Spectacular views of the West Coast

1 - Greymouth

2 - Punakaika Pancake Rocks and Blowholes

3 - Pororari River Track, Paparoa National Park

4 - Tasman Sea - Along the Great Coast Road

5 - TranzAlpine Rail

1 - Greymouth, the Heart of the West Coast, is a town with a history of gold mining, coal industry, jade hunting and dramatic river floods. Sample the beer and listen to wild west coast stories in local pubs. 

2 - Punakaika Pancake Rocks and Blowholes are world famous and look like giant pancakes. A limestone formation of dead marine animals that began to deposit on a seabed about 30 million ago. Raised above sea level by earthquakes to form coastal cliffs, erosion by the sea, wind and rain started to form the rock formations of today. At high tide and after thunderstorms, heavy ocean swells thunder into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast into the sky through the blowholes.  

3 - Pororari River Track, Paparoa National Park. A narrow valley lined on both sides by dramatic limestone cliffs and bluffs towering over the gorge and river. The track passes through a dense sub-tropical forest of coastal broadleaf plants, nihau pals, tree ferns and towering rata (www.punakaiki.co.nz).

4 - Along the Great Coast Road, considered one of the Top 10 coastal drives in the world with many scenic stops that looks out west over the rough Tasman Sea

5 - The TranzAlpine Rail from  Christchurch to Arthur's Pass towards Greymouth at the rainy West Coast is considered as one of the world's great train journeys for the scenery on the way. It passes through the Canterbury Plains farmland and the Southern Alps with glacial rivers, gorges, lakes and wetlands, via viaducts and tunnels.