Haast South Westland

Haast is the name of a river, region and Pass. Haast Pass is the only route through from Queenstown and Fiordland in the south, to coastal Westland. The Haast river at the pass is so fierce during periods of heavy rain that boulders the size of houses are moved along by the force of the water. It has the highest ratio of normal flow to flood flow in the world. The bridge was washed away several times before it was completed, and the supports on one side are concreted to the rocks on the river’s edge for extra stability. Haast settlement is close to the coast, located near the bridge over the Haast river as it reaches the sea, and the point at which Highway 6 turns inland southwards, through Mount Aspiring National Park.

The region around Haast, in southern Westland, is one of the South Island’s most neglected travel destinations. There are two reasons for this; people are usually passing through between Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers, and Queenstown (and on to Fiordland); and the rainfall more or less ensures that visitors will get wet if they step out of doors. This also applies to Fiordland of course, but because the scenery is more majestic and large-scale, visitors put up with the rainfall there. So Haast gets passed through, rather than visited. This is a pity.

Because the population has always been small (the road didn’t actually reach Haast settlement till the mid 1960’s), the ecosystems are relatively undisturbed. In fact the land is either within the Mount Aspiring National Park (containing the Routeburn and Rees-Dart Tracks) which is immediately north of Fiordland National Park; or DoC land leased out to a few farmers. The whole lot makes up the South-West NZ World Heritage Area.

For anyone who arrives prepared for a potentially wet visit, the rewards are considerable. For example, this is one of several areas in this series of South Island articles that have a gravelled road through native bush stretching for some kilometeres. Nowadays, It’s only along those stretches of winding road that one gets the sense of how NZ used to be at the turn of the century. Going south from Haast, the road ends at Jacksons Bay, which was the site of an ill-fated attempt at settling in the area last century. The remoteness, rainfall, and completely unsuitable location of the settlement on steep and unstable hill sides, ensured its doom. Now there’s just a small fishing operation. However, before you reach Jacksons Bay, you can turn inland along a gravel road which follows the Cascade river, to the Red Hills and then the Cascade Valley. There are several tracks along the road, one taking you along (wet) river banks to the edge of Lake Ellory.

The Red Hills range near the end of the Cascade drive are distinctive for having very stunted bush (mainly Manuka); the rocks are rich in Iron and Magnesium and are too toxic to support forest. These ultramafic rocks, formed by intense heat, pressure and hydrothermal activity 250 million years ago, account for the greenstone (jade) deposits found in south Westland.

Close to Haast itself, (a few miles north along the coast) are some excellent examples of the few remaining coastal wetlands left in the South Island, showing the transition between sand dunes, a sequence of lagoons and swamps parallel to the coastline, and the final Kahikatea (White Pine) coastal forest, which was prevalant along both the east and west coasts of New Zealand till they were all cleared and drained for farmland.

The DoC centre at Haast contains lots of info about the many walks in the area, and the ecosystems found here. It is actually a very surreal and distinctive building (the last image) in its own right, especially when seen rising from the mists during a rainy day.

A recommended place to stay in Haast is the Heritage Park Lodge; there are several motels in the area, but that one is particularly recommended due to the very friendly and professional proprietors, and the range of accommodation that it offers under one roof. It also has an outlook to some native bush along one side of the grounds.

Lastly, it’s interesting to note that Haast is only a couple of hundred miles north of Milford Sound; but because there is no road between them it takes all day to reach one from the other, travelling by way of Wanaka.