Blowholes - Punakaiki

A trip to Tauranga Bay and The Bay House for lunch then down to Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks and blowholes. We were really lucky on this visit- two of the blowholes were blowing. Quite an incredible sight.

The Pancake rocks are limestone formations that began forming 30 million years ago. The seabed was later raised above sealevel by earthquakes to form the cliffs and coastline. Since then the sea, wind and rain have carved out the soft layers to form these amazing rock formations.

When conditions are right, (like today) massive sea swells roar into the caverns that the sea has carved out beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast up through the blowholes. Lots of oohs and ahhs today.

The two blowhole are very different and it was hard deciding which one to blip so the other one can be seen here.