20/9/2011
It's already day 8 into the trip! Goodbye to Wanaka and off to the Glacier Country. We cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast with toast and Kiwi Tea! My brother saw an advertisement about the Kiwi Breakfast tea and wanted to find it in the supermarket and try it. We managed to find it during our grocery shopping yesterday. It's in a box with 100 bags of tea leaves, so that's quite a lot. Breakfast was good for a change from us eating toast almost everyday.
After breakfast, we checked-out and went to the i-Site building at the lake front to wait for the bus. The bus came a little later than the scheduled timing, but soon we were on the bus on our way to the West Coast of New Zealand.
Lake Wanaka.
A short boardwalk further out into the lake.
During the journey, we passed by Lake Hawea which was really pretty. And we also stopped at the eastern side of Lake Wanaka which had superb views, plus the clear blue sky. The weather today was just great!
Lake Hawea.
On the lookout point at the eastern side of Lake Wanaka.
Another view of Lake Wanaka, but nearer to the northern end of it.
Then at about 11am, we stopped at a cafe in a small town called Makarora. I wasn't hungry so I just had a small packet of copper kettle potato chips. Oh, copper kettle makes really good potato chips, you have to try that (if you haven't)!
In Makarora.
The bus outside the cafe.
A tractor driving on the highway.
After 30 minutes, we left the cafe and continued towards West Coast. We passed by the Haast Pass which is a mountainous road with lots of steep turns on undulating terrain. The highest point of the pass is at 564 meters above sea level and after that it was a steep downhill with many turns. The bus had to go really slow to drive through it. Also, while driving there, the bus driver told us that this road has lots of accidents and some including a car dropping over 160 feet into the valley below. That's one dangerous road! No wonder the road has runaway ramps at some points.
A single lane bridge crossing over the Makarora river.
On the unsealed road. Looking quite dangerous especially at high speed!
Stopped for a short walk to the Thunder Creek Falls.
The waterfall after about 15 minutes walk from the carpark.
Looking back at the mountains of Mt Aspiring National Park and the Haast Pass Highway.
Much of the bus journey thereafter was nothing much except looking at the tall mountains disappearing behind us as we went nearer to the coast until we reached a salmon farm and cafe at about 2pm for a short lunch break.
People looking down at the salmon fish tanks.
Each tank has a group of salmon of about the same size. Some are small young salmon while some are huge adult ones.
Then off we went to fox glacier which we arrived not long after lunch, about 3.30pm. We checked-in to Ivory Towers Lodge. The host told us that our room was upgraded for free! She then showed us the way to our room and I was surprised when I opened the door. It was really big with a kitchen and 4 beds. Guess it is a room for a family use but it wasn't occupied so she gave it to us for free.
Crossing over Paringa river.
Arrived in Fox Glacier town!
Ivory Towers accommodation.
We went to lake Matheson after that. It was a long walk on the Cook Flat road from the town all the way to the lake. It's about 6km long which took us an hour's walk to reach there. We saw plenty of sheep and cows along the way. I noticed that the sheep do not bother about us when we walked past them but the cows sure do give a strict menacing stare whenever we pass by them. Almost every single one of them stop what they're doing and just stare!
Saw a small school while walking to the lake.
Looking back at the town.
A little cow staring action.
A farmer driving his motorcycle and his dog (black one near the center) along with him.
Walking the long road to Lake Matheson.
Happy goat is happy!
Ah, finally a sign showing us that we are nearer to the lake since we started off from the town 40 minutes ago.
More cows stop whatever they were doing and looked at us.
After a good long walk, we finally reached the entrance of the track of Lake Matheson. It is a 1.5 hour loop walk around the mirror lake. At some points of the track, the view was great with a nice reflection of Mt Cook and its surrounding mountains.
Crossing the bridge over a stream near the start of the loop track.
A few tourists at one of the lookout points of Lake Matheson.
The mirror image of the lake!
We walked pretty fast and manage to finish the track faster than 1.5 hours as the sun was going to set very soon and we still had to walk back the way we came from. While walking back the sun was setting behind us leaving a beautiful sky we stopped once in a while to look at the view.
The cafe was closed already when we were leaving the place.
This really really big cow kept moo-ing at us when we walked along the road.
Walking back to Fox Glacier town.
Looking back at the road towards the sunset.
When we reached town it was almost 7pm already and was dark. Lucky for us there were street lights. We went to a grocery store, with many of the food being out of stock, and got some food to cook for dinner. When we paid for our shopping and left the store, the owner locked the door behind us and I realised that we were so lucky not to have missed the closing time.
We went back to our accommodation and cooked dinner and rest for the night.
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