Over the Haast Pass to NZ’s West Coast

We had about 275 kilometres to travel today but we were not rushed and today’s drive felt very comfortable and relaxed.

Perhaps it was the coffee in Wanaka that we waited 20 minutes to get. The young barista in the cafe was working hard and she had our coffees up as fast as she could but the wait was frustrating.

The first part of our day was to drive along the western side of Lake Hawea. It was surrounded by rugged mountains and the views were stunning.

After about 50 km, the road crossed over an area that linked us to the top end of Lake Wakatipu. By now, the environment was quite alpine and the lake was backed by the Southern Alps.

Towards the Haast Pass, the road flattened out and we passed through an area of button grass plain. It was similar to the road along the Eglington Valley on the road to Milford Sound. This is a very popular time to be visiting NZ and we had to give up on trying to see a couple of local attractions. At both Fantail Falls and Blue Pools, the car parks were full to overflowing. We gave up and continued along the road.

However, the car park at Thunder Creek Falls had some spaces and it was only a short walk to see the thin band of water of the falls dripping about sixty metres into the river.

It wasn’t long afterwards that we crossed the saddle of Haast Pass and soon we crossed the Haast River at the ’Gates of Haast’. From there, the road dropped steadily down the river valley with magnificent views of the surrounding mountains.

Eventually, the river flattened out to become one of NZ’s wide braided streams before it reached the Tasman Sea near the town of Haast.

The highest then turned north and we followed the coast north to our next overnight stop at Fox Glacier. This route varied between travelling near the sea and then deviating inland for a few kilometres. There were many single- lane bridges across various streams and rivers. One was even a long suspension bridge.

Just after heading north, we came to Ship Creek.  This is a place where the land meets sea and where nature has impacted the coast. The Tasman’s heaving surf moulds the beaches and dunes around here, constantly wrestling with river mouths and tossing their sediments back onto the land. Ship Creek was so called because the remains of an 1800’s ship wreck were found in the creek. However, there were no recorded wrecks along this beach. This became a mystery until it was discovered that the actual shipwreck occurred along the coast of Australia with the bow section of the ship drifting to here where it was washed ashore.

We stopped for a quick visit at Bruce Bay where most of the coast has been protected from erosion with heavy rocks along the shore. Debris is continuously washed up onto the shore here and even onto the road.

We reached the settlement of Fox Glacier by late afternoon and found a vibrant tourist town full of restaurants, motels and tourist shops. The main attraction here is obviously the glacier but where it once almost reached the town, it has now receded a few kilometres. After seeing significant glaciers in places like Alaska, it probably sounds snobbish of me to say that we didn’t really bother walking for a few kilometres up a gravel track to get a glimpse of a little bit of ice. However, we did see a part of the glacier from a view point near Lake Mathieson.

Overall, today has been a really good touring day with lots of interesting things to see. I must say that the alpine scenery on this area of NZ is quite spectacular. It is also a very remote area with long distances between its small towns.