Punakaiki National Park, famous for its Pancake Rocks, is about 45 minutes north of Graymouth. The rocks are impressive in and of themselves, but they are even more impressive when the blowholes are working. They work best on windy days at high tide when the moon is full. I didn't get to experience the blowholes, yet I did get to slip on a rock and break my camera. The day after these pictures were taken, I went for a hike a little inland from here. I met a Spaniard, Albert, who was hitch-hiking. I told him that if he wanted to go for a hike with me, I could give him a ride all the way to Graymouth that evening. He accepted and we became fast pals. He recently returned to Spain and is back to work in the real world, like so many of my friends from New Zealand, and I get to go to Ecuador. Life is just not fair sometimes.
A couple days after these pictures were taken, I drove about two hours south to Franz Josepf to hike the glacier. They had been getting constant rain for about a week, so the ice was a magnificent blue. There were low clouds and rain on and off to obscure the view beyond the valley, but I'm not sure if I could have stood to see much more than that valley. I was walking over a sea of frozen blue and spinning in circles trying to count the dozens of waterfalls all around, cascading from the granite cliffs, and trying not to step on the mountain parrots that surfed over the ice with wings spread wide.
