With localised bad weather due to stay in the Mt Cook area for a few days we decided to cut our losses and head SW to the small town of Wanaka on the edge of the lake of the same name.

This part of central Otago is like the English lake district on Steroids! The lakes are bigger and deeper, the mountains higher and more of them.

A beautiful region with great camping/motorhome sites, all with stunning views.

                                                                                                                                Lake Hawea

                                                                                                                Lake Wanaka

From Wanaka we took the mountain road over the high pass, through the Gates of Haast (a gap in the mountains and over a torrent) to the small township of Haast on the Tasman Sea coast.

This road was only completed in the mid 60’s and is a major engineering feat that is one of the top road journeys in the world. Spectacular!

                                                                                                A gap in the mountains on the side of Lake Hawea.

                                                                                                The Gates of Haast Bridge

                                                                                One of the many streams that pour down from the surrounding mountains

From Haast we have headed north up the west coast road to Fox Glacier where we had hoped to get some walking and mountain biking done but once again

the mountain weather has turned against us. We did get to trek up to the snout of the glacier passing signs along the way that charted the 5km reduction in the

length of the glacier since the mid 1700’s.