Stray Bus day 15 - Franz Josef to Makorora

After an exhilarating few days amongst mountains and glaciers, today we made the scenic drive inland towards Otago and the Ski fields of Wanaka and Queenstown. Our first stop was at Lake Matheson, where we had opportunities to take photos against the stunning backdrop of Mt Cook/Aoraki (the tallest mountain in NZ at 3,754m) and Mt Tasman (2nd tallest at 3,497m). Next we drove upto the Fox Glacier, Franz Josef's slightly longer but shallower brother, and took the opportunity to photograph the snout of the glacier and observe the huge glacial valley that had been carved by centuries of ice movement. Although the scenery started to change as we drove away from Westland (from sub tropical wet vegetation to drier alpine varieties) it was just as breathtaking. We travelled the famous Haast Pass - a mountain road that was only built in the 1960 because of the shear remoteness of the landscape. We spent the night at an isolated mountain retreat in a place called Makorora, where we stayed in small permanent tipi style lodges set against the stunning backdrop of snow-capped mountains. That evening we watched the Canterbury Crusaders beat their Aussie rivals the NSW Waratahs in the Super 14's final... come on you Kiwi's!