We moved on today, east from Haast then south to Wanaka. The journey took us upstream beside the Haast River, which was quite wide at the mouth - the bridge across it on our way in yesterday was another “one lane bridge” but had TWO passing places due to the width it had to span. Over the first forty or so kilometres the valley became even wider as rock had been scooped out by a glacier in the past, leaving a wide U-shaped valley with extremely steep sides, often with waterfalls hurtling down them. An example was the Thunder Creek Falls, which we could hear from the road, although we had to walk down a track before they came into view.
The river water had a beautiful blue hue and wound from side to side over its valley floor, often braiding (taking several channels) amongst the huge boulders that had been deposited by the river when in flood.
The river and falls were just the beginning of the spectacular scenery we experienced today: mountains, sometimes with bare slopes, sometimes populated by a mass of trees; occasional pastureland with cattle or sheep; more mountains, the higher ones with the residue of winter showing as snow at their peaks; and lakes with beautiful deep blue water and reflections of wispy clouds and mountains.
And once again we‘ve been oh so lucky - the weather could not have been better to show off this scenic wonderland.
Jean
