You’ll want to visit the Vanished World Fossil Trail. Featuring many of the Geosites in the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark this self-guided heritage trail is a sprawling series of lesser known locations that reveal limestone landscapes, fossil sites, extinct volcanoes, and major awe-inspiring landforms that will make you ask yourself: a) why haven’t I been here before? and b) how many millions and millions of years did it take for these formations to occur? The trail includes Waipata, Anatini, Elephant Rocks, and Valley of the Whales among others. The features you find along the trail have been important in the conceptual origins and ongoing development of geological science at a national level.
And, at the trail’s heart is the Vanished World Centre that holds displays to help explain and interpret the fossils, rocks, localities, and landforms you see along the trail. There is also a fossil extraction room here to give kids a first “hands on experience” with fossils.