Fantail Falls

South Westland

Fantail Falls is on the northern side of the Haast Pass / Tioripatea high point and has long been a very popular stop on State Highway 6. It is well signposted and has a large car park just off the side of the road. Then, it is just a two-minute walk to the edge of the gravel beds of the Haast River, directly opposite the falls.

When it rains heavily, getting over to the falls is definitely a wet exercise, but you can walk most of the way across, staying dry once the river drops. In these pictures, the fantail is hard to see because of the torrent of water, but it is much more obvious on a nice summer day.

The Brewster Track also starts from the car park. It is a reasonably tough 2 to 3-hour (1-way) 1,000-metre climb to 1,450 metres on a mostly rough forest tramping track to the Brewster Hut.

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