This is how I remember the beginning of the road.
A mere 2 hour drive but lots of stops! My mission is to find where the actual Haast Pass is! We didn’t see a sign, I was disappointed. I expected a pass to have a summit, to be evident but it wasn’t. I think it was a pass THROUGH the mountains, not OVER them. Whatever it is, the scenery was spectacular.
This route was a traditional pathway for Maori journeying west in search of pounamu (greenstone or jade). Haast Pass was first crossed by Europeans during the 1860s gold rushes. Construction of a proper road began in the 1920s and 1930s depression, with unemployed workers wielding picks and shovels – but the road wasn’t completed until the early 1960s; a 140 kilometre road, the highest point a mere 563 meters.
Dasha and I did look for Haast township but didn’t find that either. I now know there are three “Haasts”
Haast Junction is located on the southwest bank of the Haast River, immediately south of the Haast Bridge, at the junction of State Highway 6 and the Haast–Jackson Bay Road.
The smaller Haast Beach is on the coast of the Tasman Sea, approximately 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west southwest of Haast Junction, on the Haast–Jackson Bay Road.
The larger Haast township is located on the Haast River, approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) south of Haast Junction, on State Highway 6.
The combined population for the 3 Haasts is 297, they are very small 😉
We didn’t see this and I was looking for it.
Haast has a spot in aviation history as well as the first commercial flight in New Zealand was into Haast by pilot Bert Mercer in 1934, in a DH83 Fox Moth.
There are three or four lovely short walks to waterfalls and I’ll do them again, Roaring Billy, Thunder Creek, Fantail Falls and the Blue Pools. If I’m doing this in spring, I imagine the scenery will look quite different. To the west is West Coast rain forest, a stark contrast to the more semi continental climate of Central Otago, over the pass.
I read “At the Gates of Haast gorge, many travellers stop to photograph the wild water as it crashes over the river boulders”. I wonder where this is? I found it. “The Gates of Haast. It is a roadside waterfall which is seen from a car when crossing the river. There is a car park on the right after the Gates of Haast bridge when driving towards Wanaka. There is no track . . . . . the waterfall is seen from the bridge. . . . .officially it’s not a waterfall, it’s a series of rapids”. No wonder we missed it 🙂
And here it is, the Gates of Haast Bridge!
The basins that are filled by Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka were gouged out by the Hawea and Wanaka Glaciers .Insect-eating birds such as fantail/pīwakawaka, yellow breasted tit/miromiro and rifleman /tītipounamu thrive in the invertebrate-rich forest. Mohua (yellowed) and kākāriki (yellow-crowned parakeet), are locally common.
Lake Hawea, just one of the many beautiful lakes in the area and, at around 400 meters, the deepest.
Accommodation: Wanaka Lakeview Holiday Park,
212 Brownston St
Wanaka 9305
64 3 4437883
64 3 4439086
Wifi: IAC
South Island Planning . . . again 