June 7th - Pancake Rocks

Saturday morning, we left Christchurch and drove to the West Coast of the South Island. Edson, one of the host parents, took us with his car. Since the weather forecast was not too good, we decided to leave early enough so that the snow would not be a problem when going through the pass in the mountains. Our final destination was Franz Josef Glacier, but we decided to stop in Punakaiki to check out the Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes:

"Through a layering and weathering process known as stylobedding, the limestone rocks at Dolomite Pt. have formed into what looks like stacks of thin pancakes. When a good tide is running, the water surges into caverns below the rocks and squirts out from impressive geyser-like blowholes."

Well, let's just say that we had a WONDERFUL tide! haha...If you look at the picture below, you can see that the wind was extremely strong on Saturday. It was hard to stand still at times! As a result, the waves were quite impressive, which turned out to be perfect for our visit to the Pancake Rocks.
The blowholes were really neat. As we walked on the little bridge, we just heard a big "Pssshhh" on our left: it was a blowhole! (see picture below) I must also mention that the rumbling of the waves made the whole experience even more impressive.
Sometimes, the water would splash like crazy and we would get a little wet:


After our stop in Punakaiki, we got back on the road and drove south along the coast for a few hours until we finally arrived at our youth hostel in the Franz Josef village. Rugby was presented on tv at 7:30pm, so we got ready and went to the hostel's pub/restaurant to watch the game (New Zealand All Blacks vs. Ireland). We had an awesome time...and the All Blacks won. :P