Te Anau to Haast

This day was mostly spent traveling northward but we stopped at a lot of places and were treated to a lot of beautiful scenery.  We had passed by Lake Wakatipu on our way down to Te Anau knowing that we would be making our photo stops on the way north.

The highway runs along the shoreline and would be a great motorcycle road.   We found New Zealand's roads to be a bit better maintained than Australia's.

We ran through an area south of Queenstown that had a lot of stone fences.  The way they had put the top stones upright made for a pretty fence. 

We finally found a good place to pull over to get a photo of a deer farm.  There were lots of them south of Queenstown but less as we headed north.

For a bit more of an adventurous drive, we left the highway and took Crown Range Road.  I missed the first two lookouts I had on our list.  I was a bit bummed about that.  But we did manage to find the bra fence that I had read about.

Wikipedia gives us the following information, "The Bra Fence began at some point between Christmas 1998 and New Year 1999, when four bras were attached to the wire fence alongside the road. The original reason for the bras being attached to the fence is unknown. News spread of the addition, which was left on the fence by the local landowners, and more bras began to appear. By the end of February there were some 60 bras, but at about this time they were all removed anonymously. This was reported in the local press, and the story gained widespread dissemination through the New Zealand media, leading to more bras appearing."

  

"By October 2000, the number of bras had reached around 200, and again the fence was cleared of bras. This time the story spread even wider, as the fence had become to some a quirky tourist attraction, and media sources from as far afield as Europe became interested in the fence. Due to this interest, the number of bras being added to the fence personally, or sent to be added, increased dramatically. In early 2006, the number of bras attached to the fence stood at close to 800."

I think it would take a day to count them now.  I wonder how many of the bras added in the early 2000's are still there.  There were some pretty extravagant bras there.  Although I didn't do it, I had thought about taking one to add. 

Coming into Wanaka

Ran into a bit of construction in town but what caught my attention was the light bulbs going up the curve of the streetlight.  We saw this in a few more places and I assume they are holiday decorations 

This photo and the next show the highway from Wanaka (at the bottom of the photo) to Haast (at the top left of the next photo).  Many of our stops are marked.  We stopped at the viewpoint along Lake Hawea, and where the highway started running along Lake Wanaka.

We also stopped at the Blue Pools, Fantail Falls, Thunder Creek Falls, Roaring Billing Falls and a couple of places not on this map.   

Driving north along Lake Hawea

We stopped at a rough parking area along Lake Hawea.  The lot was hilly and rutted but it had a portapotty. 

One thing we noticed in New Zealand is that every bridge and culvert has a sign listing its number or name.

Traveling onward the road crossed over a narrow strip of land to Lake Wanaka.

I know this is hard to see but it contains information about Lake Wanaka and identifies the landforms around the lake. 

Looking south...

southwest

and west.

Panoramic

Remember, speeds and distances are in kilometers.

We stopped at this waterfall but couldn't really get a good view of it because it was on the other side of the highway where there wasn't a place to stop.  This is still along Lake Wanaka. 

Our next stop was to see the Blue Pools but there was a lot of information here about the area. 

So we walked down the track and crossed over the Makarora swing bridge on the way to the bridge over the Blue Pools.

Some of the trail was more open to the sky...

and some went through wooded areas.

Loved this sign as we approached the Makarora swing bridge. Ten people on the bridge was ok but don't dare add one more or the bridge would collapse.  I wonder how many times kids have tested that.

Crossing the Makarora River on the swing bridge gave us views of the bridge at the Blue Pools.

Just loved the color of the water in the Makarora River.  

Most of the rest of the trail to the Blue Pools was a boardwalk.

The water changes color if it is flooded. 

The Blue River just before it passes under the Blue Pools bridge.

Standing on the Blue Pools bridge looking toward the Makarora River.  There were a couple adventurous souls who had been in the water. 

We made our way down to this very rock beach and looked back up towards the bridge.  Rocks + kids = cairns.

Dang these rocks were just too big to take home.

I looked at this and saw snow on the mountain.  My sister looked at it and saw a butterfly.  I suppose that's just a lack of imagination on my part. 

View from the Blue Pools parking lot. 

Next stop - Fantail Falls.  We took a very short walk down this path...

to see Fantail Falls.

One thing we noticed about Hwy 6 during our three days of traveling on it, was that it had a lot of one-lane bridges.  Each had signs at the start to indicate which lane had priority of there were cars at each end.  North of Haast, Haast River Bridge is one-way, but it is so long that it has two area where cars can ease by each other. 

We decided it was time to have some lamb since there were so many in New Zealand.

According to the petkeen.com website, there were 25.97 million sheep in New Zealand as of June 2021. There has been a continuous decline over the past 11 years, when there were 32.56 million in 2010. Since the 1970s, sheep farming has decreased significantly. There were as many as 70 million sheep in 1982! As of 2020, it’s believed that there are about five sheep per person in New Zealand. While this does sound high, the numbers have dropped quite a bit from the statistic of 22 sheep per person in 1982!