We wake to yet another blue-sky day and are raring to go. On today’s drive is Southern Alps beauty. We’re on highway 6 heading toward Haast Pass. Mt. Aspiring National Park and South West New Zealand World Heritage Area is on our left and there are many places to stop and hike to gorgeous waterfalls and turquoise/teal rivers and pools.
We heard along our travels that the Blue Pools near Makarora are amazing so we’re hiking into them along with visitors from Germany, Canada and more. We get our first view of the pools and cross over the suspension bridge to a viewing platform, then to the water’s edge. It’s breathtaking.
Where we’re from, the Pacific Northwest, our glacial rivers are sometimes dark and murky coming right off the mountains. Most of the rivers coming off the New Zealand’s Southern Alps – at least in summer – are this beautiful teal color. 
But we have much more ground to cover today to make it half-way up the South Island’s West Coast, so we take in one more waterfall and pass by yet another teal river.
We continue our drive through tropical Hawaii-like Haast Pass and hit the coast at Knight’s Point.
It looks and feels like a Central to Southern California beach, a bit of a cool breeze hits our faces but blue sky abounds and ongoing series of Tasman Sea waves hit the beach.
From here, we know we could spend a few days exploring Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. We’re on the other side of Mt. Cook, where we visited earlier in our trip and sandwiched by two national parks – Mt. Cook and Westland Tai Poutini National Parks.
We make a note to spend at least a day or two here next trip and continue on, our goal for today is still about two hours up the coast, in Hokitika.