Another day of driving through mountains...the ones we flew over yesterday! Lovely day today! The road follows the river all the way...guess that is easiest route to make a road...river has done hard work for man! We stopped and hiked a 30 minute hike to see blue pools...where water is very blue due to reflection of white rock river bed. Stopped to walk to beach when we got to west coast...Haast...very deserted....nothing between here and Antartica! Lunch at Haast Junction...not much other than coffee spot here! Took about 6 hours with lots of stops. Nice hotel room....village of Franz Josef is very small...can walk everywhere....so we had dinner at the first steak house we came to! Town is for hikers, flights to glaciers, glacier hot springs....and that is about it!