The few wispy clouds that hung around first thing, evaporated as we drove higher and once again we were able to strip off our warm jackets and enjoy the warmth of the sun. We passed two lakes – actually we passed one of the lakes twice! Once we had rounded one of the mountains we came back onto Lake Wanaka, the other lake, which is equally as large, is Lake Hawea. A snowy peak could be seen in the distance over lake Hawea and I am afraid that I couldn’t resist this shot with the sheep in the foreground – trouble is, I was aiming straight into the sun with nothing to give me shade so I have a bit of lens flare. Sorry about that!
1/500 f/4/5 ISO 100
Our drive was to take us over the Haast Pass. Many years ago this was only passable on foot but now it is a comfortable road albeit a bit twisty. No time to nod off on this road!
As soon as we came to the halfway point between Wanaka and Haast the countryside changed dramatically. The hills around Wanaka are treeless while from Makarora, some sixty km from Wanaka, the trees suddenly cover the mountains from valley to peak.
1/80 f/8 ISO 200
Along this stretch there are many waterfalls, some are within easy reach of the road but others require up to an hour to get to and back from. We stopped for a couple and chickened out on another once we read the notice board and found out how long we needed! The wonderful rainforest once you leave the road was too tempting to not take a photo to share with you. The tree ferns are numerous and all the trees were covered with moss and lichen and the whole area looked very “Tolkien”. 
1/50 sec F/6.3 ISO 800
Once over the pass we drove along the flat country of Haast, This just reinforced the awareness of the changeability of the scenery. We drove in an around the township of Haast – that took less than five minutes! It’s a tiny place. Then we stopped in the car park of the Visitor Information Centre and spent a while looking over all their displays – they have been hung on the walls with the sunlight blazing through the many windows for so long that many of the large photographs have turned into a monochromatic blue. Mind you, what was there was very interesting. We enjoyed our lunch seated at the one and only table in the middle of the car park! We had the entire car park to ourselves for the whole time we were there.
1.500 f/6.3 ISO 80
Before leaving Haast we went in search of the Haast Beach. It was prominently signed but we nearly missed it – there is a service station and a motel and no beach to be seen. I back tracked and pulled into the gravel car park opposite the motel and we climbed out of the car and walked up a narrow track between very prickly gorse bushes until we came to the gravelly beach. We were surprised to see quite a lot of people on the beach walking along with their heads down looking for something. Colin took up the familiar pose of the fossicker and searched the beach to see what it was they were looking for. He found a few little pieces of what might be greenstone.
On the trip back to our unit we passed the Lakes again and took even more photographs. We managed to find a spot along Lake Hakea where the mountain on the otherside was reflected in the glass-like waters. Unfortunately there was no interesting foreground to lead the eye into the picture so I just have a funny reflection!
1/200 f/8 ISO 200
We have two days left here in Wanaka and if the weather holds fine I shall end up with more than 12G of memory cards filled with photographs! Two of my three 4G cards are already filled. Once those are filled I will have to rely on my Samsung for photos. I still have some SD cards free.
AJ
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