Pancake Rocks

Just down the road from Punakaiki Blowholes are the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks. In all honesty, we thought the first beach we went to were the pancake rocks due to the layers we saw in the rocks. The guide book said blowholes and pancake rocks are located at the same spot. We were quite surprised to find the 'official' pancake rocks, which was much more 'developed', but equally spectacular. The first beach was rather isolated; we only saw a couple of groups of people. The Pancake Rocks at Dolomite Point has a visitors center and a very well developed trail system out to the cliffs. The rocks are eroded limestone comprised of alternating layers of hard and soft layers from marine creatures and plant sediments. The rocks have numerous blowholes, which in turn further erode the rocks. For more info, check out the DOC website: http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/PlaceProfile.aspx?id=35270


Pancake Rocks


The rocks are noticeably layered, like stacks of pancakes.


This sea cavern leads to a huge enclosed cave which would be a blowhole at the right tide.



Rocks at the shore.









OK, so I'm a nerd...but I really liked this interpretive sign! Once you started looking closely, you could really see the creatures (compare to the photo above).


This massive cleaving creates huge slabs of rock.

After exploring this area, we headed further south to our camp destination at Hokitika Beach.