Franz Josef, Fox Glacier and the road to Wanaka via Haast pass
Lake Hawea
Today is a probably the longest hours of driving in the entire trip, all combined about 4h. Plus we have to squeeze in some extra walks to see the Glaciers, since yesterday we stayed put.
We started well rested and really early by the 3 easy walk to see Franz Josef Glacier. Which is quite far up the valley, so – yes it must be impressive but I was not impressed…
We then drove the 20+ km to Fox Glacier and did the river view walk that has 2 viewpoints. I liked Fox Glacier better because of the view, it was a better angle so you could see more of it,
I also felt that we were closer to it. That was a nice and easy walk – even if the temperatures were still below 10 degrees.
I am happy we have all our warm layers, gloves and hat too !
That brought us close to lunch time and we drove south towards lake Peringa hoping to find a nice picnic table to eat our sandwiches with a view. We got a little upset – ALL the picnic tables of all the rest areas for the next 1h20 were full. There are so much more people in the South island than in the Northlands !
We ended up having lunch at the point we were aiming for our first planned sightseeing stop called Knight heads viewpoint. It’s a nice higher ground vantage lookout over the sea and basalt rock formations jutting out. We had our lunch there ( and there were too many sandflies, so we ate it quick ! ).
Then we continued down to Haast and through the namesake pass. This section from the Haast Junction along the valley is stunning, there are snowed peaks and it follows amazing mountains – plus we had a fantastic blue sky for the entire drive.
This section also has a lot of interesting stops and to cut the drive, we did many of them. First 2 waterfalls, the thunder creek falls ( 28m drop!) and then the fantail falls. Then a couple of viewpoints as we arrived towards Wanaka to see the two lakes.
We arrived not to long in Wanaka, set up our tent and got a quick shower before meeting Gayle for a beer and a nice diner. We had a good time.
