Friday 18th February

We had another leisurely start to the day.  The weather is warm but quite misty.

Packed up and checked out by 9.30am.

We drove into Franz Joseph to breakfast at Speights.  We decided to go for coffee after breakfast at the coffee shop next door as it offered free Wi-Fi and we needed to upload the blog.  Unfortunately, for some reason we were unable to make a connection so will have to try again tonight.

Our original plan was to go to Lake Matheson and Fox Glacier this morning on the way to Wanaka, however as the weather did not improve we decided to head straight for Wanaka.  We were warned that the journey of 190 miles (300km) would take about 5 hours as the road has lots of bends.  By the time we arrived at Lake Matheson, the weather had cleared slightly so decided to go for the walk after all.  We were so pleased that we did as we managed to see some more Fan Tails and some close encounters of the 4^th kind with some beautifully calling (similar riff but an octave or 2 higher and so sweet) birds which we are not yet able to identify.  The moss covered trees were remarkable and we spotted a strange blue toadstool.

Unfortunately, Mount Cook was still covered in cloud and the reflections were not as good as we had hoped.

We followed the coast road down to Knights Point where we saw some more fantails and this time managed to get some photos.

However, even though we had bought some sand fly repellent yesterday many of the pesky little things weren’t worried by it.  We beat a hasty retreat and had to use some after bite.

Driving further South we stopped for a pot of tea at Haast.  Although Haast appears to be a reasonable sized place on the map it is very small and we agreed with the guide book’s description of the settlement as a bit of a non-entity.

The road then turned east into the Haast Valley.   As we climbed we got into the cloud base and everything appeared very damp. 

We made a couple of stops to photograph the waterfalls but we were not prepared to hang around for too long and become fresh meat for the sand flies.  We stopped at the gates of Haast where the cliffs towered above us on both sides and the river roared beneath us.  It could easily be the setting for the gates in the second book of The Lord of the Rings.

Almost as soon as we went over the Haast Pass the weather cleared.  We dropped down to Makarora which was even more of a non-entity than Haast.

Linda started to relax after being on the cliff roads where the rocks towered above us and there were signs of rock slides.

We arrived at Lake Wanaka, which was much bigger than we had expected.  The water was so blue even though the sky was still overcast.

We went over a small hill and Lake Hawea appeared.  

The views of both of the lakes were good as they weren’t obscured by trees.  Each of the Lakes is about 50km long and we went down half of each.

We arrived in Wanaka, which at New Year appears to become home to half of the teenagers from South Island and is the NZ version of Newquay, to find that it has one main street.  The restaurants were much more stylish than we had experienced previously in South Island (jandals, frayed jeans and scruffy clothes are not acceptable).  We opted for a Thai Restaurant and our meals were delicious.  We are staying at the Wanaka Hotel which is not as upmarket as the Hotel in Hanmer Springs and not as relaxing as the Lodge in Franz Josef.