We leave Franz Josef after the helicopter ride and and head south along the western coastline on Route 6 aka the Haast Highway. Our destination is Queenstown which is 3-4 hours away.
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| 1 Lane Bridge |
This is really an isolated area and it is thinly populated. One of the interesting things about the road system is the many bridges that we go over...they are ALL 1-lane bridges and each is marked as to which end has priority. I guess they never planned for any growth so they chose to save money on the bridges. But everyone plays by the rules and there never seem to be any issues...keep in mind that there is not a lot of traffic anyway.
We arrive in Haast and our driver, Bruce, shows us the 3 selections for lunch.
We all choose the Blue Cod fish as it's supposed to be the best local fish for "fish and chips."
After lunch we break away from the coastline and head inland, still on route 6. We stop at a falls and the well known Blue Pools.
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| Falls |
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| Blue Pools |
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| Suspension bridge to Blue Pools |
Onward we go until we arrive at Lake Wanaka which we follow for some time. There is no boating to speak of on this huge lake. We are told that the water is consistently too cold.
A short drive brings us to Lake Hawea, another monster lake. We go thru Cromwell and see that this is a winter sports area...lots of ski runs.
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| A collection of bras hung on the fence...we did not contribute |
Finally we arrive in Queenstown which is on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and we pull up to the The Dairy Hotel. We bid farewell to our driver and settle in at this wonderful hotel owned by Matt and Paul. This place was simply outstanding and had a huge jug filled with jellybeans!
http://www.thedairy.co.nz/
Dinner that night was Italian at Sasso.
http://sasso.co.nz/
Queenstown again reminded us of Colorado and is filled with various activities and young people seeking to test their strength in hundreds of ways...and old farts like us attempting to keep up with them...this was the starting point for the "cheating death" tour...more to follow.
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