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Published: March 4th 2010
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We started our day prepared for a long drive ahead as we slowly make our way along the west coast to see the Glaciers, final destination being Fox. We were tempted to stop in Wanaka and maybe go and do some wine tasting but we somehow managed to resist.
We started off the journey well by mistakenly driving through Arrow Town but at least it meant we could cross it off our list of things we had seen and done. It is the perfect image of an old mining town from the Midwest. It was then time to face the challenging drive over the Crown Range Road. Hubby is thankfully used to driving these types of roads and found it probably more joyful than he should have. Thankfully it was summer as in winter I figure it would have been a bit more challenging for us (snow chains are recommended). The views are certainly worth it and of course we stopped many times to take some pictures. We stopped in Wanaka for a short exploration. A smaller and probably prettier version of Queenstown another place to do many activities which unfortunately we did not have time for today. I think
there are those who are worried that Wanaka is slowly turning into it's bigger neighbour Queenstown. Anyway we filled up our humble abode with gas and headed on our way.
We stopped at the beautiful Lake Hawea where we met up with a group having their tea break who were on a bicycle tour. Actually throughout our journey we passed many people slowly making their way on bike, sometimes it looked like they were peddling fast and not getting very far but it must be a great way to take in the scenery. If you are into cycling I would certainly recommend it! It wasn't long before we were on the Haast Pass were we had a few planned stops. Our first stop was Blue waters where we were promised to see crystal clear blue waters where you could see the trout floating in midwater. We must have come on a bad day as we did not notice any such thing. Actually we were not the only ones who kept walking along the path after the bridge where the blue waters were supposed to be thinking that surely this could not be it! A bit disappointed we headed on
our way. We then stopped at a further two waterfalls Fantail and Thunder Creek which I really can't say that much about.
After passing Haast the landscape really changes as it opens out onto coastal views and the road becomes amazingly straight. We stopped at Knights Point as everyone does to take pictures of the beautiful view (unfortunately our day was not really sunny enough to capture it's magnificence). We then stopped at the very intriguing Bruce Bay, intriguing because of the hundreds of cairns which have been built, the driftwood buffeted in from the sea and the messages that people have left on the rocks to say 'we were here'. Hubby insisted we needed and he built a cairn of his own.
By late afternoon we had made our way into Fox and as usual the clouds had descended. We stayed in a Family Park camp site and it is definitely one of the notably nice camp sites we have stayed in. We only went for a quick walk into town to book our helicopter flight for Saturday morning with fingers crossed that the weather would improve. I had a lovely evening watching the sunset while reading
my book with a hot cup of coffee.
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