New Zealand's South Island: Christchurch to Milford
Glaciers, the Southern Alps, a dark sky reserve and the fiords — a three-week circuit of the island by car, built around walks rather than viewpoints.
Christchurch
The 2011 earthquake killed 185 people and took down much of the centre; what has been built since is deliberate — the Transitional Cathedral made of cardboard tubes, the 185 Empty Chairs memorial, and a rebuilt centre that is worth a day. Collect the car here.
Akaroa and Banks Peninsula
An hour and a half east onto a drowned volcanic crater. Akaroa was a French settlement and keeps the street names; the harbour holds Hector's dolphin, the smallest and rarest marine dolphin in the world, found nowhere but New Zealand.
Inland to Lake Tekapo
Three hours into the Mackenzie basin, where the lakes are turquoise from rock flour suspended in glacial melt. Tekapo sits inside the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve — the Mount John observatory runs night tours and the sky is as good as anywhere accessible on earth.
Aoraki/Mount Cook
An hour up the side of Lake Pūkaki with the mountain at the end of the road. The Hooker Valley track is three hours return, flat, on boardwalk and swing bridges, and ends at a lake with icebergs in it below the country's highest peak. Do it, even in rain.
South to Wānaka
Over the Lindis Pass through tussock country. Wānaka is the quieter alternative to Queenstown — Roys Peak is a punishing 1,200-metre climb for the most photographed view in the country, and Rob Roy Glacier is a gentler three hours with equally good payoff.
The Crown Range to Queenstown
The highest sealed road in the country, over the Crown Range with the Cardrona hotel on it, dropping into Queenstown. The town is built on adventure tourism and does it well; the Skyline gondola and the Ben Lomond track above it give the geography.
Glenorchy and the Routeburn
Forty-five minutes up the lake on a road that is the reason people rent convertibles here. Glenorchy is the trailhead for the Routeburn Track; the first few hours to Routeburn Flats can be walked as a day trip without a hut booking and give you the valley.
Te Anau
Two hours south to the gateway of Fiordland. Book the Milford trip and check the road status tonight — the Homer Tunnel road closes for avalanche risk and it is not negotiable. The glowworm caves across the lake are a good evening if the weather turns.
Milford Sound
The drive in is the equal of the destination — the Eglinton valley, the Mirror Lakes, and the Homer Tunnel, unlined and dripping, dropping you into Cleddau. Mitre Peak rises 1,692 metres straight out of the water. It rains about 200 days a year and the fiord is better in rain, when hundreds of temporary waterfalls appear.
Doubtful Sound
Harder to reach and quieter for it — a boat across Lake Manapouri, a bus over Wilmot Pass and then a second boat into a fiord ten times the size of Milford. Overnight cruises exist and are the better version if the budget allows.
The Catlins
East and south along a coast almost nobody drives — Nugget Point lighthouse with sea stacks below it, Purakaunui Falls, Curio Bay's 180-million-year-old petrified forest exposed at low tide, and yellow-eyed penguins coming ashore at dusk.
Stewart Island
An hour by ferry from Bluff across the Foveaux Strait, which is often rough. Rakiura is 85% national park, has around 400 residents, and is one of the few places where kiwi are commonly seen in the wild — on Ocean Beach at night with a guide.
Back north to Dunedin
The Otago capital is built of Victorian stone on hills that are too steep for it — Baldwin Street was the world's steepest residential street until a Welsh challenge. The Otago Peninsula has the only mainland royal albatross colony on earth and sea lions on the beaches.
North to the West Coast via the Haast Pass
A long transfer day back across the Southern Alps — inland through Central Otago's dry schist country, then over the Haast Pass and into temperate rainforest that gets six metres of rain a year. The change on either side of the divide happens within a few kilometres.
Fox and Franz Josef glaciers
Two glaciers descending almost to sea level through rainforest, which is unusual anywhere. Both have retreated sharply and the valley walks now stop well short of the ice; the only way onto it is by helicopter, which is weather-dependent and worth the wait.
Hokitika and the Punakaiki pancake rocks
North up the coast. Hokitika Gorge is a short walk to water an implausible blue, and the town works pounamu — greenstone — which has legal protections and should be bought from someone who can tell you where it came from. Punakaiki's layered limestone blowholes fire at high tide.
Abel Tasman
North to the top of the island and the smallest national park in the country — golden sand, clear water and a coast track walked in sections with a water taxi doing the returns. The most benign landscape on the South Island after two weeks of alps and rain.
Kaikōura
East and south, where the continental shelf drops away a few kilometres offshore and brings sperm whales in year-round, along with dusky dolphins in pods of hundreds. The 2016 earthquake lifted the seabed here by two metres and the new shoreline is visible.
Back to Christchurch
Two and a half hours south along a coast road rebuilt after the earthquake. Drop the car and fly out, or continue to Picton for the ferry to the North Island if the trip carries on.
Good to know
Every distance estimate on a New Zealand map is optimistic — the roads are narrow, winding and single-lane over bridges, and overseas drivers are over-represented in crashes for exactly this reason. Add 50% to any time the map gives you and take the extra night rather than the long push. A campervan is the classic way to do this and freedom camping is legal only in designated places for certified self-contained vehicles, which is enforced with real fines. Book Milford and Doubtful cruises, the Aoraki and Franz Josef accommodation and any Great Walk hut months ahead for December to February. Biosecurity is the strictest in the world: clean hiking boots before you fly and declare everything. Fuel is dearer on the West Coast and in Fiordland, so fill in the bigger towns. Weather on the divide changes within an hour, and MetService plus the DOC track alerts are what to check each morning. Sandflies on the West Coast and in Fiordland are relentless — repellent is not optional.
Shorter or longer?
The Routeburn (3 days), Kepler (4 days) or Milford Track (4 days) fit into this loop with hut bookings made the previous winter — they sell out within hours of opening. The Kepler starts and ends at Te Anau, which makes it the easiest to slot in.
June to September for skiing at Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Treble Cone, with much cheaper accommodation everywhere. Some alpine tracks close, the Milford road needs chains and daylight is short, but the mountains are at their best.
Dropping Stewart Island, the Catlins and Abel Tasman gives a tighter alpine loop — Tekapo, Mount Cook, Wānaka, Queenstown, Fiordland and the glaciers — which is what most two-week trips actually cover.