About Thunder Creek Falls
Thunder Creek Falls was one of the more well-known waterfalls in the Haast River Valley section of Mt Aspiring National Park.
Julie and I sensed it was popular because both times we made a visit here, there were a handful of cars at the car park despite our early morning arrivals in an area that was pretty wild and remote compared to much of the rest of the South Island of New Zealand.
We suspect that a very big reason for its fame was its ease of accessibility as we only had to do a walk of between 5-10 minutes to get to it and back from the well-signed car park.
Perhaps another contributor to its notoriety was its satisfyingly tall 28m height as well as the rushing and colourful Haast River running right before it.
To us, this waterfall also helped to break up the driving along the SH6 as we were one of many tourists driving between the Franz or Fox Glaciers and Queenstown.
The Gates of Haast at Haast Pass, which was fairly close to this waterfall, was the southernmost road traverse of the Southern Alps, which was essentially the spine of the South Island.
This “spine” also separated the very rainy West Coast from the much drier leeward plains of Otago and Canterbury.
Thunder Creek Falls was on the side of the pass draining towards the Tasman Sea so both times we made a visit here (November 2004 and December 2009) were under misty, foggy, and/or rainy conditions.
Despite the wet conditions, that didn’t seem to do much to deter the sandflies that conspired to keep us moving and not lingering here for long.
Authorities
Thunder Creek Falls is administered under the jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
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Fish River Gorge January 3, 2015 11:00 pm - In 2006, I and my two children (daughter, then 15; son, then 17) had spent 7 weeks Down Under, 1.5 of which were mostly on South Island. I am currently completing my 5th book "La Familia Hayburg: Down Under" and constantly compare my notes from then to other accounts of the area. One thing I've… ...Read MoreVisitor Reviews of this Waterfall:
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