Here are a few travel tips for things to do on New Zealand's West Coast. My personal highlight was the coast scenery and just driving along up north.

- Pancake Rocks and blowholes in Punakaiki. The Pancake Rocks picturesque and highly identifiable are limestone formations that have been pounded by the Tasman sea for tens of thousands of years. The blowholes funnel blasts water up to 50 feet (15 meters) into the air as the waves crash into the caverns below the rocks.

- Take a guided Fox glacier trip. There are several Tour Operators offering trips onto the longest and least crowded West Coast glacier, the Fox Glacier. There are half day walks, all day walks, terminal face walks, ice climbing adventures or even overnight Heli-Treks packages.

- Visit the Franz Josef Glacier. Located in Westland it lies at the foot of the western slopes of Mount Cook and is in the middle of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.

- Pan for Gold. There is still plenty in the hills, though it is not economic to extract commercially. You might even find enough to cover the cost of the panning fee.

- Climb the mountains

- Hunting

- Fishing

- Shantytown

Fox Glacier and West Coast video in DivX Quality:

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Based on a work at Wikitravel.org & Traveldudes.org.