Mike Yardley: Going wild in Haast

"Stitching Central Otago to the wonders of South Westland, the Haast Pass Highway is what epic roadies are all about. The Haast region is the centrepiece of Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage area. As the last mountain pass to be constructed over the Southern Alps and only fully chip-sealed in 1995, this 140km-long panoramic alpine pass still exudes a “final frontier” sense of escapism as it threads its way through South Westland’s primeval forests. The route had long been used by Māori warriors and greenstone (pounamu) gatherers, as they traversed the Main Divide."

Read Mike's full article here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
At be time to catch up with our travel correspondent
Mike Yardley, who is going wild in Haarst this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Calder Mike, Good morning, Jack.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I tell you what, this part of the country has
to be one of the most beautiful. So I'm so
glad you've got your top tips for us. If you're
heading heading up from Wanica. There are sort of myriad
roadside delights, aren't there on the Harst Pass Highway?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Totally? Jack, You're just spoiled for choice.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
So the Old Pine passes only one hundred and forty
kilometers in length. But what I love about it first
of all, is it still exudes final frontier fields. You know,
you just feel like you've entered another realm of New Zealand.
Is you thread you away like a needle through south
Westland's primeval forests and all those canyon like cliff walls.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I just love those.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
But yes, you've got all sorts of roadside bushwalks that
you can take your pick and whose from.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
All of them generally lead to waterfalls.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
So whether you want to check out Roaring Billy or Thundercreek,
or fantail falls. You're in luck with vertical aqua magic.
But the biggest straw I think in this part of
the country has been the Blue Poles. And if you
were down this way over summer, you were probably disappointed
because access has been limited due to a lot of
reconstruction they've been doing to the boardwalks and the swing

(01:32):
bridges at Blue Poles.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
The good news.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Is if you want to do a late autumn early
winter roadie around Hearst, it's all good to go. So
it will be fully accessible in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Nice. And so if you're just heading north of Hearst,
there's like a beautiful kind of west coast lookout at
Knight's Point day that's right.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Yes, you've got first of all, some fabulous walks at Ship.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Creek just south of Knights Point.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
And what I love about Ship's Creek jacket Ship got
these vast stands of Hicetia trees that are seeming interlocked.
It's like that gripping onto each other to provide extra
stability in that dense coastal swamp.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then when you've finished.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Checking that out heads the view of views at Knight's
Points with all of those wavelashed ross rock stacks. I
only just noticed this recently, but there's a memorial at
that lookout commemorating the completion of the Hasst Highway. So
this is where Westland was finally linked with O'taga. And
if you're wondering about the name Knight's Point, cool story.

(02:39):
The chief Surveyor's dog was called Knight, so a canine
landed the naming rights.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
So if you're heading a little bit further south in
on the road to Jackson Bay, tell us about the
wire Tautal River Safari.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
This blew me away, jack So this is backcountry jet
boating at its very best, zipping you deep into the
guts of Hearst's alpine wilderness. So the right up the
wire Tautal River is not a thrills and spills right,
you won't be getting the three sixties. Instead, you've just
gotten nature, the primal pool of nature. And you'll even

(03:15):
see the alpine fault gouging its imprint on the landscapes.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
We stopped by.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
This thriving Kiwi sentry on the edge of the river,
which is now home to four hundred brown.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Kiwi and being a Glacier River.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Of course, it's got that trademark milky blue hue thanks
to the vaulta glacier at the top of the river.
And then you've got these truck sized boulders that just
tumble down from the alps along the river side. And
when you get closer to the Tasman Sea, and we
went all the way down to the sea, you just
suddenly notice how the water goes from milky blue.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
To brackish brown. It's just got all the elements.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, it sounds amazing. So how far into the back
country do you actually go.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Recollection?

Speaker 4 (04:00):
I think the full traverse was about thirty k so
it would take you days and days of hiking and
very formidable terrain to you know, to penetrate these parts.
We went up as far as sharks Tooth Rapids right upstream.
I love that name. It's sort of a Disney sort
of name is and it Sharks tooth Rapids. But from

(04:22):
there you can sort of venture into the forest and
check out all the potter carps, the orchids, the moss.
Of course, it really is nature at its unmolested, unbowed best.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, So what is if you're on the coast what's
so distinctive about Jackson Bay.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah, it's very close to Wyatautal River, so about another
twenty minutes down.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
That road the end of the road.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
You really do feel like you've reached journey's end at
this back of beyond Fishing Village. The wharf is probably
the great statement of Jackson Bay because it's nearly ninety
years old and it just so strikingly stretches out deep
into the sea, and this is the only sheltered harbor

(05:06):
between Graymouth and Milford Sound. But like a lot of
spots in southwest New Zealand, jack Jackson Bay was subject
to one of those ridiculous settlement plans in the nineteenth century.
So we had hundreds of Poles and Irish and Italians
and Scandies and Germans, all lured to Jackson Bay by
some half assed government scheme to tame the wild and

(05:29):
within three years, because of the lack of fertile flatland,
the isolation, the rain and the sandflies, most of them
had fled.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
They just couldn't handle it.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, oh gosh, it is just like an amazing part
of the country and kind of like the end of
the line, right Jackson Bay. When you're you're heading down
that weast coast. So what's on the menu at the
craypot aside from the obvious.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Yes, indeed, Well, Jackson Bay is still a thriving fishing
port and catch of the day man alive. They have
got their own definition to catch of the day. The
Americans of course go gaga over the larbster, the crayfish.
There's always white bait, of course, but I don't think
you can get past that gigantic blue cod that is

(06:13):
served on plates and Jackson Bay it is just astronomically sized,
by the way, the crayepod such a fascinating backstory. So
this caravan style litery actually began life as Timaru's pie card.
Then it moved to Cromwell in the eighties to feed
the Clyde Dan workers, and about twenty five years ago
a Haarst local bought it toad it over Hals to

(06:35):
pass on a tractor. Jackson Bay icon was born. So
it is definitely a Kiwi classic to wed too. What
is a real banger of a road trip in the
heart region.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, look, it's one of those parts of the country
you only go there if you're going there, right, But
my goodness is worth it. It's not on the way
to anywhere, you know. I mean, it's very much of
the line on that west coast. Yeah, but my god,
just yeah it is. It is just stunning. I remember
going on to the family road trips down there and
driving along that west coast just north of Jackson's and

(07:07):
like you can kind of just stop anywhere. And I
remember one time like we didn't feel like this might
be saying too much here, but I feel like we
didn't have our talks and it was like, oh, well,
I'm not going to go swimming in the ocean if
I don't have any talks. And it was like, well,
hang on, we could actually skinned it because no one
is going to be seeing us like this. It's untouched
world country down there, you know. Thank you so much,

(07:29):
Mike really appreciate it. And we'll make sure all hips
are on the News talks 'b website.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
I just realized that this sounds weird. Don't worry. We didn't. Well,
at least I died, to put it this way. I
don't remember the whole family skinny thing. That would have
been a weird. It would have been a weird thing.
I supposed to. The point was that we could have
if we'd been into that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News talks 'B from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio