Big Trip

One of our longest days today, from Queenstown up to Fox Glacier. Max & Erin were fantastic, bless them, given that they were confined in the van for pretty much the whole day. We set off, the wrong way (well, not quite, but not the way we intended to go) and instead of missing out Arrowtown, we went right through it. Very pretty, with lots of little miners' cottages. Sort of a chocolate box frontier town. It would have been good to stop & look around, but we had a long day ahead and had started late, so we'll have to save it for the next visit. Then we wound our way up the hairpin bends leading us up and over the Crown Range. Very wild looking moorland, and windy, second-gear hills eventually dropped us down into an almost claustrophobic valley, so steep were the hillsides. We made Wanaka in time for lunch by the lake, and just beyond Wanaka it started to rain. We stopped at Fantail falls, a beautiful waterfall only a couple of minutes walk from the road. Shortly afterwards, we crossed a single lane bridge over a river thundering down over rocks in the gorge below. The volume of water forcing its way down really did make you aware of the power of water. We pressed on, and eventually came upon the coast near Haast. Very wild and rocky, with crashing waves. My kind of seaside. Mind you, there's no land for 1700km, so there's nothing much to get in the way of the waves. Eventually holed up on a nice little site in Fox, had a good dinner in the local pub & went to bed.