CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Haast Pass West Coast · part 3
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 238 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 22
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Crown Range Road
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 166 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 166 km
- Named road
- Crown Range Road
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Queenstown / South Island
The lake itself is a deep blue, ringed with brown hills in summer and white peaks in winter, and it is smaller and quieter than its neighbour, Lake Wānaka, which lies just across a low neck of land. The lake level was raised in the 1950s by a dam at its outlet, drowning old shorelines and giving the water its present form.
Read the complete Queenstown / South Island write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Queenstown / South Island is where the day begins. Next is Haast Pass West Coast checkpoint 8.
2. Near Queenstown
South of Queenstown, the road to Kingston follows the eastern shore of Lake Wakatipu, squeezed between deep, cold water and the jagged wall of the Remarkables. In winter they are white to their bases; in summer the bare rock glows gold and grey in the evening light.
Read the complete Near Queenstown write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Haast Pass West Coast checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is Back to Haast.
3. Back to Haast
East of Kingston the lake country loosens its grip and the land turns to schist hills, tussock and wide, dry valleys with merino sheep spread across them like a scattering of rice. This point lies in that stretch, between the southern end of Lake Wakatipu and the Cromwell Basin, in a region where stone walls, shearing sheds and old gold workings tell the history of the Otago high country.
Read the complete Haast write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 238 km.