After a night of very heavy rain, we rose to a nice sunny morning, and took a few photos around the hotel and town before we left Franz Joseph.
We didn't have far to drive, because we passed Fox Glacier and stopped at Lake Mathieson so as to have a walk around it. It is a famous walk, because the lake is often very calm and will have reflections of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. Unfortunately, it wasn't calm enough today for many reflections, but we enjoyed walking in the rain forest and soon warmed up amongst the trees, where we were sheltered from the sharp breeze.
The view from the end of the lake was spectacular, though the mountains were partly swathed in cloud.
We also managed to see some reflections in the lake from a special are called Reflections Island, but it wasn't sufficiently calm for the reflections to be really sensational.
We got our last sight of the sea as we turned inland. We were soon at the longest single-lane bridge in New Zealand. It's a kilometre long, but I had to photograph it out of the bus front window, so I missed the start of it.
We drove on until midday and stopped at a salmon farm for lunch. Unaccountable, I seem to have forgotten to take any photographs of that, though we stood and watched one enormous salmon for ages - he looked to be three feet long and was very fat. I felt vaguely guilty about the delicious smoked salmon sandwich I had just eaten.
We had been following the Haast River for quite some time, and now we approached a pass known as the Gates of Haast. There is an interesting old bridge which spans the gorge
and the Haast river roars down the steep-sided gorge, which is strewn with large boulders.
The road follows Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea, and they are both very beautiful, with very blue waters.
We made a brief stop at the town of Wanaka, at the head of Lake Wanaka.
We were, by then, well out of the rainforest area of the west coast, and into a much dryer area.
We pressed on into the Gibson Valley, well known for excellent wines, and passed various orchards as well. The area grows a great deal of stone fruit. I would like to eat some, but it isn't the right season, so all we have had so far is tinned! A couple of our group had been thinking of bungie jumping, but we were seriously held up by roadworks so it was just after 5 when we arrived at Kawarau Bridge, where the first ever bungie jump had been set up at the old bridge. We took photographs of where they might jump tomorrow, if they still feel so inclined. You can just see the jumping platform, half way along the bridge.
The Kawarau River is the most wonderful greeny-blue colour.
We pressed on to Arrowtown, the most picturesque and best preserved gold-mining town in the area. Unfortunately, there was only time for a very quick drive round it, and my pictures, out of the bus window, were largely rubbish. It needs another visit!
Eventually, some time after 6, we arrived in Queenstown, where we are to stay two nights. Many of us were too exhausted to do any exploring, it is a very long walk into town and I couldn't really contemplate it; it wasn't the walk down into town that was so bad, it was the thought of the walk back up the enormously steep hill afterwards that defeated me.
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