Putangirua Pinnacles

We decided to have a change of scenery this Saturday for our tramping, so we headed out of town to check out the Putangirua Pinnacles, which is about an hour away from where we live. Some scenes from the Lord of the Rings were filmed here in this unique area, so it was really cool to see it up close and personal.
Definitely going for a fashion statement in my sexy tramping clothes! Great combo of orange pants and a sun hat, ae? Vote for me for New Zealand's Next Top Model! haha....
You can see the ocean from the trail up top. Unfortunately the loop trail was blocked off (perhaps due to a slip? - It was hard to tell) so we couldn't tramp the whole loop, but had to come back down after reaching the lookout up top. It was still worth it to see the view!
This whole area is just so amazing - nothing like I have ever seen before. I took a whole lot of pictures, but they are all so unique so I am posting quite a few.
Travis kept finding heaps of charcoal where there was an ancient fire. He thought it was pretty cool how it was all imbedded in the rock formations.
Travis leaving his mark with the charcoal he found!...
If you look extremely close right in the middle of this picture you can see Travis. We took this for scale, but you can actually barely see him - It's like "Where's Waldo"
We were planning to continue on down to Cape Palliser (We checked that area out two years ago, but wanted to see it on a fine day...) but just as we were walking out the trail to the carpark Travis got a call that there was a fire out at a local vineyard just outside of Martinborough. We ended up going out there in a hurry to make sure it was all under control. No worries, it was just a small fire, and was all sorted when we got there. Travis just had to do a few things and then we were off and on our way.

Overall a great day out in the sun. While it is quite warm these days, we still try to stay covered to protect our skin from the harsh NZ sun. We love these tramping shirts as they are real light-weight and vented on the sides. They are good for tramping in summer as you can still stay fairly cool; yet covered.