Day 30: Makaora to Haast Township

Journal for 2014-11-18 | Published on 2014-11-20 20:41:12

After a rather rainy night we awoke to a great morning, blue skies and few puffy clouds, just a bit chilly at 5C. We paid our bill for the night and hit the road. In just a few km we entered the Mount Aspiring National Park and the road was covered with giant beech trees on either side. We started getting glimpses of the valley we were traveling up with the mountains on each side stretching up to snow covered heights. The river running along the valley floor was teal colored and a sight to see.

We paused at a pull out which said there was a 30 minute walk to see the “Blue Pools.” We did the pleasant walk through the forest to the river, crossed a suspension bridge, and went on to a second suspension bridge where a feeder river/creek ended in a large teal green pool of water. It was an excellent place to stop and take in the views for a bit. Then the sandflies decided to swarm and we got moving again. Pam spotted a few large fish swimming in the river, they were a foot and half or so big.

Onward and upward we kept going until we finally started the last big climb up to Haast Pass. It actually was not too big of a climb and was over pretty quickly. We stopped at the top for a picture with the 564m sign and then begun the descent.

We knew that we were headed to a campground for lunch/bathroom which wasn’t too far away. Unfortunately we stopped about a hundred times to look at various things. There were waterfalls, and sweeping views, and droplets of water falling down the moss covered rocks, and a ton of other amazing sights. All of these stops caused us to end up getting to the campground at almost 1pm, and only be done with 30 or so km of our 80 we had planned.

Eating lunch was an activity involving lots of movement today, the sandflies were out in full force. We had everything possible covered, and bug sprayed everything that wasn’t, but the little bugs were determined to find the one spot you hadn’t applied repellent to. They completely ignore anything but you, so the food was safe, we just had to wander around to keep them away from us. Right as we left a bird got brave and came up to start feasting on the sand fly hoards we attracted. It would do all sorts of aerobatics to catch them and was neat to watch.

Knowing we had 50 km left to go, we hit the road and continued on through the rainforest. Soon, we learned why they call it a rainforest, and we had to “batten down the hatches”, that is, put on all our raingear and prepare for the rain. It actually wasn’t too unpleasant, but it did pour quite heavily at one point. Mostly it was just rain, and we weren’t too uncomfortable. Pam sang every rain song she could think of. If you didn’t know she tends to sing while bicycle tour, Matt finds this odd but acceptable.

Along the way in car you would have seen about a dozen waterfalls is our guess, we are pretty sure that we saw over 50 today. Some small, and some very large ones hidden between large cracks in the rocks. We also saw a large number of bubbling streams and creeks, at times you could feel that you were approaching one because air temperature would cool, and just feel like a river. This is the great part of bicycle touring, getting to experience every moment along the way.

The road gradually made its way down toward the Tasman Sea, and eventually we could see the opening in the sky that signaled we were getting close. The rain had pretty much stopped at this point, and we stopped by a sign that said we still had 9K to go. A delivery truck stopped to see if we were ok, which we were, and he said we should try to get to town before the rain started. Didn’t we just come through the rain?

Evidently not, because we booked it to town, stopped at the Haast Lodge to get a backpackers room, and then the sky opened up and it hasn’t stopped raining since. And at times it’s really coming down! We showered, changed, ate dinner, and are looking forward to a dry night. Our plan is to ride two more days up to Fox Glacier, and then take a rest day exploring the area.

The West Coast is also known as the “Wet Coast” and we got a good introduction to that today. But even through our rain spattered glasses, we still enjoyed the beauty and the amazing waterfalls running off the mountainsides- amazing! We can’t wait to see what’s in store for us tomorrow, it is exciting to be in a completely different region of the country.

Distance: 79.18km

Time: 5:13

Avg: 15.13kmh

Max: 56.4 kmh

Climb: 726m

View from Makarora Valley

View from Makarora Valley, the clouds and sun were painting the landscape the most beautiful colors

Hiking through the rain forest

The Blue Pools feeding river

View from the Haast Pass valley floor

Our bikes did a lot of hanging out today

Trickle Falls #2 tucked away behind some rocks, a lot of water for a fall named Trickle

Haast River

Thunder Creek Falls, 32m high

This was such a beautiful mountain, but very difficult to capture. Matt tried many times and likes this shot but it needs some post-processing editing to make it pop.