Wanaka to Haast

We had a beautiful drive today from Wanaka to Haast. It was tough leaving Wanaka and we regretted not booking a longer stay but next time.....

The first part of the drive follows Lake Hawea with mountains surrounding the lake. It's hard to keep your eyes on the road but there are plenty of places to pull off. You really need to be alert driving as it is the Chinese New Year and there are tens of thousands of Chinese in New Zealand for their holiday celebrating, you guessed it, the year of the ram. Terrible drivers!

There were a number of short walks in Mount Aspiring National Park. The first one we stopped at was a 30 minute walk into the "Blue Pools" on the Blue River. Absolutely crystal clear glacier water reflecting the sky.

A great view for our picnic lunch.

We stopped at Thunder Falls just past "The Gates of Haast", a narrow gorge with boulders choking the river's passage.

How did we take pictures before the invention of the selfie stick?

We arrived in Haast at around 2:30 and checked into our motel. Just about the only place in town other than a couple of cafe's and gas station. The person at registration suggested a drive to Jackson's bay and the Cray Cafe along with a short hike to the rugged shore of the Tasman Sea. There didn't look like too much more to do here so away we went. Little did we know we were heading into the sandfly capital of New Zealand. In Canada we know these little buggers as black flies.

The hike was nice through some coastal rainforest.

As soon as we got to the seashore, thousands of sandflies attacked. Our insect repellant didn't seem to have any effect. Here is Chris fending them off with her pullover.

A very short photo shoot and we were back up the trail to the car.

We stopped at the Cray Cafe which only had outdoor dining. The flies were still here so we decided to move on.

A quick photo op of the bay and back to the Motel.

Chris started not feeling well and we decided to just go to the cafe at the motel for supper. She didn't make it through her bowl of soup and had to return to the room. Hopefully just a fast bug of some sort. It is 8:00 pm and she is fast asleep and hopefully will be good to go to the glacier tomorrow morning.