Continuing South along the coast we came to Haast. All the water here is glacier runoff and a stunningly beautiful blue.
As we turned to come inland we passed the ‘Gates of Haast’, which, I am told, “if kayakers dreamt of heaven then this would be it”.
I will take their word for it, anyone crazy enough to get into that water would see if there was a heaven sooner rather than later!
We then spent Christmas night at a rather overcrowded campsite in Wanaka and had to make do with a greasy take away dinner – again from an Indian owned shop – he w as m
aking a mint that night.
The main reason we came to Wanaka was for a special place called Puzzling world.
Here nothing is as it appears – water runs uphill, gravity works the wrong way round and level, well that’s up to your imagination. We spent half a day at this amazing place and I need to go back there!
We then pushed onto Queenstown 
via Cromwell and saw ‘The Remarkables’ flash past, quick stop in Queenstown then Lumsden, Mossburn and on to Te Anau (pronounced Tea- Ah-nee-ow according to the locals). Tonight we sleep in a proper bed and get some washing done. Dusty was not so happy so we stayed here a few days
until we could see a mechanic – they are also not allowed to open on holy days. So we met some of the locals and watched a local made movie (the movie maker was so impressed with his movie, he built his own movie house to show it!).
The people here are so friendly – we enjoyed a wonderful three days.
We took a bus up to Milford Sound for the day and a ferry trip across the sounds (which are actually fjords but who’s telling). As much as the rain was a bit of a downside to the trip, it meant we got to see the sounds in all their splendour. Every single one of the waterfalls were running, it was like wonderland (maybe a little wetter… lol).
The next day dawned bright and sunny, and we decided that instead of going North along the coast we would rather spend more time in the mountains. So we headed back for a better look at Queenstown and ‘The Remarkables’.