{"id":2374,"date":"2017-11-25T18:57:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T18:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/?p=2374"},"modified":"2026-10-11T19:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T19:48:08","slug":"stop-27-arthurs-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/stop-27-arthurs-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop #27: Arthur’s Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arthur’s Pass is a narrow valley across the Southern Alps, connecting the north and south coasts of the South Island. Even though we didn’t take the pass all the way through, it was interesting to know that we were just a short distance away from Fox Glacier, which felt like it was on the other side of the country.<\/p>\n

We camped not far from the Arthur’s Pass National Park Visitor Centre, which was tucked right alongside the highway and conveniently near two waterfalls: Avalanche Creek Waterfall and The Devil’s Punchbowl. Strangely enough there are no photos of the former, so I’m not sure whether we went to see it (which surprises me because we would never skip a waterfall) or we just weren’t impressed enough to capture the moment.<\/p>\n

The following morning we decided to drive partially through the pass, which I remember as being quite a hair raising experience. It wasn’t the condition of the road that made it scary (it was beautifully maintained), but more the thought of barreling down a steep straightaway only to hit a particularly sharp turn at the bottom and the brakes giving out. Thankfully old Fernie kept us safe and pulled us through all the hills, bends and switchbacks safely!<\/p>\n

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We stopped to take some photos next to the official entrance sign. We felt it necessary to include Fernadette in the photo, in the event that Arthur’s Pass defeated her.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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It was a beautiful road and a lot of fun to drive on. Maybe more fun if I was driving a sports car and not a mini-van.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Throughout the pass there were all sorts of cool tunnels and rockslide-preventing contraptions, including this waterfall redirection flume.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Devil’s Punchbowl Falls. At 131 meters (430 feet), it was one of the taller ones we’ve seen on our journey. It was also interesting because it had a mini set of falls right at the top, a bit like water falling over steps.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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A closeup. Needless to say we got wet!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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This was taken closer to the falls, and from the weird perspective it actually looks like the falls are a lot less taller than before!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I liked the way this tree leaned out in front of the ravine. It reminded me of those old-style Japanese drawings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Leaving Arthur’s Pass and heading east towards Christchurch, we stopped by the town of Springfield, where of course they had a giant Simpsons doughnut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arthur’s Pass is a narrow valley across the Southern Alps, connecting the north and south coasts of the South Island. Even though we didn’t take the pass all the way through, it was interesting to know that we were just a short distance away from Fox Glacier, which felt like it was on the other … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Stop #27: Arthur’s Pass”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-zealand","category-south-island","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anothertimezone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}