Hell Haast no fury

Gates of Haast
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Ben's diary:

Another long drive is ahead of us, but again the foreboding and spectacular coast is enough to keep us occupied until a lunchtime stop in Haast township. Though there's hardly enough there to justify the name.

Since the North Island we have had a craving for a fish and chip lunch and Haast township delivered, or so we thought. Once our order from the small cafe turned up it was frozen fish. We ate it in the van, unsatisfied, and wondered how this could be in a coastal village. A culinary tour this is not!

Not a bad lunch spot
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Soon we're off again and once more NZ does deliver on the scenery front. We drive up and up on the Haast pass before stopping at the gates of Haast (not Lord of the Rings, but a real name), a tumult of water forcing its way down through huge boulders.

Before too long we're going down again and Lake Wanaka reveals itself, Wanaka lying at the other end. It's a small ski resort town in the winter and feels a little more interesting. We spend a relaxed afternoon exploring and writing postcards, before driving to a nearby DOC where we spend the night by a river.

Roy's peak, at 1600m, towers over Wanaka, 1100m below, and the next day we set about climbing it. It's hot at the bottom but freezing at the top. Being British, we feel obliged to stoicly eat our lunch at the top. We are rewarded with breathtaking views over peaks as far as the eye could see, the most distant covered in snow.

That night we spend a satisfied evening cooking curry in our campsite overlooking wineries leading down to the lake. We tried to buy a CD in the morning - seemed like all their stock was scratched! We took our frustrations out on the mountainbike trails of Sticky Forest nearby. Glentress this was not, spent half the time trying to find the trails, before discovering they're pretty tough. Becks handles it much better than she thinks. Next up Queenstown!