Do you also think Punakaiki and Pancake sound a bit alike? Maybe they do, but the māori Punakaiki translates as spring (puna) and kaiki (heap), that would refer to the blowholes among heaps of rock.

Punakaiki is another promontory, part of the Paparoa National Park in the Nordwest of South Island, between Greymouth and Westport.

The origins of these layered rocks are not yet entirely clear to science. The material of the pancakes comes from organisms that lived in the sea 35 millon years ago. The shells and carapaces sank to the sea floor, but it is not clear why they were shaped this way over many million years, with thin seams of mineral mudstone between the limestone layers.

The last 100,000 years, nature continued to work on its pancake creation: erosion made large blowholes in the layers of limestone and at every rising tide, sea water is pushed through holes in the pancakes, adding another spectacle to this natural wonder.