Pancake Rocks

The Rocks
The Pancake Rocks

Last night we stayed at The Rocks, a Kiwi Eco-Homestay, ten minute’s walk from a secluded Abel Tasmin beach and a short drive to view the scenic Pancake Rocks. Our young Swiss hosts, Eva and Roli, left Zurich to emigrate of New Zealand to run this B & B two years ago. The house is furnished in that simple modern European style, was very comfortable and reasonably priced. We opted to eat dinner with our hosts, and Roli prepared cream of broccoli soup garnished with pumpkin seeds, roast lamb, potatoes and homegrown silver beet sautéed with a bit of garlic onion and tomato. I’m not sure I understand what silver beet is, to me it tastes a bit like kale or swiss chard. We each enjoyed a glass of Pinot Noir from a Nelson vineyard and for dessert we had tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream. I did my best to persuade them to exchange houses with us! We’d love to come back here, even in winter, to do some of the tramps (hikes) we are missing on this trip.
We took the 20 minute walk to view the Pancake Rocks, once at near sunset and again in the morning, hoping to see the blowholes. However the Tasmin Sea was quite calm and there was little blowing in the holes, just a few puffs of spray. The rocks are fascinating looking with layers of limestone rock stacked in thin pancake-like stacks. Limestone was heaved up from the ocean floor by volcanic action and ground into strange looking pillars by the relentless sea. According to the posted information, scientists are not exactly sure how they were formed. They look like wonky stacks of black pancakes being devoured slowly by the sea. Eventually they will be gone, in about one thousand years.