NZ Day 5 - Seals & Rocks

Friday, 7 April 2017

After a rather rainy but otherwise uneventful night we hit the road by 10:15am and were parking at the amusingly named Foulwind Point carpark at 10:22.

From there we had a 3k walk out to the point where guidebooks had promised bucketloads of seals for our viewing pleasure - and I’m happy to say that it totally delivered. There was a whole spa-pool full of seal pups frolicking around as well as seals upon seal scattered over the rocks - it was super cool and the walk itself over to the cape and back was pretty spectacular too.

Then we hopped back in the van and drove 60k to the much anticipated Pancake Rocks - they were a lot more stunning than I was expecting although the photos don’t do them justice..

Back in the van again we drove a few kilometres down the road and found a great stop to have lunch - pancakes of course (hence the anticipation!). Afterwards the kids played on the beach for ages making sculptures and generally enjoying the warmish afternoon.

We were thinking of staying right there for the night but it was still only around 3pm so we decided to head to the other side of Greymouth - 40ks down the road where we found a lovely DOCs campsite (where you pay $24 but have the luxury of toilets and a nice environment). Jon had time to pan for gold with a plate before it got dark, and he did find some but gave it to me and I lost it. Oops.