To this point in the trip we had been travelling and visiting with friends. This was our first full day of travelling on our own and we learned a couple of interesting things about New Zealand highways. The highway in this photo is typical.

Note:
– two narrow lanes,
– no shoulders.

Another New Zealand highway standard:
– single lane bridges!

This is true for almost all of rural NZ. Signs on the approaches indicated which direction had right of way. Broad rivers (bridges >1 km long) might have a short two-lane section in the middle so that cars could pass. Rules about who had right of way in that case seemed to be pretty informal.

The Southern Alps are very close to the west coast and this highway. Aoraki / Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand, is only 28 km from the coast, and this highway passes within 16 km of it.

Mostly the mountains were shrouded in cloud but this shot shows how close we were to them.

We spent our afternoon driving through farmlands like these and forests. Note the cultivated garden on the right of the guard-rail. This was a yard in front of a farmhouse, where the irrigation was on despite it being mid-afternoon!

We also traversed two steep mountain passes near Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier where the associated mountain ranges extend west across the plains to the ocean. This yielded spectacular views of coastal scenery.

This was a typical view of the road going through forested flats. The catch phrase for this day was lush vegetation and scenic grandeur.

Note: narrow, curb less road.

As we got closer to Haast, we came to a long stretch of highway where seaside farm fields were on the right and vegetated hillsides on the left.

One interesting type of vegetation in New Zealand is the fern tree. Two are visible in this photo on the lower centre and centre left. These are relatively small ones, probably 2 meters tall. New Zealand has about 200 species of ferns, 40% of which are found nowhere else. The tallest tree fern, the mamaku, grows to 20 metres (65 ft).

This shows the force of the prevailing winds on the vegetation. The winds coming in across the farm fields to the right blow the vegetation back against the hill. We were driving along this face for about 15 minutes; quite breathtaking!

This picture was taken from the passenger seat. Note how close to the edge of the highway this photo is, and the almost complete absence of any shoulder outside the white line.

Turning to the north, you can see the force of the winds on the trees in this field. Although there was no wind this day; this vegetation has been permanently sculpted by the winds.