New Zealand trip Day 8 - West coast to Murchison

A driving day today, heading north to Murchison with some west coast sights en route. First stop, Greymouth where the Do Duck In Bakery was just getting its hot apple turnovers out of the ovens as we pulled in. Lucky again! Little walk along Mawhera Quay, which is about the only attraction of Greymouth, apart from the hot apple turnovers.

You can get down stairs to the underside and look up through the boardwalk. Fascinating but kind of sinister under there.

This is the Strongman Mine Memorial Lookout, looking north along this spectacular limestone coast.

Limestone monuments in the Tasman sea that reminded us of Australia's 12 Apostles. Similar geology.

Very different vegetation - this is NZ flax, harakeke

Paparoa National Park contains this famous landmark at Dolomite Point - the Punakaiki Rocks, Maori for pancake rocks.

Not hard to see where the name came from! These limestone formations are a bit of a geological mystery as to how they are formed. But the layering/weathering process has been named stylobedding.

There are also huge surge pools and blow holes that boom at high tide.

These rocky outcrops are major bird nurseries, being safe from land predators. These are grey spotted shags (cormorants).

These are tara, white fronted terns.

This area is also home to cute little weka. Flightless birds that are inquisitive and friendly. This one was very interested in our salad rolls.

Everywhere in NZ coastal area, there are what appear to be holiday houses right on the sea front. This is a fine example of what kiwis call a "bach". Yep, I'd be happy to have this one.

Lush forest on the steep coastal cliffs creeps right down to the sea. Rainfall is very heavy in this area. These are Nikau palms, a NZ native. You can buy seeds - we saw them. But they are illegal to import to Australia. Bugger.

North of Punakaiki Rocks we stopped to do a little-known walk that was one of the loveliest short excursions we had in our whole trip. The Truman Track starts in rainforest, passes through a flax field, goes down some rather breathtaking beach stairs and ends in a pretty bay with sea caves and a waterfall.

The beach was made of tiny, smooth pebbles, all much the same size.

Wide dramatic sea cave with a huge overhang, dripping water from its edges. Welcome swallows had colonised some pockets in the stone and were zooming in and out.

Bleached driftwood and bizarre seaweeds were all over the place.

We got a bit silly with the driftwood.

The road continues on towards Westport, almost dipping into the water in places. Wonder what it's like in a big sea storm with a king tide?

This huge clump of seaweed was tossing and writhing like hundreds of black snakes.

At Cape Foulwind near Westport we paused to admire a seal colony. The NZ fur seal was almost wiped out during the first century of European occupation. But numbers have recovered. We saw lots of baby seals such as this one.

Also lots of big healthy looking adults. This point was first named by Abel Tasman in 1642, but he did not make landfall. He named it Rocky Point (in Dutch of course), a much nicer name than that given it more than a hundred years later by one James Cook. What a grump Cook must have been. Cape Foulwind. Mt Warning. Point Danger. Repulse Bay. Cape Tribulation.