Its funny how you don’t seem to get immune to beauty, and road through the Haast Pass is certainly beautiful. We stopped at one lay by where the river was bright blue and the water so clear you could not really determine the depth of it. We took a photo of the motorhome there to send to Jonas to show that Dethleffs can go to amazing places. I must say we are very happy with the performance of the motorhome, and the way it functions for the two of us, and the two dogs, even though we are away for a long stretch of time.
There were the inevitable stops for photos along the way the first real stop was at Thunder Falls. There were some interesting stories on the sign boards at Thunder Falls. Apparently the rocks and grit from this area were used to make the road.
A little further on was Fantail Falls and they were interesting too. The sign board had quite a lot to say about sandflies – apparently they were inttroduced by the managers of the roading crews to keep them working – if they stood still they would get eaten! What was also interesting about Fantail Falls was that visitors had left their calling cards in the form of rock towers. They were all over the shore.
We decided we had to make one as well and found that it was not as easy as it looked. Ours fell down before we had even left the beach.
The final stop for the day was to the Blue Pool which it at the meeting of the Blue River to another river (forget the name of it). This was a 1km walk downhill (and 1 km up hill to come back), through bush and the track was well cared for and laid out. The young ones all seemed to know about it because they came prepared with togs and towels. The pool is accessed by a swing bridge and the colour is simply beautiful, but not as azure in colour as the Hokitika Gorge. The blue comes from the light refractive index of the really pure water apparently.
We picked up a couple of German girls who wanted a lift back to Wanaka, and the dogs were pretty pleased about that – they had someone so snuggle up to on the road.
The scenery remained spectacular as we approached firstly Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea before finally entering the township of Wanaka itself
Away From Home NZ 