20TH - 24TH APRIL

The morning after our helihike we woke up to fairly ok weather, so decided we뭗 check out the bottom of Fox Glacier. It was quite a walk to get as close as we had to Franz Joseph, so we opted for just the viewpoint, which was a short stroll through a forest for a fantastic view. We were quite astonished to see that the Glacier and all the mountains around were clear, and so we decided to backtrack a little to the Mount Cook viewpoint. We didn뭪 think it would be clear enough, so weren뭪 going to bother, but we were sure glad we did! There were a few clouds along the tops, but the views of both the Glacier and the mountain tops were superb! This was our first look at Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, and impressive it was too!

The drive down to Wanaka followed the coast more or less, and stopped for lunch at one of the viewpoints high

on the cliffs above the sea, where there was a colony of seals on the rocks below soaking up the sun, seemingly oblivious to the hoards of people above - it seemed we뭗 managed to stop at the place where all the coach tours stopped for lunch!!! Still it didn뭪 entirely spoil it, and the rest of the journey down the coast was great!

After a couple of hours or so we turned inland and into Mount Aspiring National Park, and across the Haast pass, the lowest and our last of the Southern Alps crossings. It may well have been low, but the scenery was still pretty awesome, and the best thing about this area was the sheer isolation of the place, there are vast areas of unpopulated land, and very few people even where there are villages. There were a few DOC campsites along the pass, but we decided to press on and stop at one which was closer to Wanaka. We did stop off for a 10 minute return