After a fairly solid day driving from Wanaka to Hokitika, the family were happy to collapse into our hotel room, so I ventured on to Punakaiki on my own. Punakaiki is a small community on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, a little north of Greymouth.

The Pancake Rocks area is a very well maintained and easily accessible park with paths that wind past blowholes and these impressive limestone formations. Apparently the park can get quite busy, but on this particular afternoon, there were only a handful of other people there. Quiet, cool, and uncrowded. It was a very pleasant place to watch the sunset on another day.