Day 9 – Franz Joseph to Punakaiki to Hanmer Springs to Kaikoura
Today was another big day of driving so it was an early start. We drove up the west coast to Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks. They’ve got an interesting formation that looks like slabs of rocks stacked on top of each other. We just so happend to get there around high tide so we could see the cool blowholes. It was a bit of a detour to get there, but it was well worth the visit. I like rocks, but the husband usually doesn’t so much (scarred by having to do earth science at uni maybe?), but even these rocks he said he found really interesting.
We then headed to the east coast towards Kaikoura. We drove through the mountains and through an area called Lewis Pass and through Hanmer Springs, which was covered with all these yellow flowers or broom, which looked very pretty, but I’m sure was just a weed. We stopped at a rest stop of lunch, and it just to happened that it was the only rest stop that didn’t have a table. So we just sat in the boot.
Kaikoura is a very pretty little coastal town and still no sandy beaches, just rocks. We headed out to see some seals on the peninsula, which paid no attention to us at all. It was a long but good day, and the best thing was that we can see sheep from our motel!