Today we had a little sleepin until 8:30 am. Once packed and ready to go we drove along the famous "Coast Road" to Punakaiki and the Paparoa National Park. It is one of the most beautiful in the country and follows part of the ancient Greenstone Trails, used by Maori for centuries in search of the stone Pounamu, better known as jade. The "Coast Road" is ranked by Lonely Planet as "one of the best scenic coastal journeys in the world" After only a 45 minute drive we stopped at Punakaiki where you can see Pancake Rocks. The Pancake Rocks are limestone formations that began forming a long time ago where rich fragments of dead marine creatures were deposited on the seabed, then overlaid by weaker layers of soft mud and clay. The seabed was raised above sea level by earthquakes to form the cliffs and coastline. The sea, wind and rain have since etched out the soft layers to form the unusual rock formation that makes them look like pancake stacks. When the conditions are right, the ocean swells into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast through the blowholes. Unfortunately it wasn't high tide so we didn't get to see the blowholes.
A wander around in the touristy shops and then another 2 hour drive ahead of us. The scenery isn't as spectacular in this area, but the roads were very windy. We have now named New Zealand as "The Land of One Lane Bridges". We made it to our destination at about 3:15pm We are staying in a medium sized town called Nelson. This is the furthest north we have been.
Nelson is the oldest city in southern New Zealand. Nelson was named in honour of Horatio Nelson who defeated both the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar. In fact many of the roads and public areas around the city are named after people and ships associated with the battle. The. people in Nelson are referred to as Nelsonians.
We had and early dinner in our motel, which is right near the airport and the golf course. An early night tonite as we have to be up early (6:30am) for a road trip to Golden Bay which is near the Abel
Tasman National Park for a kayak tour. Sorry for not adding photos. We don't have free internet in our motel room so Mazz is using the iPad connected to her iPhone to type this up. We will try to add photos some other time.
