Making an early start, with songs on the radio such as "One More Sleep Til Santa" (to the tune of "One Man went to mow") we left Franz Josef for Fox Glacier town, half an hour away. Instead of going to the glacier though, we found a lake a few kilometres away which offered us stunning reflections of the glacier scenery. At sunrise, this was brilliant - although our camera memory cards are now worryingly full.
Today was generally a driving day as we had to make the long trip from Franz Josef to Lake Wanaka. We decided to make plenty of stops on the way, so after the lake, our next stop was a glacier 'Viewpoint', which, compared to the lake, was awful - yet a favourite with the sand flies... Scrapping this, we decided to walk right up to the terminal face of the glacier. Moving swiftly through the multiple 'No stopping' rockfall-probe zones, we rounded a bend and got a good close-up view of the receding ice.
Leaving the glaciers behind, we made our way to 'Ship Creek', just before Haast. Here we took a short hike in the forest swamp, which was an interesting tea sort of colour. We also did a 'dune walk' which was a bit dune-less for our liking so we popped out onto the beach on the way back. Looking absent-mindedly at the sea we were excited to suddenly see a few find pop out. We'd come across a pod of Hector dolphins! Eager to see more, we chased the pod up and down the beach (easier said than done on a pebbly beach in sandals) and at one point I managed to see for Dolphins at once, being raised by a wave. I didn't manage to capture and of their big leaps on camera, but I do have the odd fin to show for my efforts.
The town of Haast came next, an old mining town with a good visitor centre but notice else to say for for it. Just before Haast however, we happened upon the Curly Wave Whitebait company and I treated myself to a 'whitebait pattie'. This was a dollop of raw whitebait mixed with some egg, which was plonked onto a hot plate and cooked, and served with white bread and my choice of seasoning, salt, lemon or, weirdly, mint sauce. I went for seasoning and the whole thing was really tasty!
Appetite whetted for lunch, we took a quick bite further along the west coast (made even quicker by the ferocious sand flies who also had a quick bite) and the next spot we found to stop at were the 'Roaring Billy Falls'. I'll say here that my expectations were medium - most of the rivers we have seen have very little water in them compared to the expanse of river bed, I suppose in snow melt season they are raging torrents, but generally in summer they seem quite pathetic. Indeed, we walked over a 50 m or so expanse of dry river bed to get to Billy falls, and they were quite high, but hidden in bush and not partcularly pleasant. The stop in the car had been appreciated though.
The Thunder Falls were next on the agenda, and with expectation set low, we were pleasantly surprised to find a small but tall falls, with a pretty blue pool at the base and a trickling river in from of the pool. More blue pools were to be found at the aptly named 'Blue Pools' hike, further along the Haast Pass. Apparently these pools are sometimes grey due to gravel flow, but thankfully we saw them gorgeously blue and deep (and likely, very cold).
Leaving the Haast pass we came across Lake Hakea, which was stunning, with mountains rising from every bank, if a little exposed and wavy. More appetising was Lake Wanaka next door, at the base of which was the town of Wanaka, our destination for the day. Here we picked up supplies, including some chocolate. Whittaker's chocolate here is delicious, but New Zealand have some brilliant Cadburys Dairy Milk flavours too. The Black Foresy bar has crunchy bits and forest fruits flavoured chewy bits, and better still is the Snack bar, in which each square has a different flavour (strawberry, coconut ice, caramel, pinapple, orange or Turkish delight). I with they'd make these widely available in the UK. There's even a Dairy Milk Energy Bar which I could possibly get away with eating and saying its 'for training'...
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