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Hasst pass
b e a utiful New Zealand - Queenstown/Arrowtown/Wanaka/Haast Pass/Fox/Franz Josef
April 08
After a few more days in Queenstown we decided it was time to leave. Just half an hour down the road is the really pretty town of Arrowtown, there isn´t really much to do there, its just a quaint little place which looked beautiful with the Autumn leaves and colours everywhere. We had a stroll around the town, had a coffee, took some pictures and then made our way to Wanaka.
Wanaka is another beautiful town next to a huge lake ( called Lake Wanaka would you believe ) . We went to a place called puzzle world, which was quality , rooms full of optical illusions ....etc. The best bit was an outdoor maze which we did a good job of getting lost in ! It was harder than it looked. Fun at first but then when small children are managing to find there way out before us ( must have been cheating ! ) it got a bit annoying ! We decided to split up, I thought I had left Cabbie for dust but after laughing at him pacing up and down the same stretch for a while ,
I felt sorry for him and helped him out a bit. I would regret that as he then some how annoyingly managed to beat me and be first to the exit. It was a god job that the maze was outside because the actual building had closed and everyone had gone home by the time we had found our way out !
That evening we went to the cinema , although it wasn't your typical ´Cineworld´or ´Showcase´, it was a privately owned cinema and really quirky. Before the film we had a delicious meal and then home made cookies in the film´s interval which were absolutely quality. It had such a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The cinema itself, rather than having the usual rows of seats, just had random comfy sofas placed everywhere and even a converted VW Beetle in the corner. It was really ,really good ( the film wasn´t bad either - No Country for Old Men , very scary )
Next on our journey we took the Hasst Pass which is another beautiful scenic drive taking you across to the South Islands west coast passing through lakes and forests until you reach the Fox Glacier.
We arrived late on and parked up for the night in the car park for Lake Matheson. This lake is known as the mirror lake for its near perfect reflection of Mount Cook in the early morning, it didn´t let us down and was worth the half an hour trek around the lake to get to the viewing point. It was brilliant apart from one duck who was doing his best to annoy everyone by creating ripples in the water. Half an hour up the road is Franz Josef which is supposed to be the better of the two glaciers for walking ...etc we spent a day or so trying to decide whether we should do a glaciar hike and eventually decided to just do it in Argentine as we had been by told by a reliable source that it was cheaper and the glaciars are more impressive ( As yet we are still to do this as the weather in south Argentina has meant that we can´t get there .... bugger ! ). Despite not doing a hike it was still a great place to visit.
From Franz Joseph we made our way further up the coast to
a small place called Hector, one of our friends had recommended a hostel there and said it was very peaceful and relaxing, so we decided to have a break from the van for a night and go there. The hostel itself is perched 200m up on a hillside overlooking the sea. We had to park our car at the bottom as there is no road up to the hostel, the owner took our bags up on the back of his quad bike and we took the path up the steep hill. The hostel was beautiful, the owner lived there with his wife and two dogs it felt more like staying in someones house than a hostel, they were so friendly, the owner was quite a character and he told us some amusing tales. Our friends were right it was very relaxing in the evening we sat on the balcony and looked out at the sun setting over the sea, it was so beautiful.
By this point in our trip the love for the van was at crisis point, it was freezing on a night, we were bored of eating instant mash and beans everyday and if one more person
Optical confusion
This room made me feel sick ! said "So , are you Happy Campers ? " ( The name plastered over the side of our van ) I swear I would have run them over ! Definitely a way to travel in the summer but not so good in winter!
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