Haast Pass to Wanaka

Next up today was the drive to Wanaka. We knew this would be a long drive as there was a lot to see on route, mostly waterfalls, as we drove through the Mt Aspiring national park via the Haast Pass.
The first part of the journey took us past more of the West coastline. Only one lookout that wasn't really anything special, just smelt of the toilets there and was an excuse for the swarms of sandflies to attack.
Eventually we got to the tiny tiny place of Haast, we thought it was quite built up but couldn't be more wrong, the West Coast apparently only has one substantial town the whole way down and this is miles away. No fuel for 85km from this point and boy do they hike up the price here, we had no choice though.

After Haast we set of to the East, away from the coast and into the rainforest of the national park. We had a sunny day which was great considering how many stop offs we had on route and the lush green forest looked inviting, minus the sandflies that we knew were lurking. Each stop had us spraying the deet and covering up despite the warm sun.
First stop was Roaring Billy Falls. A very short walk through a patch of forest that brought us out onto the wide, grey, pebbled riverbed. Lots of the rivers here are like this, in wide, flat valleys that are lined with flat round stone, a bright blue and shallow river running down the middle, occasionally banching out and then back again. We walked toward the river over the stone and saw the falls spilling down the mountain opposite through the trees. We also realised that we were surrounded by thousands of perfect skimming stones and a river that was so shallow and flat it would be criminal not to have a go.
We ended up skimming stones for ages, it was too much fun, and we also enjoyed watching a guy try to teach his girlfriend, despite him being worse than me, and I rarely get it right. Rob however is a champ, as much as it pains me to say, I dont think I have ever seen stones skim so far.

Next stop after this was Thunder Creek Falls. This was just one long drop that gushed out from very high. A much better photo op with the dense forest and boulders surrounding it. I couldn't stay though for long, the sandflies were EVERYWHERE here, so I escaped to the car whilst Rob took photos. Even when asked to take a couples photo on route I couldn't stop fidgeting. A tour much like the one I had been on years ago had pulled up and I remembered the photo here from then, the day Hull were due to play and were promoted!

Next up was the Gates of Haast, not a location from The Lord of the Rings, but a bridge of the Haast River. Another photo of this very much roaring, rapid like river that was cutting through the rocks and forest.

After this came Fantail Falls. As you can imagine this was more of a cascade that halfway down a large section of the fall split over a rock to form a sort of fantail. This fall, like Roaring Billy, also fell into a wider and flat, shallow riverbed that had the same flat stones which lots of people had taken to stacking into little mounds.

The last planned stop and still in the national park was the Cameron lookout of the Makarora Valley. Here the rainforest began to open out into more of a flat and wide Valley floor covered in gold, brown and green grasses, the odd livestock and another wide, shallow pebbled river that ran down one side. It was pretty awesome to look back and be able to see the forest banketing the mountains. Until this point we had only seen snippets whilst driving through the forest, so opened out like this you could appreciate better the scale of the rainforest here.
On a different note, we also had fun watching as people arrived to use the first set of toilets in ages and each time left swiping the air, slapping their skin or simply running away from what must have been swarms of sandflies just waiting. We chose to hold on a while longer.

After this the rainforest featured less and less and the grasses crept further up the mountains revealing a little more of their shape, folded and ridged where rivers and streams had carved paths down.

Even further along and the mountains got bigger, dotted with golden brown grasses and shrubbery, but with exposed grey rock higher up. Even more now, you could see the smooth folded mounds and troughs as well as sharp and jutting rocks and ridges up high. All this surrounding a huge, beautiful and calm glacial lake that the road now hugged. We couldn't help but pull over to take it all in. It was stunning. The sky reflected in parts of the glass like lake and the water was so clear and still you could see sraight down at the edges. We considered camping by the lake but the sandflies would be too much to bear we decided.

This landscape continued to amaze us the rest of the way, more and more mountains appearing and disappearing behind each other and more stunning lakes.

Eventually we got to the town that sat in the large valley basin by Lake Wanaka. It was very resort like, but then it is a ski resort in winter, and we decided to have some food out at one of the restaurants that looked over the lake. Rob had a delicious chicken burger and I had some amazing beef ribs, twice cooked in their own juices and so succulent they just fell apart.

After spending money on dinner we opted for a cheap camp for the night, just a large field with a small toilet section that we never needed to use. People here were crap at working out how to pay and just clogged the entrance, but we eventually found a spot and set about getting to bed.Read more