Cold starry nights and pancake rocks

We left Nelson on route to the west coast of the south island which everyone seems to rave about, eventhough it gets 10 times more rain than the east coast of the south island. On the way there we stopped over at Nelson Lakes National Park which primarily consists of 2 very picturesque glacier lakes with mountains in the backdrop. Unfortunately its unseasonably warm for this time of year (winter in NZ) so there wasn't any snow on the peaks off in the distance but the lake itself was gorgeous. I decided to hop off the bus for a night in a hut on the side of the lake. It was a peaceful and quiet night as there were only 4 of us that stayed there for the night. Without propane and hardly any food we had amazing cold dinners on the lake shore under a beautiful starry nights sky. The weather cooperated for at least one night for us and we were given amazing views of the milky way. It was cold though as the lakes are at elevation so we slept in pretty much all of our clothes for the night.

The next day another Kiwi bus pulled around to pick us up and head to Westport. It's a small mining town, and much to the dismay of the girls on the bus the local theater was not showing the Sex in the City movie....bummer I know, I was just dying to see it. The town was tiny with not much more than a few bars, which of course just about everyone went to at night. On the way into town you head through the Buller Gorge which was a beautiful valley cut by the Buller River. We stopped for a bunch of people to get off to go jet boating on the river and at the companies office just outside of town a former customs dog came on the bus to search for illegal drugs. They found some people with pot, but the dog was really just to scare everyone and they had a good laugh as the guys that were caught were scared out of their minds.

Only stayed in Wesport for one night before jumping off the bus again in Punakaiki, home of the Paparoa National Park. This wasn't an official stop for Kiwi which meant that I was the only one to get off the bus, a nice break from the craziness of Kiwi (half the travelers are 18 year olds on gap year from England and they get annoying very quickly). Punakaiki is famous for pancake rocks and blowholes out over the ocean. The town sits on the west coast as well and the Tasman Sea is quite turbulent in this area. It was worn away at the limestone rock in such a way that it creates these layers that the locals claim look like pancakes. Maybe our pancakes are different but they didn't look like pancakes to me. Don't get me wrong, they looked awesome but pancakes, I think not. The best part of the area was the blowholes. During high tide the waves crush these rocks and shot water everywhere. There are 3 spots with blow holes. One that looks like a chimney, the other that is more of a pool where water just splashes 30-50 feet in the air after the crashing waves, and the final is this giant hole in the ground. Water doesn't shoot out of this one, mist does sometimes, but everytime a wave crashes the hole, named Sudden Sound, lets off a roar that sounds like thunder or a train coming. It was really really cool to hear and quite impressive since the hole itself is about 10 feet in diameter and sits about 80 feet from the surface of the ocean.

I spent a couple days hiking around the national park and got to some hot springs up in the moutains there. After this it was off to the glaciers of the west coast, which I've already posted pictures from and I'll write more about later.