On the Road, one last time

 Must be woodworkers about - Greymouth

So it's been nearly eight months of surf, sand and sun and the seasons down south are changing into late Fall.  This leads us towards the end of our journey as we're looking forward to our third summer in a row, and have finished working and are selling most of our large possessions.  Unfortunately, this includes our surfboards, wetsuits and beloved chariot Lucy.  She will be missed along with all her character.  We have run across a fantastic way to travel this country though, the delightful Magic Bus.  No it can't fly, but it will give you a lot of info on everything Kiwi on your way.  Honestly, I was skeptical at first, as other backpacker buses have garnered reputations for being parties on wheels that do not have much respect for the culture (one even having the colloquial name of 'the giant green f*** truck).  But the polite and informative nature of our driver and the opportunities to stop at many of the little out of the way sights along the way quickly won me over.  I am also very grateful to Magic for granting us discounted travel in exchange for blog links and photos, of which we are happy to provide.  So, its a whirlwind tour of the South Island starting with the wild west coast.  Yesterday: Pancake rocks, tomorrow, greenstone (Jade) hunting.  The limestone sea cliffs here have fantastic erosion patterns, in one location so striated as to look like stacks of flapjacks (American flapjacks, as that's a chewy granola bar over here).

The amazing scene at Punakaiki looks as if you're living in a landscape that was printed from a linoleum cut art piece and is made only more spectacular by the presence of giant blowholes!  Sea stacks, blowholes,  and giant sunken tidal sinkholes emerge out of a maze of tall flax plants, an eerie bass thud-whoosh drawing you towards the sandy limestone.  Although none of the blowholes were exploding that day, I realized this probably kept us dry as they were massive and although our viewing platform was 45 feet above the sea level, we looked at the postcards and saw spouts that were easily another 20 feet above where we had been standing.  We determined that the bass notes were coming from the undercut cliffs, when sea waves or sinkhole wash fills them up and launches out horizontally.  Even on a day without large tidal shifts, it was a spectacle.  Also, missing my board as the west coast has a ton of surf, even on an off day like today, you can see the potential in coves and along the vast beachy stretches.  I was also consoled by Weka, a native flightless bird that looks like a wild penguin chicken.  Lord knows I love quirky animals.