Wānaka - Haast - Gillespies Beach

'Towards good weather' in this case meant heading to Wānaka. On the way there, Markus wanted to try his luck at fishing, so we bought fishing gear in Twizel and received a tip to head to Lake Ruataniwha. We did that, and naively I thought Markus would cast his line three times, and we would have our dinner. Long story short: There was no fish for dinner in Wānaka, but there was sunshine.

Around 11 PM, we drove back to the town to go to a bar and enjoy the end of the old year comfortably. As we had to realize just before entering the town, we were not the only ones with this idea; many others seemed to be much better informed: there was a secured party area with two stages, and a fireworks display was planned for midnight (private fireworks were banned throughout the district). So we made ourselves comfortable on the beach and didn't have to wait long before the 10-minute, beautifully arranged fireworks began, allowing us to welcome the New Year as the third time zone.

After the fireworks, we wandered around the party area, saw a fight break out (apparently that's possible sober, as there was a ban on alcohol throughout the town for the evening), and discovered a stand with free pancakes. Surprisingly, the party ended right at 1 AM; everything was packed up and dismantled immediately, and the crowd dispersed. We also drove back to our campsite and took advantage of the (almost) new moon to capture some star constellation images before going to sleep.

The next morning, we could see from the satellite images that most of New Zealand was under a thick blanket of clouds—except for the West Coast, as the clouds had gotten stuck in the mountains. Hence, we drove along Lake Hāwea and Lake Wānaka over the Haast Pass to the West Coast. With really great weather, we had lunch at the Blue Pools before we encountered the coast for the first time in the small town of Haast and took a beach walk. There, we also had our first proper encounter with sandflies, and I don't want to spoil too much, but nowhere are sandflies as prevalent as on the West Coast!

According to a Maori legend, Hinenui-te-Po, the god of death, actually sent sandflies to the fjordland at Milford Sound to prevent people from living there. I don't know why they are found all over New Zealand, particularly on the entire West Coast of the South Island. However, I can definitely confirm that staying at a specific spot on the West Coast, let alone living there, isn't particularly enjoyable... In the evening, a considerable number of sandflies had found their way into our car, which led us to a hours-long hunt for sandflies before going to sleep.

At Gillespies Beach, we made use of the rather dreary weather to read the next day before setting out on a small hike in the late afternoon. We had Gillespies Lagoon, the Miners Tunnel, and Galway Beach all to ourselves. Unfortunately, there were also no seals on the beach. And unfortunately, we were a bit short on time; the sun was already setting, and we had to hike back through some quite dense forest for two hours. Thanks to the sandflies, saying goodbye to the beach wasn't too hard.