From Queenstown and The Home of Bungie Jumping via Lake Hawea to Haast
In our last episode we had gotten to Queenstown and wild camped overnight just outside the town. This was a long day’s leisurely drive, initially in cloudy but bright conditions but which then settled into a continuous downpour but ended with one of our few meals out in New Zealand that boasted a taste that was memorable …
After our overnight stay outside of Queenstown, we headed initially up the Route 6 to the Kawarau Gorge bridge otherwise known as the birthplace of bungie jumping. Personally I think it is utterly insane to do this activity, but plenty of people standing in the queue to thrown themselves off of the perfectly serviceable bridge plainly disagree. We watched a few individuals hurtle towards the fast flowing river , some going for the “dunking option” where they finish their greatest drop with a head dunk into the river before getting fished out by the waiting boat. Nothing about the whole activity change my fundamental belief that it is bonkers. But it does take all sorts, so if you want to go do it, no better place than the birthplace at Kawarau Gorge.
After spending an hour at the visitor centre at the gorge, we back-tracked towards Queenstown and then turned right up the hill onto the Crown Range Road. It was a step climb with some spectacular views on the way up, and amazingly there were some decent viewpoints to take some pictures. Some locals were ignoring the “no trailers” signs on the extremely steep and winding road, much to the annoyance of other locals.
We continued to head up the hill until we reached the Pisa Conservation Area and I went for a walk up Rock Peak whilst the weather held. It was an hour up a track and then a narrow path, but I was greeted with some excellent views, and very few people. I could see however from the North the weather starting to close in, with grey clouds lowering and the haze of rain obscuring the valley below, so I beat a hasty retreat and made it back down in about 40 mins, just as it began to rain. Sandra had been resting outside the campervan but had also retired as the weather continued to deteriorate.
We continued along the Crown Range Road, and soon came across a whole area of more of those beautiful lupins crowding along the side of the road. After a few photo stops, we continued along the road to the town of Wanaka (careful how you pronounce that), and then up the side of Lake Hawea. The rain was coming and going, but we still managed to snap some decent pictures at various stops along the way. Through “The Neck” we drove, a short strip of land between Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka.
The road was rising up towards Haast Pass but now the rain was fierce and driving was requiring a lot of concentration. We did stop at the Haast Pass bridge to watch the thundering river swelled by all the rain, and then we made a short stop, in the pouring rain at Fantail Falls, I mean you have to stop at anything associated with fantails, the cutest of all the New Zealand birds, in my humble opinion. The falls had certainly been boosted by the rain, but photography was difficult in such conditions.
There was one more set of falls we could have stopped at, called Thundering Falls but in all honesty we were getting tired and another outing the the soaking rain did not appeal to us, so we did not stop there, instead we hurried onwards to Haast, where we booked into the Holiday Park there and then headed to The Hard Antler bar and restaurant, where we had venison pie and venison medallions, and it was definitely one of the culinary highlights of our entire two years in the country. Both dishes had taste for starters …
After filling ourselves up we headed back to the campsite and settled down for a night’s sleep with the rain still hammering the campervan roof, but we were dry and the forecast for the next few days was much improved, so we looked forwards to our trip up the West coast of South Island.
Next time we head for Franz Josef and a helicopter trip up to the famous glacier!
Cheers
Here’s some of the previous posts in this series
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