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Published: January 4th 2008
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Haast
A picturesque fishing village, Haast is also home to the sandfly. The drive from Haast to Fox Glacier is short, although pretty. We had a few stops on the way to look at the beautiful coastline.
When we made it to Fox Glacier, we went straight for a hike to check it out. The scenery is quite nice, and the glacier is quite amazing to look at. It’s a very fast moving glacier (compared to other glaciers) and there’s often ice and rock falling down the face. As a result, they don’t let you near it without a guide. There are a few river crossings to get to the glacier face. Emma’s approach was to carefully balance are walk across the stepping stones to cross each creek. Matt just ran through the water. He got more wet, but it certainly got some laughs from the people waiting each side of the crossing.
We stayed in a backpacker’s hostel for our stay at Fox Glacier. After checking out the glacier, we decided to stay put for the day and do Franz Josef the next day on our way north.
The next day was perfect weather and before going towards Franz Josef Glacier, we checked out Lake Matheson first. This lake
Lake Matheson
One of the most photographed locations in NZ. is full of tannins from plant material, so is quite black. This is the ideal surface for reflections and there’s a mountain in just the right spot. It’s one of the most photographed spots in NZ.
We made Franz Josef a short time later. It’s a different looking glacier to Fox and is also further away from the viewing point.
We had quite a lot of miles to get done today, so we moved on directly from Franz Josef. The West Coast is very pretty but there’s not that much that compelled us to stop and stay. We stopped for lunch in Greymouth to go to the Speight’s Alehouse again, but it was closed. We saw the Punakaiki Blowholes & Pancake rocks. These are rocks that are layers of limestone formed on top of layers of mudstone. The mud dissolves quicker than the lime and you are left with a rock that looks like a stack of pancakes.
We continued on through Buller Gorge and Murchinson which is also very beautiful as it is full of pine forests with a large rapid river flowing through the middle of it. Once we got past Buller Gorge though, the
Fox Glacier #1
Emmy at Fox Glacier. hills were becoming increasing scarred with the evidence of logging which spoilt the views somewhat. We continued on through Motueka and finally to our accommodation at Takaka on the beachfront of Golden Bay. It was a big day of driving, taking us through 650 kms of beautiful countryside in about 8-9 hours. A lot of it was very winding so whilst the distance covered doesn’t translate to the mammoth distances you can cover in Australia, a lot of clutch work was required around narrow coastal roads and mountain passes.
Our next three nights are spent here on Golden Bay…largely chilling out and enjoying the fresh salt air.
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