Punakaiki and increasing dread

Safely, if damply, in Greymouth, we picked up our car and dumped the luggage in it.  Then we needed to find somewhere dry to lurk until the last of the motion sickness wore off.  Coming to the rescue, as always, was the local library, so we recuperated there before venturing back out into the deluge.  Had some lunch, looked at some gorgeous pounamu jewellery, and headed off up the coast to the pancake rocks at Punakaiki.

We got there at 3.55 and the pancake cafe closed at 4, which was disappointing.  I had googled them and seen "dinner menu" so assumed they'd be open later.  Only in Summer, apparently.  Though to be fair, the drive was a bit windy and nobody really wanted to eat.  It had stopped raining (mostly), so we went and walked around the rocks.

Someone has clearly put some time and effort into the path.  It was very well laid out, easy to walk on even if you were in a moonboot, and only one tricky bit down some rock-cut steps.  It wound its way round the coast so you got lots of different views of the rocks.  We were several hours after high tide, so no dramatic geyser photos but you could see where the water would come in violently and surge up!

Then to our accomodation, which was a "cottage hideaway" in a small place called Barrytown.  The cottage was lovely, a Lockwood house with a gas fire, so we felt very warm and snug as the weather raged outside.  There was a hot tub in a little outdoor shed and on a clear night there would have been wonderful views!

The weather was now looking dire and we cancelled Friday's outing to learn about / forage for pounamu.  The tour took you up along the Arahura river and rivers are not something you want to be anywhere near when there are heavy rains.  By this point, we were just hoping that we would get safely back to Greymouth the next day in order to catch the train home.  It would be terrible, we thought, if this rain washed the road out and we couldn't get back and the train went without us....