Day 10 - Landscapes

Day 10 - Fox Glacier to Haast

From Fox Glacier to Haast is 122km of highway riding. Along the way you can see mountains, trees, lakes and ocean. What you won’t see is a lot of accommodation and services (like grocery stores, cafes and shops). That means we chose to give’r and push the whole distance in one day.

6:45am and time to leave Fox Glacier

Rain

We set out from Fox Glacier at about 6:45am which is becoming pretty typical when we don’t camp. The air was cool and the clouds low. So low in fact that it started raining about 5 minutes in to the journey. Believe it or not this was the first rain I’d seen on my Tour. As it was, the rain was light and cleared up in about 30 minutes so as far as rain goes, I’ll take it. The morning was still with basically no wind and it felt like perfect riding conditions. The air was cool without being cold, the road was empty and with a rest day in our rearview mirror, the body was feeling great. It was essentially riding on cruise control.

Wet road, low cloud.

The sun came out. It was nice.

The mountains kept peaking out when the cloud cleared.

Ocean

Our first stop of remark was at Bruce Bay where a small caravan-cafe was selling coffee, baked goods and other treats. The ocean was misting with the crashing waves but the wind was still calm. A quick muffin break (the sandflies found us in about 15 seconds) and it was time to be on our way again.

The smell of sea reminds me of my youth.

River

We then set our sights on Lake Paringa. This was 69km from Fox Glacier and represented a “Go-No go” inflection point. There is a campground at the lake and if weather or weariness became an issue, staying at the lake would be our safety net. We had planned accordingly with food if the need arose. Fortunately the sun was shining and our legs were feeling strong so we turned the lake into a lovely little lunch break. I even took the opportunity for my first mountain-lake swim in NZ. Thankfully no photos as this is a family-friendly blog and there were no swimming trunks to be seen in this particular dip. The water was incredibly refreshing - brisk you might say - but I'm so glad I went in. 

Brisk water, but refreshing.

Ocean II

From Lake Paringa we began some more steady climbs towards Knights Point Lookout. This was a beautiful panoramic view of the ocean and this felt like the only time we have been close to the ocean with a bit of elevation to really see out far. The water was turquoise blue and the sky cerulean blue. A truly beautiful spot.  

Knights Point Lookout views.

Wind

The story of the next 30km is really about wind. We always knew we would face a headwind and it hit just as our body and spirits were flagging. We still had lots of time on our hands so we could take lots of breaks and just put our heads down and peddle. I was glad to still have some magic chocolate bars to give me that boost - they are still working their magic to lift my spirits when I'm flagging. There’s a lovely long single-lane bridge just before the town of Haast and the wide open expanse of the Southern Alps falling away to the ocean was yet another spectacular view to behold. It almost made up for the wind that tried it's best to push us off the aforementioned bridge.

This is a sign of lies. We still had a long grind to the town. 

Camp

We decided to camp for the night so in short order we had the tents set up and then we hit the showers to wash away the dust and sweat of the journey. Since there’s a pub in town we had a nice walk through the town to our dinner. Something tells me it’s going to be a good nights sleep tonight. I am weary, let me rest. 

Home for the night.

Final tally for the day:

Distance: 122.23 km

Elevation: 846m

And the tally for the Tour so far:

Distance: 804.25 km

Elevation: 7,963m