Looking out of the window this morning it was wet and cloudy, very cloudy. Keen to make an early start we got up early and drove the last few km to Haast alongside the widening riverbed littered with tree trunks left there by flood water. Since hearing of the death of David Bowie, we are now singing a medley of his songs every morning as our memorial to him. Glenn does a terrible imitation of him singing Changes.
Haast is famed for its dramatic landscapes situated alongside Mt Aspiring National Park so we were hoping the drive today would be full of wows. A short way further and we found the DOC visitor centre where we spent a long time looking at the exhibits and learning about rainforests, soil types and the local speciality of whitebait fishing. Unlike what we know as whitebait, the kiwi version are small fish that travel upriver in their millions every spring tide to spawn. The locals just dangle a net in the river to catch thousands of them.
Before we knew it it was nearly lunchtime so we set off down the southern most road to the remote settlement of Jackson Bay. The Lonely Planet had recommended this lengthy side trip with a ‘must see’ fish and chip eatery at the end. It may have been the gloomy weather or maybe we’re becoming immune to the routine beauty but we found very little of interest. Jackson Bay turned out to be a collection of ramshackle fishing buildings clustered around a driftwood littered stony beach and the quaint fish and chip caravan had clearly received a boost in revenues thanks to the Lonely Planet recommendation and was now a thriving eatery in a recently renovated, brightly painted mobile home type structure complete with outside picnic benches and umbrellas. Thinking our money would be better spent somewhere more needy we returned to our first stop this morning in Haast and had takeaway Hoki and Chips in the back of our van.
After lunch we set off north along the west coast highway, famed for its beauty. The mountains wore a mantle of thick cloud and the road was largely lined with thick rain forest so we actually saw very little. Even the couple of stops we made were brief because of the dreaded sandflies.
Pushing on to the township of Fox Glacier we found a DOC car park at Lake Matheson and joined several other campervans for the night hoping that tomorrow the weather will improve and the Fox glacier will meet our expectations. Fingers crossed.
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| The tree grave yard |
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| Jackson Bay - would it have been less disappointing in the sunshine? |
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| One of the many river crossings that could have been different without the clouds. |
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| The bush lined road. |
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| Fishing gantries used by locals to catch the whitebait. |
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| Another view that would have looked so spectacular in the sun. |
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| Camp for the night. |
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