Friday, February 9, 2018

Haast Pass And The West Coast, 1

After Glenorchy and the Routeburn hike, we decided our business in the south was finished and it was time to head north via the most expeditious route, the west coast. There were surprises along the way...
We drove from Glenorchy back through Queenstown, across
the Crown range again, and stopped to walk a bit of Wanaka;
here, at a lakeside park market

Thunder Creek Falls, near Haast Pass

Among the longer of the many one-way bridges on the South
Island

Opening onto the Tasman Sea

The west coast bush is among the most impenetrable we've seen;
don't even think about the sandflies

Occasional seascape glimpses


Encampment by a historical marker...somebody made it this
far in the expedition of 1846-47

Somehow, it had not occurred to us that the passage of the
cyclone, especially as it made landfall, might have had
consequences for the coast, and for the road...

Even in the best of circumstances; welcome to the west coast



First of several crews removing debris from the road

Lunch time stop in the rain at Lake Mapourika

"Just kayakin' in the rain..."; don't even think about the sandflies

















More clean-up; we were impressed with how quickly the whole
long mess of a road was being cleared

Elecctric lines down

Indeed!

1 comment:

Tawana said...

Love the last slide! We experienced that in our drive from Chicago last Saturday...major freezing rain and ice storms in Missouri and Arkansas. We had been worried about snow, but drove out of that, then hit ice. Wow!