Day 2 in New Zealand: up the coast

Did I mention that I was engaged? Engaged to 莎莎. I got very upset last night. I was trying to say the word "coin" in Chinese. Apparently it is yingbi which seems to be completely impossible to say.

After getting off the train in Greymouth, eating our huge lunch and discovering that the road back to Christchurch was blocked with snow we started driving north. Wow, that was a spectacular coast line! I had just asked Sha to find me a seal when she spotted a baby one bounding across the sand into the sea. We didn't travel very fast as we seemed to stop after each corner to jump out of the car to get a better view of the scenery. It wasn't possible to get a good view whilst driving as I was concentrating on the rather windy road (which happens to be the only road on the West Coast of the South Island).

We stopped at Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks! According to wikipedia the "Pancake Rocks are a heavily eroded limestone area where the sea bursts though a number of vertical blowholes during high tides. Together with the 'pancake'-layering of the limestone (created by immense pressure on alternating hard and soft layers of marine creatures and plant sediments)". We also saw lots of Nikau Palms which are "the most southern naturally growing palm in the world".

We continued North, past signs warning us of penguins, wekas and deer. We saw lots of deers, a few wekas and no penguins. However, we did come across a huge seal colony. It smelt of fish. There were young seals frolicking in a small rock pool and the adult seals sitting around looking very relaxed.

In the evening we arrived in Westport. There's not much in Westport. We found a great motel (the Spa Motel) which provided a huge spa in the room and then went out to explore the town. We found some strange fruit in the supermarket and bought Sha a candle for her birthday. Finally we ended up in the Denniston Dog which was obviously proud of the local mining community. All the photos on the wall were of huge diggers (Alexander would have loved it).