Wednesday, May 17, 2006

15May06

15May06

Today was a bit of a long drive.  We had about 390kms to travel and Joan and I reverted to our old selves being the last ones out of the campground in the morning and also the last ones into the campground in Fox Glacier in the evening.  We stop to take pictures and smell the flowers along the way more than most of the others.  The scenery on Hwy 6 is had to describe in normal terms.  The word “incredible” was mentioned a lot.  The drive from Cromwell north along <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Lake Dunstan and then from Wanaka north along Lake Hawea and then along Lake Wanaka is just totally a fantasy scene.  There are snow capped mountains all around.  The sheep pastures leading up to the mountains are green like mowed lawns.  Then the forests up to the tree line which then turn into major vertical rock walls up to jagged peaks.  We can understand why they are called the Southern Alps as they look similar to the European Alps.  Eventually you go over the Haast Pass which is the lowest pass to get to the western side of the Alps.  The vistas on this route are just ‘incredible”.

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We made the short 5km drive south of Haast Village to Haast Beach.  It’s just a General Store and gas station with a parking area on the beach side for about ten vehicles.  It’s then about a 100 meter walk to the beach.  Joan and I spent about 20 minutes or so walking the beach and picking up shells and stones and enjoying the Tasman Sea.  Along the path to the beach is a pasture with sheep anda small pony that Joan took a liking to last year.  The girl in the General Store across the street says that the pony is very old.  Joan had a concern this year that the pony may have an infected tooth as it had a swelling on the side of it’s jaw.  The girl says that it is fed a special diet but Joan did feed him some apples.

 

We arrived after dark into the Fox Glacier Lodge and Campground and were the last one’s in for the night.  Some of the others in the team had decided that they were going to do the helicopter flight over the Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers (pronounced here glassi-ers).  Joan and I decided to also go so there will be 10 of the group going.  It should be a real thrill.

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