"Now there's something you don't see every day," says Brian, our bus driver. "A traffic light."

He's not kidding. As we idle at the red he tells us that this - a temporary traffic light set up for road works - is the only one on the entire West Coast of the South Island.

We're travelling between Greymouth and Punakaiki - a 50km jaunt on the 600km 'Coast Road' recently favoured by Lonely Planet. Our path winds through scrubby native bush and sprightly punga trees so green I wonder if they've just been painted. Intermittently, lush, sprawling paddocks appear, dotted with cows. Enormous pyramids of freshly-mined coal sit near the roadside and, tucked away amongst dense bush, I spy the occasional weather-beaten shack - hidden but for the grey puffing chimneys. It's a long and lonely stretch of land.

The locals, says Brian, are coal shovelers, artists, loners. "If you don't fit in in the city, you'll fit in out here by proxy," he says as the light turns green and we continue north.

Round here, though, it's not the locals you need to worry about. It's Mother Nature. This is a place where the wind and the sea reign supreme. The tempestuous Tasman Sea will arbitrarily snatch at chunks of the rugged coastline. It will close roads and wrench coastal houses from their foundations. The wind shapes the forests and sculpts the monolithic cliffs. Together, they have forged the wayward work of art that is the West Coast.

One of the pair's most notable creations is the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. Work began on this limestone masterpiece about 30 million years ago on the ocean floor. Over time, small marine creatures were layered with sand, mud and clay. When earthquakes pushed the sea floor skywards, the limestone rock formations emerged. Over aeons, the mighty ocean, blustery wind and incessant rain of the region have crafted the teetering pancake-like towers of rock that remain today.

Our 45 minute ambling drive from Greymouth brings us to Punakaiki just after high tide. We've missed the best show of the day, when the tide pulls the surging ocean through a maze of caverns beneath the pancake rocks, forcing it upwards into spectacular misty white fountains.

"But if we hurry," urges Brian, "we might still catch some of the blowholes." We scurry along the well-formed forest track at Dolomite Point, following the sound of the booming ocean. Suddenly we emerge into the bracing open air. A blazing white sky hovers above the endless, steely sea. Camera-clad tourists are dotted amongst the undulating pathways, lookout platforms and bridges that lead the way through the towering rocks. Perky native flaxes sprout from the trackside, scratching against one another in the gusting wind. The crash of the ocean is interspersed with the delighted exclamations of visitors as water shoots skyward, spraying them with a fine, salty drizzle.

I peer over an edge into the 'surge pool'. Far below, the ocean looks to be breathing as the tidal flow heaves rhythmically within a square of high rock walls. The slapping water emits a clap of cannon-like thunder.

I meander along the maze of paths, stopping with the hordes to snap photos of artistically awkward outcrops. Stopping on a set of natural limestone stairs I pause to touch the stacked rock formation. Stroking the smooth grey edges I feel an inexplicable thrill at coming into contact with something that has been 30 million years in the making.

Back in the bus, Brian heads further north. We disembark at Truman Track, "named for a local man, not the former American President," Brian informs us emphatically. That local man was Jim Truman of Greymouth who created the short bush walk in the early 1950s. Strict government instructions stated that 'no tree or shrub should be removed or destroyed' in the process. So, over the course of the two year construction, Truman carefully uprooted and repositioned every tree that sat along the proposed route.

Today, the podocarp forest remains beautifully in tact, providing an enthralling smorgasbord of large native trees most of the way along the 1.5km track. A trilling tui leads the orchestra of native birds that serenades us down to the small pebbly beach at the path's end. From our viewing point we look down at the sunlit semi-circular beach, cut into an overhanging limestone cliff. The roaring tide thumps in, immersing the beach's golden pebbles in floods of white foam.

"Who's feeling brave?" asks Brian. We eye each other nervously. "If you are, follow me." A few of us follow down a thin stairwell, beneath dripping, overhanging rock and onto the beach. "We've got to time this right," instructs Brian, watching the powerful ebb and flow of the ocean. "Go!" he calls. We're off, running, laughing, across the tiny beach. Our eyes are fixed on the sea. The pebbles feel like quicksand, grasping at our shoes and making our progress uncomfortably slow. The waves crash towards us, the white foamy edge racing to our feet. Just in time we reach a safe point, so high on the shore that our backs are touching the dripping limestone cliff. The waves lap at our toes.

We traipse back along Truman Track with sun mottling the leafy path and a cheeky weka following us in the scrub. We're roaring back along the picturesque coast road to Greymouth when, suddenly, we stop. Glancing out, the only movement I see is dust from the roadside eddying about in the swirling wind. No cars. No people. Up ahead, the ancient, snowy Paparoa Range towers above us. Its craggy peaks run sharply downwards into scrubby green bush that tumbles across undulating hills, turning greener, more verdant, as it nears the gnashing coast. Stands of Nikau palm line the roadside, fields of cows graze contentedly nearby. And smack bang in the middle of it all is one glowing red traffic light.

That's not something you see every day.

Amelia is Content Editor for the New Zealand travel and tourism website www.fourcorners.co.nz.

Amelia visited the West Coast courtesy of www.fourcorners.co.nz and West Coast Shuttle. She experienced the 'Punakaiki and the Pancake Rocks' half-day tour courtesy of Kea Heritage Tours.