Haaste Pass - Little Paradise Lodge
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| We departed Fox Glacier and headed southwest along the coast. When we hit the Haaste River, the road turned south into the Southern Alps. But first we checked out the Haast Visitor Centre for a little history of the Haast Pass. One of only three road crossings over the Souther Alps -- we had used Arthur's Pass a few days ago -- the Haast Pass road was built in 1966. |
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Heading south into the mountains.
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| We stopped to check out the Blue Pools. It's easy to see where they get their name. The blue color is a result of light refraction on the clear, snow-fed, icy cold water. |
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We had to cross this bouncy pedestrian suspension bridge to get to the Blue Pools.
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| No fear! |
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| We made it through Haast Pass, briefly stopped at Wanaka airport where they would be having a major airshow in a week, then approached Queenstown. We stopped at a high overlook for this photo op. |
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| Approaching Queenstown. |
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Our lodging for tonight was on the other side of Queenstown, so we passed through the town -- it's not a big town -- and drove alongside the big Lake Wakatipu.
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We arrived at the Little Paradise Lodge which is situated on the road between Queenstown and Glenorchy, overlooking Lake Wakatipu. I made the reservation weeks ago and I vaguely remembered this B&B was a little unusual, but I wasn't prepared for what we encountered.
This is the first thing we saw after parking the car.
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| It turns out the Little Paradise Lodge has a huge garden that is as spectacular, if not more, than a big city botanical garden! I've never seen anything like it. |
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| The garden represents a lifetime of work by Thomas, the Swiss artist, who along with Christy run the Lodge. It's not just flowers, plants and trees, but sculptures and art. |
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| Before man, New Zealand was only populated by birds, many flightless and some of them quite large. |
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This place would be scenic just for the lake view alone.
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| The pond with a "fake" giant eel under the water along with "live" coy. |
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We managed to finish touring the garden just as the sun was setting.
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Everywhere I looked was a photo op.
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Then we went into the house. Everything about the house was art.
This was our bedroom. We had the Lake view out the window.
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| And in the corner above our bed was this large bird, ready to attack! |
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At the other end of the room was the TV. The furniture was all hand-made and unique.
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| This was the common area. |
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The walls were large sand-paintings. Check out the unusual book rack for the New Zealand encyclopedia.
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This is not tile on the floor. Thomas made this floor himself using 4" thick cross-sections of trees, fitted and epoxied together. I cannot even imagine how long it must have taken him to do this.
I did not get a picture, but above the toilet was a good size aquarium filled with goldfish. The flush handle was on top of the aquarium. When you pulled the flush handle, you were afraid you were going to flush all the fish!
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That night we continued on the lake shore road up to the little town of Glenorchy where we had a nice dinner at a little restaurant.
The view of the Lake the next morning.
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