Leaving Wanaka

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

We decided to leave Wanaka a day early and head to the glaciers. We travelled on Route 6 with a quick detour to a pottery and wool studio. There was a lot of things on display as well as wool to purchase. There is a big fair this weekend in Wanaka and the potter was working to complete pieces for that.

As we travelled by Lake Hawea we were in awe of the beauty of the Caribbean blue color as well as absolutely no homes built around it. Even stranger was that there was NO ONE on the lake. We then entered Mount Apiring National Park and had Lake Wanaka on our right, another beautiful huge lake of which we spent some time on earlier this week.

Our first stop was the Blue Pools which we have posted some pictures. It was a short 30 minute tramp just north of Muddy Creek which led us through silver beach to a viewing platform overlooking the pools at the mouth of the Blue River. We were able to ee large brown and rainbow trout.

We travelled through Haast Pass which had a one lane bridge over a beautiful river. We stopped to take some pictures and moved on to view Fantail Falls only a 5 minute bush walk. This fall was a beautiful fan-tailed shape at the foot of the Fantail Creek. Down the round a few km was Thunder Creek Falls, another 5 minute bush walk through kamahi and silver beach to the 28 m fall. There were huge, old trees which reminded us of the forest trees in LOTR.

Before we knew it we were along the Tasman Sea. We stopped at Knights Point to make sandwiches for lunch. It was a beautiful overlook. Continuing north, we stopped at Bruce Bay and walked along the beach. Steve found a white rock and wrote on it and put it on some driftwood. The picture is in the slideshow. There were hundreds of monuments built along the beach.

It seemed like no time and we were at Fox Glacier. We arrived around 4:30 pm so decided to head right up to the glacier to check it out. There was no visitor center just a path marked with stakes and ropes to get a viewing of the glacier. No one is allowed off the path or onto the glacier without a certified guide. We decided to do the hike which was about one hour since the forecast for the next day was rain. As we walked we could see the river flowing which was contributing to the glacier formation. The top of the mountain was cloud covered but we were able to see quite a bit of the glacier. The ice is white and blue with black streaks in some of it.

We were pleased to get fairly close and get some great pictures. As we turned to head back to the car the clouds broke and we were able to see all the way to the top of the mountain. It was beautiful. We had felt we made a good decision to leave Wanaka a day early.

We found a fairly new, reasonably priced motel called the High Peaks Motel which has a view of Mount Cook. Unfortunately it was clouded over and began to sprinkle as we arrived. Went out to dinner at the Cook Saddle Cafe and Saloon. Steve had ribs and I had grilled king prawns. Back to the motel to get on the internet and a good nights sleep.