We have a plan. A good plan. Get moving in the morning and do the Franz Joseph glacier walk, according to research you can walk along the river and get quite close. Have a great coffee. Go to Lake Mathieson and do the walk to see the reflections of the Southern Alps in the lake. This is evidently a must do.
We arrive at the enormous glacier walk car park and join the lonely DOC ute. 20 mins later we are met with a barrier that says we can go no further as track is closed so we stand and admire the magnificence of this river of ice (from a distance) and then we turn and head back the way we came..
The rivers and bridges here are amazing. The bridges all one lane traversing wide, rocky expanses that conjure up images of raging torrents rushing down from the mountains. The landscape is scarred in so many places as huge chunks of the mountains have been carved and torn from the sides to their resting place below.
We head to Lake Mathieson and again park in a near empty car park. There are two modern buildings that are at the entrance, a cafe and art gallery that have now merged into one, whilst the other stands quietly, chairs stacked and walls empty.
The walk is pretty but of course there are no planned reflections as the wind has picked up and the ripples take the view. We enjoy the view anyway and remark about how even the birds seem quiet as we complete our circuit of the lake.
We don’t need coffee, nor food but I buy a cute pottery jug and a Xmas decoration from the lovely lady at the cafe who tells us that in total 47 people were employed between the two and now there are 7. I want to buy more and would buy lunch but we already bought lunch to takeaway at the great coffee shop in Franz Joseph so I put my pretty decorations and jug in the van and get on the road again.
Speaking of lunch we park up down the road with a view of Fox Glacier out of the window and heat up our West Coast Whitebait fritter and all is well with the world.
It’s onto Haast or at least that’s the plan, sort of, depending on what we find on the way. We stop on the coast and explore the coastal walk. The sea and lake separated by a dune yet polar opposites of nature. The reeds in the lake gracefully dance in unison back and forward with the melody of the wind. The seas southerly roar and ferocity can be heard in the background but in this space beyond the dune the calm dance is hypnotic and reminds you to breathe.
The rain begins and does not let up. We park up in Haast and hunker down as are battered by wind and rain. It’s a stormy night and as I write I think of our plans for tomorrow and wonder if I should just forget about them. I want to walk the Blue Pools track and see the Blue Pools. I want to photograph the Wanaka tree as I have seen it’s image so many times that I want to bear witness to it myself. But most of all I want the rain and wind to stop and the sun to shine.