Paparoa Coast Dec 9 (and 6th)

The Paparoa coast between Greymouth and Charleston is one of my favorites anywhere. It is a drop-dead scenic cliff-hugging drive that rivals some of the best of California's Big Sur coast, but with some particularly interesting limestone and conglomerate coasts and much adventure to be had. It was not the plan but with my rental car troubles I ended up passing through this coast twice, once solo and once with Lara. This at least gave me an opportunity to gain a little deeper appreciation for some of the coast's hidden treasures with a couple new stops. Despite the hyper-tourist draw of Punakaiki's Pancake Rocks, I could not help but stop in on my way up the coast. One of the world's best example of stylo-bedding, the coastal erosion of the limestone does indeed look like stacked pancakes and makes for interesting rock textures. I snapped plenty of photos on my powerwalk through the paved loop.

On the way back from Charleston to collect my second rental car Lara showed off the new-to-me the sneaky fisherman's trail at a pull-out that winds its way down the Motukiekie seacliff in a series of ropes to end up at a seastacked section of coastline. We hoped to find tide pools but the sea was not quite low enough. Lara showed me the strange route that climbed up to the base of a waterfall and then we walked south along the coast to the mouth of Ten Mile Creek where I had spotted a particularly interesting double arch sea cliff, the upper arch obviously an older sea cave abandoned by coastal uplift.

I also took the opportunity to show Lara another off the beaten path place I knew about, Razorback Point, which features an scenic hallway and amphitheater of abandoned seastack and sea caves.

And last but not least, easily my contender for best short walk on the South Island, I made two visits to the Truman Track, once on my solo drive up and the second time with Lara. The sweeping sandstone alcoves and free-falling waterfall were every bit as spectacular as I remembered and as usual I could not help but get caught up in the subtle rock textures on this coast. We walked to the end of the beach and climbed up into the sea cave network that leads to a secret beach. On a whim I thought we might try to do something new and traverse the coast from the secret beach back around to the main Truman Track Beach. This short jaunt ended up being well worthwhile with excellent views south of the coast and intricate shore platforms with delicate coastal plants, erosional hollows, and detailed tafoni. At a couple places each we had to scramble, crawl on ledges, and time our traverses between waves. At one point I spotted a particularly nice sea urchin fossil in the rock. Working through the problems we soon arrived back on the main beach, my favorite coastal jaunt now even better. After this second Truman Track visit we continued on to Charleston ahead of the coming rainstorm.