Nearly Neutral Travel

We managed to leave our campground at Haast without being shouted at even once by the proprietor, result! Perhaps Oli is more charming than I had thought… From Haast, we turned north up Highway 6, which we would follow for the next five days as we drove up the west coast.

Yesterday, we’d been surrounded by arid mountains and the vineyards of Central Otago, but now the landscape had really changed, with the road sandwiched between snowy alpine peaks on our right and the wild Tasman Sea on our left. We crossed countless single-track bridges spanning rivers and streams that rushed down from the mountains into the sea, and every corner brought a new vista.

New Zealand is definitely one of the most beautiful countries we’ve ever seen, and these two days’ driving covered the most breathtaking landscapes we’d seen so far. I normally fall asleep pretty much every time I get in the car (unless I’m driving, obviously), and I haven’t had a single nap yet! There’s a chance this has to do with the sheer volume of coffee and Tim Tams we’ve been consuming, but I think it’s more to do with the incredible scenery.

About 20 minutes after we left Haast, we pulled into Knight’s Point Lookout to get a good look at the wild coastline, and that was my driving done for the day. I do like to do my bit!

Our next stop was Lake Matheson, another mirror lake, this time offering a mossy lakeside trail and a reflection of the peaks of the Southern Alps. We didn’t manage to time our visit for the perfect mirror conditions (instead our visit seemed to coincide with a duck convention in the centre of the lake 🦆), but the view across the water to Mount Cook and Mount Tasman was still absolutely stunning.

Just nearby, we paused again at a nondescript parking area at the end of a track that we’d read had a decent but distant view of the fast-receding Fox Glacier. Having seen some seriously disappointing videos on YouTube of people visiting the Fox and Franz-Josef Glaciers (23 km further north) where they just looked very grey and very far away, we really didn’t have high hopes for what we’d see, particularly as huge landslides in 2019 closed access roads to nearer viewpoints. We’d been driving up the track with the glacier behind us and as we hopped out of the van, the view really took our breath away! It obviously helped that we caught it on a lovely sunny day, but the glacier looked like an enormous frozen waterfall descending down the mountain (which I guess is kind of what it is, really).

That night, we stayed at an eerily deserted campground near Franz Josef Glacier. We knew that there were other people doing a very similar route to us (because we kept awkwardly bumping into them in the supermarket) but we never did work out where they were staying as this seemed to be the only option in town. Anyway, we had a beautiful view of the Southern Alps and it was very nice to have the site to ourselves! We had expected to be doing lots more freedom camping, but it’s been seriously chilly at night the last few days so it’s been nice to be able to run our little fan heater while having our daily drinks reception (i.e. wine and crisps), and we can only do this if plugged into 240v power at a campground.

The next morning, we continued our journey north. Within a few minutes of setting off, we pulled into a Department of Conservation (DOC) campground for a quick pitstop to rescue a teatowel that had gone rogue and was sweeping our floor every time we went round a corner. I hopped out of the van to run through the trees and take a quick look at the view and this (below) is what met me. I think it’s a pretty good illustration of how beautiful this part of the world is – there were no other people, no viewpoint, but the view was still spectacular.

We also popped into Ōkārito, a tiny seaside hamlet set between a peaceful lagoon and the raging sea. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big fan of the Tasman Sea – I don’t think it comes across particularly strongly in photos, but even in the settled weather we were having, it was totally WILD! There were several DOC trails in the area, but these were all closed for an ‘aerial operation’, so we went for a walk on the beach instead. We saw lots of helicopters circling and couldn’t work out exactly what they were doing, but based on the number of poison warning signs we saw, we had a feeling it wasn’t going to end well for the wild mammals in the area… 😢

Our final stop of the day was Ross, a gold rush-era town with some nicely preserved buildings and a brilliantly obscure local museum. If you’ve ever read a Bill Bryson book, you’ll know exactly the kind I mean as he describes them so well – the ones where anything and everything relating to local history is popped in a room together, leaving you to wonder exactly why.

This might have been just ten minutes of confusing entertainment if it weren’t for the museum’s enthusiastic custodian, who popped over for a chat when he saw us looking at the “Honourable Roddy” nugget and heard we were from the UK. It was the largest gold nugget ever found in New Zealand when it was discovered in 1909, but it turned out we were looking at a replica rather than the real thing, because this was gifted to George V on his coronation in 1911 – how topical!

The chap told us that it had been in the local news again recently, because the nugget went missing when it reached the UK and no one knows where it ended up. Even before this, it had an interesting story, because despite being an exciting find, it was too big (and thus too expensive) for any one gold buyer to purchase. As a result, Sharpe and Scott didn’t know what to do with their find and for a while, it was used as a doorstop in the local pub! Eventually, the local hospital bought it, took it on a tour of NZ and sold raffle tickets to win it. The eventual winner was offered money by the government so they could use it as a coronation gift. But before doing so, they put it into an incredibly elaborate setting that was rumoured to be worth more than the nugget itself. I loved everything about this story – some properly good local history!

After our unexpectedly fascinating chat with the custodian (I think he kept the museum open late especially!) we set off for Hokitika, just a few minutes up the road. Here, we planned to stop for a day or two so that we could get some proper exercise and perhaps kick our Tim Tam Slam habit.

After a few quick errands in Queenstown (the biggest city for some distance) we set out towards Haast on the wild west coast.

Our first stop was in Arrowtown, a beautifully restored gold mining town, which was no stranger to tourism. We joined the other day-trippers in taking photos along the town’s main street, which looked like it had been lifted straight out of a western movie. We then plonked ourselves down in the sun with a cone each of Hokey Pokey (vanilla and honeycomb) ice cream. Sara swears this Hokey Pokey was way better than the first time we tried it in Akaroa, although I think it’s just the first time she had a cone to herself.

Arrowtown is also famous for the preservation of its Chinese settlement located just outside the main town. This settlement was home to many gold mining immigrants, who were invited to New Zealand to work in gold mining and hoped to earn their fortune. Many ended up staying even after the gold boom, which was particularly surprising given the discrimination that they experienced, including verbal abuse, racist newspaper articles, and discriminatory government policies. In 2002, the New Zealand government officially apologised to the Chinese community for their treatment.

Back on the main road, we passed the iconic Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge, built in 1880 for access to the goldfields. However, after traffic was moved to a new two-way bridge in 1963, it became the world’s first commercial bungee jumping site. We watched one guy throw himself off the bridge before quickly concluding that it was our budget stopping us follow suit, and nothing to do with fear.

That evening, we stayed in the lakefront town of Wānaka. Maybe this says something about the town itself, but one of its top attractions is a tree which appears to be growing straight out of the lake. We enjoyed a cold but sunny morning walk along the lakefront to see what all the fuss was about, and with a typical “huh”, confirmed that the tree does, indeed, exist. The best bit was actually watching other people’s photoshoots in front of the tree – we just couldn’t compete. Instead, we took the obligatory quick selfie, and got back on the road.

As much as we’ve enjoyed taking public transport over the past few months, we’ve also missed the option of stopping on the spur of the moment as we pass a worthy-looking detour. And it was exactly this reason that made us pull over as we approached the Lake Hawea Lookout, which consisted of a single picnic bench with absolutely breathtaking views across the glistening lake. After enjoying our lunch, it felt only right to top it off with yet another Tim Tam Slam.

That night we stayed in the frontier town of Haast, which to be honest was less of a town and more of a gas station, a pub and a holiday park. We’d read mixed reviews about the owners of our holiday park, who appeared to shout at visitors for the most minor faux pas. For this reason, Sara opted to stay in the van, and sent me to the site office to check in. I told Sara that it would be fine and I’d just turn on the charm. She looked extremely doubtful, but I swear, I nearly forced a smile out of the site manager.

Still, the site was only a stone’s throw from Haast beach – our first proper look at the wild west coast. Standing on the stunning but completely empty beach that stretched for miles in both directions, it became clear that we’d left the Queenstown day-trippers well behind, and this was where Great Coast Road really begins.

Our plan was to drive our new little camper van up the remote west coast of the South Island, looping round and dropping it off again in Christchurch 12 days later. But first, we had a not-so-small diversion to make to Milford Sound, another item on our NZ bucket list and, according to Rudyard Kipling (but not officially), the eighth wonder of the world.

Although Milford Sound is also on the west coast, there’s only one road in and out, and it’s a very long way round. So, before we started our roadtrip proper, we headed to the small town of Te Anau for the night ready for a drive along the Milford Highway through Fiordland National Park the next day.

Having been advised that we needed to charge our camper’s house battery on the first night and wanting to ease ourselves in gently anyway, we spent the night plugged into 240v power (meaning we could use our fan heater and our electric kettle, woohoo!) in a holiday park with a lake view. The below picture is us trying to emulate some of my mum’s enviable #vanlife pictures she sends us, although her table is much nicer and always has a lovely vase of flowers in the middle. Still, ours had wine (if not wine glasses), and that’s the important bit, as she would agree!

The next morning, we set off as the sun rose to tackle the Milford Highway. Like many roads in NZ, this is a long, windy, remote and incredibly scenic two-lane highway, and we’d read a lot of warnings about the lack of services along the route, the state of people’s driving (because they are looking at the view), and it taking much longer than expected. In the end, it took us about two hours from end to end, so not bad at all, although obviously we also had to come back later in the day.

We stopped along the way at the Mirror Lakes, which gave us a beautiful reflection of the mountains looming on the other side of the valley. To be honest, while we thought they were pretty, the lakes were much smaller than we had expected. However, we’ve since visited quite a few mirror lakes (it turns out they are a bit of a thing in NZ), and none have been as perfectly still and given such a convincing reflection as this one.

One of the best ways to explore Milford Sound is (unsurprisingly) on the water, and we were lucky enough to be on a small boat (below) that would allow us to get closer to the towering cliffs and waterfalls. The view was already pretty unreal before we boarded the boat…

…but as we pulled away from the dock, the landscape really opened up. Our two-hour cruise took us right along the fiord to where it met the Tasman Sea, where we saw with our own eyes why Captain James Cook had missed it not once but twice when sailing around the coast of New Zealand. Once out at sea, there’s really not much sign of the entrance at all, just the appearance of unbroken mountains and a continuous coastline. I haven’t included a picture because there’s really not much to see! Of course, the Māori people knew it was here, and had been fishing, hunting and collecting pounamu (jade) in the area for hundreds of years by the time European settlers eventually came across it in 1823. They named it Milford Sound after Milford Haven in Wales. It’s actually not a sound at all though, but a fiord, since it was created by a glacier rather than a river.

Having had such beautiful weather recently, we were slightly disappointed to have cloudy and rainy weather for the day, although we did read that Milford Sound is one of the rainiest places on earth, so we weren’t exactly unlucky. We’ve also heard from multiple local people since that it’s much better in the rain – I think because it gives it such a moody atmosphere and increases the flow of the hundreds of temporary waterfalls.

On the subject of waterfalls, we heard from our skipper that it was time for a ‘Glacial Facial’, where he brought the boat very close to one of the more voluminous falls and we got a faceful of spray. It was very cold, very wet and strangely salty! I didn’t want to risk breaking my phone by taking a video out on deck, but the second photo below, taken from inside the cabin, shows just how wet it was!

On the way back, we sat for a while waiting to go through the single-lane Homer Tunnel, which runs for a steep 1.2 km through solid rock. There are waterfalls running down the mountain right next to where the road enters the tunnel, and the entrance has to have a roof because of the risk of rockfalls. Sitting here gave us some time to appreciate just how extreme this landscape is – no wonder the tunnel took nearly 20 years to build, interrupted repeatedly by avalanches, poor weather, and even World War II. It’s still the only way in and out (by road) so it must be a massive challenge to maintain it and it’s only a slightly nervewracking drive!

After a brilliant start to our roadtrip, we headed back to Queenstown for a brief pitstop and a few errands before continuing north towards the town of Wānaka.