Haast Pass


This post was published on Thursday 17 January 2019.

The route from Franz Josef to Queenstown goes through the Haast Pass – and like Arthur’s Pass it is mostly flat, following the course of rivers (very sensibly) while having some climbing sections.

We stopped off at a lake or two, though because it was overcast and murky, none of the photos really came out. We also stopped at Thunder Falls – a huge ninety-six metre high waterfall that isn’t at its peak (due to it being the summer), but impressive nonetheless.

As everywhere in NZ, the natural water is the most amazing blue colour. We haven’t worked out why yet – hopefully someone will be able to tell us!

For lunch we stopped off at Lake Makarora, which has a caf̩ and a petrol station Рand some pretty sweet views...

Cleopatra (our van) is the white one in the middle...

We chose to drive the Crown Range alternative route to Queenstown – for the views – which is unfortunate as I then proceeded to fall asleep (thankfully Jess was driving). However, it did provide some rather spectacular views of Queenstown as we drove in.

As ever it’s hard to capture the scenery, especially when it’s a) hazy and b) I’m in a moving vehicle (again, Jess was driving!).