollars, and they are equal to about US60¢.  So, $10.41 x .6 = $6.246 a gallon

We stopped at an Indian restaurant for lunch.  We each had a non-veg platter.

Neither one of us cared for our meal and our stomachs weren't happy later. 

After continuing north, we stopped at the Strongman Mine Memorial.  Didn't see the memorial so we looked at the ocean.

A path off the north side of the parking area led to the memorial

Saw this sign along the road while we were at the memorial.  I had never seen a penguin crossing sign before. 

Stopped at another wayside while trying to find the Motukiekie Beach Walk.  These are the same rocks we saw at the last stop, only a little closer. 

Since we were looking for a beach walk, we looked around and found this likely candidate.  Only it petered out quickly and we turned around.

We checked out the view again and then hopped back into the car.

Paparoa National Park was our next stop.  People know it better as the home of Pancake Rocks, or Punakaiki as the Māori called it.  I headed to the visitor center first.  

There are also blowholes in the Pancake Rocks but we knew we wouldn't see any as it was low tide when we were there. 

Now I finally have names for some of the plants I had been seeing.

I was surprised when I saw seed packets for some of the native plants.

Each packet had information about the plant on the back. 

I wondered what these were.  They are kind of like a yucca.

Loved this postcard with road signs of the various native animals.  Like you are going to see a snail on the road in time to go around it!

The visitor center was on the east side of the highway, and we had to cross to the other side to actually see the rocks.

This is the formation the park is known for, pancake rocks.

The walkway around the pancake rocks area was quite nice.

Surge Pool

Putai Blowhole.  Too bad we were here at low tide when nothing was happening. 

Looks like that stack of pancakes fell over. 

Time to descend some stone steps.

Looking back at the steps.

Surge Pool from the opposite direction

We went down steps so now we have to go back up some others. 

You can see how the walkway travels across the natural bridge formed between the surge pool and an outlet. 

More time spent watching the waves hit the rocks. 

Heading back towards the visitor center

Climbing Rata Vine.  A previous photo had information about this plant.

It was doing a good job of covering the lower part of this plant. 

These silver ferns were just so interesting looking.