A Crazy Driver Ahead and Then up and Over the Southern Alps Divide - Haast Pass

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Again the weather gods have shone down on us as we pack up and prepare to head away from Fox Glacier for places further south.

We hadn’t used a lot of petrol after the last fill in Hokitika so the Fox Glacier price for petrol at NPD at $2.45 per litre didn’t bite into the credit card too much. And with the petrol station being privately owned there were no Gold Card discount.

As with most days of travel, the early part of the drive saw little oncoming traffic as the location where that traffic would have started from for the day was a good 75km plus away from where we started and as long as they left at a similar time to us it would take a while before we passed each other. And this far south on the coast there are few townships or even locals living close to the highway with a need to travel to town.

However, all of a sudden there were two cyclists ahead of us going in our direction and we assume they had started out at Fox Glacier as they would have had to be up very early if they had started the day in Franz Josef some 30km north of Fox Glacier and a serious hill road to get through. A quick look at the map didn’t show any township until Haast some 120km ahead so we guessed there must be some accommodation on the side of the highway before Haast as they would be doing some to reach that far in a day given that daylight saving is well and truly past. They didn’t have e-bikes although they did look fit enough to make a good pace.

With the lack of oncoming traffic it gave us more time to concentrate on not running over the many possums that must have got startled in the night and met their ultimate fate. There were so many it was impossible to keep count.

The road followed a wide open valley that twisted and turned which meant there were virtually no hills in the progress of the highway. The few hardy farmers that lived along the highway had modest homes and it was hard to see them earning a big income from the cattle they raised.

With some distance between places of interest we took every opportunity we could include a short diversion down to Hunts Beach which looked similar to others we have been to on the Coast with a stony beach and crashing waves along the straight coastline.

A little further on it was time for a coffee at a salmon farm where there was a large open

Fireplace in the cafe with a hot fire giving out good warmth to the patrons of the cafe as the sun hadn’t yet reached around the corner of the hill to warm the building up. Even the salmon in their tank were swimming round and round rapidly to keep warm!

As we left 3 Harley-Davidson’s and an unknown bike make drew up besides in the car park and were set on reversing their bikes into the car park leaving us little room to reverse and turn around. Eventually they realised that a car is a bit bigger to manoeuvre than a motor bike and left us room to get on our way.

The highway rejoined the coast at Bruce Bay where a substantial boulder stop bank about 3 metres tall had been installed beyond the car park. It seems like the highway must have been under threat at some time recently with waves from the Tasman Sea.

The highway then turned back inland and was a bit more undulating and we passed by two recreational lakes of Paringa and Moeraki.

We were now approaching Knights Point where there is a monument to the completion of Highway 6 in November 1965.Up until this date there was an uncompleted section of landscape without a road towards Haast about 30km away that meant you couldn’t do a complete circumference of the South Island.

From the lookout there are grand views of the coastline north as well as south and out to the Tasman Sea.

Previous stops here have always been spoilt to some degree by tour buses in the car park left with their motors running while the tourists wandered about getting their photos.

Today though it was peaceful with just 3 other cars which left before we did and anyone else arrive leaving us alone in a place we remembered as busy and cluttered in the past.

Just after we pulled out back onto the highway we were passed by the Harley-Davidson’s and the mystery model bike, although I should add that Gretchen did pull over for them as she could tell they were enjoying themselves and making a feast of the hilly section of road with some good turns that we were travelling through.

Just before NZ’s longest single lane bridge of 737metres we stopped in at Ship Creek and took in the views and an interesting piece of history about a sailing ship that was wrecked in southern Australia and ended up drifting over 2000km across the Tasman Sea to this location on the NZ coast.

Heading past Haast Township the road turned towards the South Alps following the braided Haast River. For some reason the number of cars seemed to pick up in number although this may have been a bit more evident as there were traffic lights to control traffic because of roadworks which appeared to be the installation of optic fibre given the colour of the cable being installed into a thin slit made along the road and buried close to the surface.

Sitting back and enjoying the vast scenery of the steep Mataketake Range to our left and the river below the range and the snow capped Southern Alps ahead we were quite relaxed until we caught up with an errant driver in a Nissan Quashed.

He was driving erratically by crossing the yellow lines on blind corners, drifting over the centre line on straight stretches of the road and braking for no reason leading us to think he might have been dozing off to sleep behind the wheel.

This all went on for 2 or 3 kilometres until eventually he pulled off the road and we breathed a sigh of relief that his actions had not caused an accident to an innocent driver coming the other way.

We pulled in behind him as Gretchen was going to go and check on him and make him realise that his driving had been erratic and at times downright dangerous.

But before she had time to get out of the car the driver suddenly pulled out back onto the road and was gone.

We decided that we would just potter along as we didn’t want to be close by if there was an accident and in this part of the country there is no cell phone coverage to contact the police or any houses to stop in at and use a telephone. We were well past the roadworks crew which on reflection could have been an option for us to go back to and report the driver to someone to pass onto the police.

And so we carried on with our fingers crossed and headed on up the lowest alpine road pass in the Southern Alps making a stop at Fantail Falls for a stretch and also to see if the errant driver was there. He wasn’t.

Crossing over into Otago at the top of the 564metre pass and we were on the downhill stretch into the first settlement we had since since Haast and our overnight stop at Makarora.

After checking in we briefly caught sight of the errant driver as he climbed back into the Nissan. He and the front seat passenger were of Asian descent and we wondered just how this type of driving is going on when supposedly there are no overseas tourists coming into the country. Next moment he was gone. We had his number plate and we did report him on the NZ Police website which might see him or the rental car company get a letter outlining what we had witnessed.

Our stay at Makarora was to be in an A frame chalet with facilities built over 50 years ago and still going strong in a camping ground that seems to have expanded over the years.

It was a welcome stop despite there being no cell phone coverage, no internet or a television in the A frame.

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