Day 16: Punakaiki Pancake Rocks & Blowholes

Scottie’s Story

The weather was very British today – dreich to say the least. We were up bright and early and got to the station in plenty of time for our train. It was a 5 hour journey and it rained for most of that time, so some of the photos were taken through wet windows – hopefully it will be drier on the return journey tomorrow. There is not a lot to say about the journey – there was an interesting tunnel of 8.5km though. We had to stop before the tunnel to get another engine attached to help the train through, then we stopped at the other end to remove it. I’m sure that the scenery would be interesting and varied on a nice day, but today it was grey, grey and grey – it didn’t spoil our experience really, but it just means that the photos could have been taken in black and white.

We arrived at the aptly named Greymouth and managed to dump our overnight bag at the hotel ahead of the usual check-in time, which was great, then we wandered about until it was time for our blowhole and pancake rock tour. Clearly this was not our day as the tide was out / low and relatively calm, so the blowholes were not going to perform today – nevertheless the scenery was quite amazing and the rock features incredible. There were also loads of flax plants – they were absolutely everywhere and looked like they would be great wind breaks – I wonder if they will grow in Northumberland?

The lady who conducted the tour was a font of information, very entertaining and easy to listen to. She pointed out hobby farms where sheep, deer, water buffalo etc are kept, plus the local quilt shop where you can learn to quilt, buy a quilt or just buy quilting material – all in pretty much the middle of nowhere. I have no idea how the business survives. There was also somewhere you could go to make your own knife (cutlery rather than DIY/crafting knife) – this sounded a lot of fun, but it takes all day so we won’t have time to give that a go.  She also showed us where you could buy a doer-upper house for $200K (about £86k) although some looked more like you’d just want to torch them and start again. The tour was rounded up with afternoon tea – all very civilised.

All in all, a tour I could recommend – Linda did a great job and finally the sun poked its head out as we headed back to Greymouth. There is norra lot here, so we decided to eat in the hotel – once again I had fish and Rob had steak – my fish was lovely, and Rob wished he gone for that instead of the steak which was not the best he’s had.

Rob’s Reflections

Roadtrip! Sort of. Drove from our new base in Christchurch to Addington Station, to catch the TranzAlpine over to Greymouth. Now it’s a railtrip. Very different to back home – the railways are more of a collection of lines than a network; seats are comfortable; you get great views from the windows; it runs on time; and you can park your car for free – yes, really – not charged an arm and a leg. They have several trips under the banner of ‘Great Journeys’ that are targeted at tourists, and take in impressive scenery. We started out across the plains in Canterbury, then ascended into the mountains that divide East from West, often alongside a river, and through a number of tunnels – including Otira that is 8 km long. Along the way we had a lunch of pancakes. That’s a bit portentous – but let’s leave that for now. Weather was reminiscent of home – a lot cooler than I had become accustomed to, and rainy.

We arrived early, and managed to check in to our hotel before time too. Back to the station, we joined a guided tour to Punakaiki, to see pancake rocks and the famous blow holes. Those rocks really do look like a whole bunch of large grey pancakes laid on top of one another. Definitely would not taste as good as the ones we had earlier. The blow holes were interesting, but we would have needed a higher tide and rougher seas to produce the spectacular spouts of water you can find on YouTube . Our guide Linda stopped en route to let us see and photograph various points of interest, and on the way back we stopped at a restaurant for food and drink.

We got dropped off at the door to the hotel, and after a quick rest had supper. Wish I had chosen the same as Lorna – my steak was a bit teugh.

Tomorrow we will take the reverse journey back to Christchurch.