We last left you wondering what the pancake rocks were at Punakaiki, well they are simply what the name says. Huge rocks that with a lot of weathering now look like thick pancakes piled on top of each other combine this with some blow holes and you have a very intriguing costal spot. Hopefully you will remember from the Kangaroo island blog what blow holes are. Some of the paths that lead through the rocks are as interesting as the rocks themselves as they too have the same pancake effect, how clear this effect is in parts depends on the light and angle at which they are viewed .

Another of the rocks natural yet slightly spooky traits is on what you could call a peninsula, on which are several shapes resembling faces and other things. See if you can make them out and match them to the information board picture, we took different angles to try and get the effect as the camera as good as it is cannot match the human eye.
Having seen the rocks we plodded on towards Glacier country, this is where there are two Glaciers called 'Fox' and 'Franz Josef' both of which you can go on with a guided tour. The drive was longer than expected so we stopped off in Greymouth for that night to get the much needed clothes washing done, and get some information on the Glaciers and weather conditions. The weather looked to have a good forecast and a half day trip was not too expensive, we did however decide against doing a trip onto the Glacier. Now before you start to think this is a shame, fear not it is with good reason we made this choice. We have set several things to do specific to each destination on our trip, and Glaciers was not one on the NZ trail. Now we are not adverse to changing or adding to this plan as needs be, but we feel it would be daft to duplicate certain things and cost. The Glaciers are planned for Canada, and if true in what we have researched will knock the socks off the little peaks of the NZ ones, so we will all have to wait a bit longer for that venture. We did however take a walk to a viewing point of one of the glaciers, which sadly due to low cloud was not that visible but as above not to worry.

We next visited lake Matheson famous for its mirror reflection of Mt Cook with its Glacier top, although it be some distance away from the lake. The lake was not a mirror effect but you had a good view of the mountain in the backdrop of the lake, we think to see this mirror effect you could wait days and not see it as there would have to be no wind at all, not even a breath to keep a lake that size still.

To finish our day while driving out of the area we stopped at Bruce bay for tea, right on the beach front with a beautiful sunset to enjoy as well. We had considered staying here the night but the sand flies changed that idea, so it was back on the road but in the dark this time to find a better spot. We came across something we had been trying to find on the North Island but with no success, this was a camping area on the road side with toilets and for free! These are obviously basic and normally between towns that are some distance, but they are great stop offs as it means you can travel further and just stop last thing when it comes dark. Our night in our free spot was shared with several other vehicles but was very quiet and served us well.

Now all rested up we were back on the road early and heading for Wanaka, so we will chat again there.