January 4, 2024 Lewis Pass (Day 99)
Travel Day! Heading towards Christchurch today. We drove through the small town of Murchison where we got some coffees and decided that would be a great town as base to explore more of Kahurangi National Park! Just past town going south is Maruia Falls, the first of several ‘Maruia’ named places. all on the Maruia river we assume!
Something to think about as we approached the falls!
An impressive waterfall!
The highway follows the Maruia river upstream through Maruia Valley, passing through the townsite (no ‘town’) of Maruia, curves to the east past Maruia Hot Springs resort and heads up to Lewis Pass. At 907m (2975 ft.) the curvy road with one lane sections was quite the challenge! At the summit we spotted a few patches of snow on distant peaks, but couldn’t catch a shot of it.
As we descended down from the pass we had beautiful views of the mountains, and the lonely little cloud between them.
We continued down into the Amuri Plain along the braided Boyle river, a huge river bed full of cobble rocks, scoured and rounded by erosion.
We got an eastern Oregon/Nevada vibe with the rocky slopes and dry grasses.
We made it to our AirBnB with time to unpack then go out to dinner!
Fabulous fish & chips!