Places



Pancake Rocks and Blowholes


This post was published on Thursday 24 January 2019.

The big attraction of Pancake Rocks are the coastal rock formations, which look like stacks of pancakes – and have eroded in such a way that when the sea smashes against and through them, it sprays up and whomps like thunder.

But first, we had to stop off for brunch at the Pancake Rocks Café, which specialises in... pancakes!

They were pretty delicious – though for me the best bit was the coffee (!) – and meant that by the time we had eaten we were close enough to high tide for the blowholes to be, well, blowing.

Here are some photos, but really you need to see it to get an idea of what it was like. You can hear the whomping (it sounds like thunder), but only if you listen through headphones, or on a computer – on a smartphone the sound doesn’t really come through properly.

This one is called the Chimney Pot – it isn’t actually steam, it’s sea water and spray, caused by the pressure building up as the waves crash into the rocks underneath. From the DOC leaflet:

Blowholes form from a mixture of compressed water and air escaping through the caverns below and being forced upwards, creating a huge wall of spray.

Punakaiki Walks
https://youtu.be/VCm8a6aj-iM

This one shows the water beneath Chimney Pot, which is causing it to blow...

https://youtu.be/gnj8aK1sZ70

This one is called Putai, and was our favourite, partly due to its size, and partly due to the rainbows caused by the spray.

https://youtu.be/kn5QEqMyc1w

Surge Pool is the one that made the loudest whomp noise... as I say in the video, the sound and vibration was so great, it was literally shaking the bridge we were standing on!

https://youtu.be/7cL3oKH4Qzo
https://youtu.be/nbiJ-a4Z67c

Probably the strangest one was Sudden Sound – slightly further inland from Surge Pool, it provides an outlet for the pressure, with sudden whooshes of air (and occasionally spray) shooting out from it.

https://youtu.be/zWiLQSlw7xE

It really was a strange place – but really good fun. We enjoyed it so much we were there watching the blowholes for nearly two hours.