Day 10 - Gates of Haast

Kia ora, everybody.

From Lake Hawea we drove to the Gates of Haast, which was a very pretty drive through Mount Aspiring National Park which contained the lowest pass over the Southern Alps.  It had rained the day before so we were surrounded by waterfalls the whole way.  There were a lot of pull offs along the way with plenty of hikes, long or short.

First detour was the Blue Pools, a short walk through rainforest to several suspension bridges over another beautifully colored river.  One bridge was over the area where a very green river merged with a very blue river.  The result was quite spectacular and VERY clear- hence the Blue Pools.  You could see all the way to the bottom of the deep pools and the rock formations under the water were lovely.

 

Cool moss-covered trees in the rainforest

Next were Cameron and Pleasant Flats, which offered some great photo ops.

Fantail Falls were on the opposite side of the river, so Lance decided to ford it and get a picture in front.  Keep in mind we were in Glacier Country so the water was frigid!

Roaring Billy falls was a little longer walk and across a large expanse of rocks.  We had the whole area pretty much to ourselves so Lance decided he wanted some slow motion pictures of him tossing large rocks into the water.  And he thinks I'm strange.

We cross the mountains and end up at the visitor center in Haast (Du, Du Haast- made that joke way more times on the trip than was funny) to see if there were any good stops between Haast and Fox Glacier.  Turns out we didn't want to do any of them because we couldn't get out of the car for fear of the SAND FLIES- THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.  I know that sounds dramatic, but seriously, if you were there you would feel the same way.  Awful, terrible creatures.  Why, God, why?  No joke, I still wake up in the middle of the night hearing their buzzing.  They are nicknamed the Draculas of the West Coast.  They are like mozzies (Kiwi name for mosquitoes) on steroids.  Their bites hurt and bleed.  I had dozens of red marks all over my legs for weeks after our trip.  Kelly and Ryan had the same feelings after their honeymoon here last month.

I did brave the flies to stop at the Curly Tree Whitebait Company (ok, a small shack really) to get some whitebait fritters.  Whitebait are minnows that are very popular on the south island.  It's a traditional food to make into fritters.  I hopped out and danced around while the guy made my fritters.  A car of guys pulled up to get some too.  After standing there for a minute they turned to me and said, "We were all wondering why you were dancing around when we pulled up, but now we see why.  Sand flies."  When the guy handed me my fritters, I was pretty surprised to see it is literally a bunch of tiny minnows mixed with a little egg.  It was a little strange to eat just a bunch of tiny fish on a slice of white bread, but they were tasty!

We drove along the coast before arriving at Fox Glacier.  Hello Ocean.