Driving - again

Knight's Point
see all photos »

This started off as a dismal day, carrying on the gloom of the previous day.  We awoke to pouring rain, and thick cloud.  I had a bad night with Lloyd also, he was awake a lot of the night, and I run out of clothes for him in the night so he ended up and a t-shirt and long shorts, with a blanket to keep the cold off. Luckily I had some older clothes packed away, which seem to fit okay, so put these on him in the morning.

We decide to move on - the prospect of being in the motorhome all day in the rain was non-appetising, at least on the move the kids would sleep.  We head for Fox Glacier village first, this is much like Franz Josef, just smaller.  I discover that Lloyd cant go up in a helicopter to see the glaciers as the pressure is too much for his ears.  We talk of one of us going up, but decide that the weather is too bad, and we drive southwards.  I'm now pretty fed up as it feels like we should have turned eastwards at Greymouth rather than trek all this way south for no reason.  We  have the prospect of another day's driving ahead aswell.

It was, as the kiwis would say, awesome

Jackson's Bay
see all photos »

The drive to the next "town" is 120K and goes fairly uneventfully.  The cloud prevents any window viewing, and we dont see much of interest.  It is a relief to hit the coast again at Knight's Point, I'm definitely more at home along the coastline.  We head for a place called "Haast" which turns out to be literally a petrol station and an information centre (and this is in the guidebooks!!!).  We look at a campsite down near Haast Beach but decline it's services and decide to drive on.  Steve does a bit of fishing (no luck still!!) down at Jackson Bay before we leave the Haast area, his last for a whilst as we are heading inland again.

Mount Hooker
see all photos »

We then enter the Mount Aspiring National Park which is a World Heritage site.  To be honest I didnt think it would be much, but was very wrong.  The views and scenery were out of this world.  It had everything - waterfalls, valleys, mountains, gorges, lakes.  And the sun came out right at the end of the day as we started driving through the park, just in time to catch a glance at the mountains we had driven so close to earlier in the day.

It was, as the kiwis would say, awesome.  The light at that time of day was spectacular, making even a small forest of trees look like they were special.  We make a number of stops to take photos and look at the view, probably stopping more than we had stopped on any route before.  And I think me and Steve both felt happier, as if the journey south maybe had been worthwhile after all.

Matthew sightseeing
see all photos »

We stop in Makarora, a "town" (I put in quotes as these really arent towns, this one consisted of one place as far as I could see) where we got a dinner and listened to some bar staff doing a bit of karaoke. The views in the campsite are wonderful, and when the sun has set the night sky is lit up with millions of stars.