Day 8

Today we leave Queenstown and head north back towards the Southern Lakes Region.  Route 6 will take us up and over the Southern Alps and up the west coast to the city of Greymouth.  It is hard to really understand the roads here without seeing them for yourself.  When you look on the map you see these wide red lines and naturally equate them to what you are used to in the U.S.  The best way I can describe most of the roadways here is that they are like well maintained narrow two-lane country roads in the U.S., with an occasional 1 kilometer passing lane.  Additionally, they often cling to the side of nearly vertical cliffs as they wind their way through the countryside.  Because of the dramatic topographical changes of the country, and the often wild weather extremes, it can make for some interesting driving challenges.  As I have said before, many times bypassing a problem may require a day's drive, if it is even possible.

Prior to leaving on our trip, we had to change our planned routing because torrential rains had washed out a bridge on Route 6 south of Greymouth.  That was repaired within about three days, but the weather that had pretty much washed out our last two days in Queenstown, had closed the route up and over the mountains.  A check of the Department of Transportation website this morning says the road is open, so we are going to give it a go.  The road north of Wanaka takes us between lake Hawea on our right and Lake Wanaka on our left.

Lake Hawea

Lake Wanaka

Because of all the rain, the waterfalls were gushing at maximum flow.

 

We probably encountered four or five major slips that were in various stages of being cleared.  We also went through and area of minor flooding.  Not a trip for the faint of heart!

Finally we reached the coast and the small town of Haast.  The west coast of the South Island is known for many things, including the Whitebait Patty.  Whitebait is a bit of a delicacy in New Zealand, and whitebait from the West Coast of the South Island is the best. The idea is to have more whitebait than batter, however if you go to a restaurant you will probably find that it's the other way round! West Coasters also serve them with mint sauce which is very tasty.  Our view is, "when in Rome..."  Ours was more like very tiny minnows cooked in a scrambled egg.  Not fishy!

The remainder of the drive into Greymouth was uneventful and uninspiring.  We'll overnight here and then drive over to Blenheim and the Marlborough wine country tomorrow.