we left franz josef this morning and stopped at lake matheson for a photo-op of mt. cook. lake matheson is small. i'm surprised that they call it a lake. it's a pond!

nice fog setting for lake matheson

mt. tasman and mt. cook in front of lake matheson

i slept for awhile in the bus and woke up in haast. we stopped at the visitor center for a pee break. shortly after that we crossed a bridge and the gates of haast. huge rocks in the river! i wanted to see the swamp because that is where they filmed the overview shot of the dead marshes in the lord of the rings but we didn't get to see a swamp on this trip.

haast has a nice visitor center

look at the people on the left side to get a sense of scale

we were almost in wanaka when we stopped to see the thunder creek falls that flow into the haast river. then we stopped for a bit to take photos of lake wanaka then lake hawea. we were dropped off in wanaka at our hostel, the wanaka bakpaka. there are some huge flies in our room. i have failed to mention that the flies in new zealand are huge. they all go to the gym to pump iron. i think they're on steroids too.

thunder creek falls

view of lake wanaka just outside our hostel