Queenstown, New Zealand
“Queenstown? Three hours tops,” offered the nice lady at the Haast River Top 10 Holiday Park this morning when I checked out. Google Maps says it’s 2:37 and 205 km (about 125 miles). We left at 9:45 (lazy morning) and checked in at the Goldridge resort on the north side of Queenstown at 6:45 PM. That’s 9 hours traveling time or an average speed of 14 mph. Obviously we made some stops.
In fact, we made four hiking stops in the Mt. Aspiring National Park and countless other roadside stops for photos. Each stop is marked with a nice sign describing the trail and estimated hiking times, “20 minutes return,” perhaps. But for us 20 minutes can easily turn into an hour. So taking your time can seriously cut into our mph average.
The stops were worth it though: three water falls and the Blue Pool stop. Each of the hikes passed through dense forests of huge beach trees and again felt almost jungle-like. The Blue Pool was probably the most interesting. Two rivers meet to form, as the name says, a blue pool. It’s deep water that is both deep blue and crystal clear. There are two swinging bridges to cross and a broad beach area of river rock to walk on. The beach area is surely under water in the early spring when the snow melts.
It was here I missed the photo op of the day and maybe the entire trip. When I was on the second swinging bridge, the one directly over the deep part of the blue pool, I overheard a girl say to her companion, “I so could do it.” What “it” was didn’t cross my mind. But when I got down to the beach area and was picking my way to the water’s edge I heard a loud splash. Sure enough, she’d jumped from the bridge into the blue pool and, by the time I turned around, she was swimming to shore and the welcoming embrace from her obviously concerned partner. There I was, back to the scene and my wide angle lens on the camera, missing the whole show. If only.
The trip through the Mt Aspiring park actually traverses Haast Pass, named after Julius von Haast, a nineteenth century geologist who claimed to be the first to cross what is one of three Southern Alps crossings. We’ve done Arthur’s Pass, which leaves us only Lewis Pass to go for the trifecta. Of ccurse, von Haast wasn’t the first. The Maoris had used it for centuries before and another European, the gold prospector Charles Cameron, made the crossing before von Haast. Cameron buried his powder flask on the west side, which was later discovered to prove that he was indeed the first. Today though, it’s von Haast who gets all the glory: Haast pass and the town of Haast are named after him. Poor old Charlie got a small lake and the Cameron Flats wayside picnic area for his troubles. And the Maori? Fergitit.
We actually crossed another pass, the Crown Saddle that crosses the Crown Range south of Wanaka on the way to Queenstown. Crown Saddle is said to be the highest sealed (i.e., paved) pass in New Zealand (it beats one in the North Island by 2 meters). What ever the bragging rights, it’s the steepest, crookedest road we’ve been on so far.
One interesting thing that Judy noticed in crossing the Crown Range is that the vegetation wasn’t as green and as developed as the lush hillsides we’ve become used to, especially in the North Island but also in the northern parts of South Island. We speculate that this much farther south (and hence closer to Antarctica) the season must be later in coming. Our current latitude is probably close to that of southern New Hampshire. In fact the temperature in the Saddle was 7c (45 f) compared to 14 c (57 f) we experienced other places today.
We made a quick stop at Arrowtown, a small village just before Queenstown. This area of New Zealand was the center of the 1860-ish gold rush and Arrowtown was a gold rush center. Today it’s a gold rush center for extracting tourist dollars (how about a $400 wool sweater?) and a small museum. Most things were closed when we got there but we found one tee shirt shop, thank goodness, that was still open so made our contribution of the local economy.
Now we’re at our hotel, a really nice room overlooking Lake Wakatipu. It’s on a hill side so we have a great view from our balcony. I just woke Judy from her 15 minute cat nap (that stretched to 30 as I typed this). Now it’s time to head out and find something quick to eat for dinner. We had a 4:00 PM lunch in Wanaka and our usual cracker and cheese spread in the car so we’re not terribly hungry but I’ll bet we rally for a piece of pizza or two.
