Up Ship Creek...

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Day 538 (17.09.08)

The last time we'd been over the Haast Pass it was cloudy, misty and rainy so we hoped that we'd go back over it on a nicer day to really appreciate the views along the way. Today the weather had turned out to be...cloudy, misty and rainy. Our plans to explore a couple more of the short walks on the way over quickly went out of the window and we were soon in Haast.

Our guidebook lists one of the highlights of the West Coast as 'Mooching around Jackson Bay in the rain, the rain, the endless rain'. It was a short drive down the coast to Jackson Bay and we felt the weather was perfect for us to test out the recommendation. The weather seemed to get worse the closer we got and we arrived at this tiny fishing 'village' in an absolute downpour. We drove around the collection of about 5 houses, one fishing shack (closed), and one caravan restaurant (also closed) and decided that there was nothing there worth putting on our wet weather gear to mooch around. After a quick car picnic we set off none the wiser as to where this 'highlight' had come from. We're told though that it's lovely on a nice day!

Back in Haast we worked out that a couple of our plans for the next few days weren't going to work out and found ourselves with some extra time. Not entirely used to this idea we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves! We're only used to being able to see/do the main attractions/experiences. We decided to find a place to stay and then pick up all the small walks and little things that we normally miss out on.

We drove up to Ship Creek just north of Haast where there are a couple of short walks to do. All dressed up to brave the rain we set out on the first walk through the swampland behind the dunes. This was excellent with the dripping rainforest and the deep brown waters stained by the tannins and humic acid of the swamps.

We followed this with the dune walk through some more forest to a large dune lake. Another good walk although it would have been better on a less rainy day we feel as there was no wildlife to be seen around the lake today.

We'd stayed in a basic campsite for the last couple of nights so we'd paid more tonight for a site that had a common area with showers, kitchen, TV, laundry etc. We spent the rest of the evening making the most of all these facilities and chatting to a group of old whitebaiters who were also staying. They were a hilarious group and we found out why when they described their day to us: a liquid breakfast followed by a liquid lunch accompanied by some food cooked on the bonfire, afternoon gin and tonics back at the camp, wine with dinner and port to follow!

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