Punakaiki

I would like to apologize for the delay in posting since our return from the West Coast. We have been very busy, and when we are not, Susan has to use her computer for work. We are down to counting days in single digits now, and time is an oh-so-precious commodity. Consequently, my posts will probably be shorter and less frequent. I have created a bunch of new posts that have no writing whatsoever in them. Uploading the images is quite time consuming, so I took care of that first since it is likely the pictures are all anyone is interested in anyway. I think I will go ahead and publish the pictures and come back to add the commentary as time permits. If I don't get a chance to revisit the posts, you can just look at the pictures and make up your own story to go along with them.

The pictures here were taken on the west coast in the Punakaiki National Park. The rock formations are called the Pancake Rocks. These great sentinels of rock are some sort of limestone/something harder formations right along the coast. The limestone and 'something harder' are neatly arranged in alternating two inch thick bands that erode at different rates causing the dramatic configurations you see here. They are neat to look at, and there is a very nice walking trail that goes through and among them. There are a bunch of caves at the base of these formations and the waves crash up into them - there are also sinkholes amongst the formations that act as blowholes when the air and water gets trapped inside from an incoming wave.

Stay tuned for more on the following bunches of pictures...