Some lovely scenery between Punakaiki and Westport.

You can just make out the tree ferns which stand out against the forest trees of rimu, rata and beech species.  Every now and again you get nikau palms poking through the understory.  You reen line of trees is rimu or rata.   Like this shot of a tree fern leave unfulrling.

Paul and the hill behind him – a mosaic of greens.

Final stop before Westport was Cape Foulwind.  It used to be called something else but Captain Cook got caught in a storm here and renamed it.  Love this sign… There is supposed to be a seal colony here but whilst everyone was looking for seals we spotted a dead blue penguin, still with its label on.  Had our hearts going there for a while. There is supposed to be a seal colony here.

Eventually spotted a fur seal – the rest must be hiding at sea.

ET go home ….

I made Paul walk a little bit further along the cliffs.  View of rocks off the headland and the bay where we parked the van way below.

Abel Tasman sailed this way in 1642, well before Cook.  Here’s an astrolabe, which he would have used to sus out his latitude, based on the angle of the Sun and a set of tables.  Those clouds again…

We walked right around this bay, you can see the rocks offshore in the distance where the seal colony was supposed to be.  Paul trying to look happy in his walking, I think we had just turned back at this point after seeing how much further it was to the lighthouse.

WE drove around to the other end of the cape and Paul got his revenge by making me walk up to the lighthouse.  View from the lighthouse looking back towards Westport.