Punakaiki
Punakaiki is best known for its Pancake Rocks and Blowholes.
It is also the centre for Paparoa National Park - 30,000 ha
of varied landscape from mountain tops to sea level. Punakaiki
is one of the major tourist attractions on the West Coast
of the South Island of New Zealand.
Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes
The rocks really are remarkable pieces of natural sculpture,
while the blowholes can provide as great a demonstration of
sea power as you'll find anywhere. Best seen after wonderful
westerly storms when the sun is reasserting itself in the
face of fantastic cloud formations on the horizon.
History
Maori travellers knew it as a great place to pamper the puku
(Punakaiki means "a spring of food"). Later came
gold seekers, headed by the Sams Party ("Black Sam, White
Sam, French Sam and another Sam"!) The boomtown of Brighton,
complete with 53 pubs, flourished and vanished, and then there
was the "Tin Man" - a real mystery of history.
