Haast Pass towards Wanaka

Brilliant sunshine greeted us on Monday  at the Haast Santana POP and after a brief walk, a visit to the shop where we were parked and then the Information Centre to look at their displays about the area and to buy a little pamphlet regarding the many walks through the Haast Pass we set off on the very picturesque drive towards Wanaka.

The road winds through spectacular scenery  with the steep mountains of Mount Aspiring National Park, lush rainforest, tumbling rivers and golden tussock covered hills. As with the west coast all the bridges are one way and there are many walks starting from the highway, ranging from just 5 minutes to 5 hours. Like last time we were here we chose the shorter ones to do so we could get to the closest northern end of Lake Wanaka before it got too late.

First up was the Roaring Billy 25 minute return walk through a nice podocarp and silver beech forest with plenty of tree ferns to the Haast River with its wide, stony bed giving us a great view of the waterfall on the other side. A canopied jet boat was there taking some of the many tourists for a spin.

Next up was just a 5 minute circular bush walk to a tranquil but cold mountain stream at Pleasant Flat where you can camp overnight. Across the road you get impressive views of Mount Hooker across the grassy plain. It would be even more awesome with winter snow about.

Had a small fall getting down here!

Thunder Creek Falls was another 5 minutes walk to see, passing through kamahi and silver beech to the spectacular, and aptly named, 28 metre falls.

Fantail Falls 

Many pretty additions to this log!

Fantail Falls, not nearly so impressive, were not far down the road and parking was very tight. There are just so many tourists on the road at the moment, with, according to the paper, an influx of visitors from China with it being the Chinese New Year. We are being warned about their driving but it was a couple of young guys, from France we think, who nearly did some damage to the front of our bus at the Falls when they tried to swing to park in front of us even though we were sitting right there. They hit our bikes and the passenger got out with a beer in his hand being very blasé. Luckily we couldn't see any damage to us and their car had so many scrapes and dents we wouldn't know what was new on theirs! Scary how he was driving though.

We then parked at the Cameron Flat camping area to do the hour return walk to the Blue Pools which we were so awed by on our last trip. 

Blue Pool from swing bridge. 

It goes through silver beech forest to a couple of swing bridges overlooking the pools at the mouth of the Blue River. They are a lovely blue colour but not as impressive this time as on our last visit, the colour dependant on how much rainfall there has been. It was a very busy walk however with quite a lot of people standing, swimming or sunbathing by the pools. Often you can see large brown or rainbow trout but there were probably too many people disturbing them today.

After that it wasn't long before we arrived at the Boundary Creek DOC carpark and camp which is our home for the night. A lovely spot right on the lake and true to form with the Wanaka wind.

Off the shoulder, due to strong wind from the left!

It is whipping strongly down the lake and is very noisy in the trees but luckily our spot seems quite sheltered. No cellphone coverage here though. We know there are mosquitos about but we're keeping our vents closed tonight  and hoping that we have no mice visitations - apparently they were a huge problem for campers last year. If we can keep the mozzies out then surely we can keep the mice out!