South Africa had little trouble racking up a huge first innings score after Graeme Smith won the toss and elected to bat first on Friday.
Even though New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum was going to bowl first anyway, the Proteas were rarely troubled by the Black Caps throughout their innings that lasted until just after tea on the second day.
Smith showed plenty of patience to allow Dean Elgar to reach his maiden Test century, but time proved to not be a factor once New Zealand lost six wickets before stumps in a collapse reminiscent of their 45 in the first innings of the First Test at Cape Town.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of New Zealand's disastrous showing in South Africa is that much of the Black Caps' problems have come at their own doing.
While they dearly are missing the fight of injured all-rounder Daniel Vettori, New Zealand's batting line-up would look a whole lot more stable if former captain Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder were in it.
Both are not in the touring party because of decisions made by New Zealand management. Taylor is averaging almost 44 in 43 Test matches for New Zealand and would walk into most other sides around the world while Ryder is no slouch either averaging over 40 in his 18 Tests.
When you consider how outclassed Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson and Daniel Flynn in particular have looked, they were two players New Zealand could not afford to be without.
New Zealand did dismiss Hashim Amla for 110 early on the second day when Trent Boult had him caught behind, but it made little difference to the pattern of play with Elgar picking up where Amla left off with Faf du Plessis.
Du Plessis went on to comfortably reach his second Test century with far less resistance at the other end than he received in his match-saving effort in Adelaide.
He and Elgar combined for a 131-run partnership on the back of a 113-run stand between Amla and du Plessis. New Zealand eventually got a breakthrough when du Plessis fell for 137.
Robin Peterson then fell for eight and Dale Steyn for five to leave Elgar with some work to do to reach his century, but after tea he got there with a four off Jeetan Patel. He remained 103 not out and Rory Kleinveldt seven as South Africa declared at 8-525.
New Zealand needed to try to show some fight at least until the end of the day, but it was always going to be a task beyond them with the way Steyn, Morne Morkel and Kleinveldt were bowling.
While McCullum hung in grimly at one end, he watched as Guptill fell for one, Williamson for four, Dean Brownlie for 10 and Flynn for a duck.
New Zealand was then 4-27 before the biggest blow of all came when McCullum went for his first lavish shot of the innings off Peterson, and only managed to hit it to Jacques Kallis at slip and he was out for 13 from 61 balls.
The very next ball Colin Munro was out caught bat-pad off Peterson to leave the left-arm spinner on a hat-trick and the Black Caps 6-39.
Peterson missed his hat-trick, but at 6-47 and still trailing South Africa by 478 it looks unlikely that New Zealand will even be able to make the home side bat again.
At stumps, wicket-keeper batsman BJ Watling is not out on 15 and Doug Bracewell is three. Watling could very well be playing for his immediate international career with Luke Ronchi now available to be selected for New Zealand since crossing from Western Australia.
Steyn, Kleinveldt and Peterson all picked up two wickets each for South Africa and while Morkel didn’t claim one, he also bowled well and created plenty of problems for the batsmen.