On the way, we stopped on the dirt track to the Chard Winery for Tom to take some photos of the area that the Pillars of the Kings had been filmed.
There was also a great view of the bungee jump that we stopped at a couple of days ago.
You’ll see from the photo (once he’s managed to put it on the blog) just what kind of track we were on!!
Just to the south of Chard is Ben Nevis – I think we’re in the wrong country. We made a quick turn around back to the real road, through the Kawarau Gorge, then on past the fruit farms (where we stopped and bought cherries)
then turned north by Lake Dunstan at Cromwell. That is a very good stretch of road and we made good progress all the way through Luggate and on to Wanaka where we wanted to stop at Puzzling World.
On the map, it’s shown as being before the join of the SH6 and the 84 into Wanaka proper, and on the right hand side of the road. Well, it’s not. It’s after the junction and on the left side!Anyway, having found it, we parked and, as it was now quite bright, Tom went to put on his sunglasses – that’s when he discovered he had left them in the motel in Queenstown! My reaction was unprintable as you might imagine. Having phoned to confirm they were there, I suggested they could send them to Al and Jenn as we’ll be meeting up with them in Auckland on the 25th Feb. They kindly agreed to do that.
We spent about an hour at Puzzling World being intrigued by the illusions especially one room in which the floor slopes at 15deg but all the furnishings and fittings persuade the eye that the floor is level.
Water appears to flow uphill, a chair slides up a ramp, a ball runs up a billiard table, if you stand on some steps you look as if you’re falling over but you’re actually vertical
– very disorientating and it does disturb the balance (there is a warning about that before you go in) – one lady was having quite a hard time of it, and we both took some time to get over the feeling of not being in control. A walk in the fresh air helped.Now the only problem was Tom needed sunglasses, so we drove into Wanaka, found a pharmacy and the very helpful pharmacist sold Tom a very nice pair to be worn over his prescription glasses. He is pleased with them and says they don’t distort the colours like his real ones do, and they’re polarised so there’s no glare. Having sorted that out we set off north to Haast.
The SH6 goes up the west coast of Lake Hawea where we had our first glimpse of snow on the mountains ahead. The ridge line on the west starts at Mt Gold, 1286m, and ends in the north, at Isthmus Peak, 1417m. According to the map, Mt Burke in the middle is 71417m (!!) It’s either a typo or they need a light on top so the space shuttle doesn’t hit it!! The road then swings west and goes up the east coast of Lake Wanaka and at the north end of the lake, we got our first good view of lots of snow, still a good way away on the tops of mountains over 7000ft high.
The land each side of the road was flat with various rivers and streams flowing into the Makarora River. There were danger signs at the roadside where the Young River enters the Makarora that if anyone sees any change in river level they should notify it immediately and that everyone in the area should evacuate. The Young valley has been closed because of the danger of flash flooding. All this even when NZ is suffering a severe drought and water restrictions apply in this area and others.The road from this point to Haast has some of the most magnificent scenery we’ve seen.
At the Gates of Haast bridge, we stopped to take pics of the water in the Haast and Wills rivers thundering over and around huge boulders obviously brought downstream in previous floods,
then a little further on, at Thunder Creek Falls, the water falls from 27m. It’s quite a sight at the moment, but when the winter snow melts, it must be incredible. There were lots of tiny flies around at both these stops and Tom got bitten numerous times in the space of a few minutes. He’s already got 2 bites from previous days that have blistered – the flies really love him for some reason.The mountains have some wonderful names – Topheavy, Burnt Top, Doleful, Heave Up, Mistaken Saddle and lots of Knobs!! It makes it fun to read the map.
The rest of the journey to Haast was along the side of the river Haast with mountains either side until about 3 or 4km before you reach it when it flattens out completely with the only hill to be seen called Mosquito Hill – bodes well for Tom!! The Haast World Heritage Hotel where we’re staying doesn’t quite live up to its name. From a distance, it looks a bit like a POW camp.
There are no buildings other than a petrol station beside it and only the Haast Visitor Centre about 200m away. But the interior is very smart, all newly refurbished, big rooms and lovely shower rooms. Dinner was in what I would describe as a working man’s club. It’s the only drinking establishment in the area as all the locals were in for a Saturday night bevy, but the food was fantastic - plenty of it, hot, veges cooked to perfection and friendly service. They must have been serving over 100 covers tonight. We were so full afterwards, we had to go for a walk to burn off some of the calories. Unfortunately, there were still lots of flies around, but fortunately, they only chewed Tom!! He, He!!We’re out in the back of beyond here. Not only is there no wireless internet, there’s no mobile phone coverage for 100km in any direction and heading north, it’s three and a half hours drive to the nearest bank! There are only two ways out – back the way we came or north where we’re heading. If you need medical assistance, there’s a nurse 15km away otherwise it’s a helicopter evacuation. The nearest ambulance (St John of course) is an hour and a half away, so, even though the helicopter has to fly a long way, it’s still quicker. So keep your fingers crossed that Tom’s bites don’t turn nasty tonight!
Tomorrow, it’s on to the glaciers, so we’re hoping that the clouds keep away. Tom’ll update the blog when we can get access again. TTFN.
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