- Esther
- Mar 28, 2020
- 7 min read
After a road trip through the North Island, New Zealand was already up there as one of the most incredible places I’d ever been to. But as soon as Ben and I started exploring the glacial South Island, I completely fell in love with the country.
It seems like everywhere you look or drive in the South Island, you’re surrounded by towering mountains, jewel-coloured lakes, icy glaciers, wild beaches or jaw-dropping fiords.
Not only were my three weeks in the South Island breathtakingly beautiful - they were also action-packed. As well as doing a few more mountain-top hikes, I managed to tick skydiving, white water rafting and even a bungy swing off of my bucket list!
Abel Tasman National Park
After getting off the ferry from the North Island and driving through the Marlborough wineries, we started our time in the South Island at the Abel Tasman National Park.
Abel Tasman was genuinely one of the most beautiful coastal areas I’d ever seen - and after travelling down the East Coast of Aus a few months before, that’s saying a lot!
To see as much of the area as possible, you can either take a water taxi along the coastline or hike along it. We did a bit of both; taking a boat from the famous Split Apple Rock at Kaiteriteri all the way up to Bark Bay (which is beautiful!) and spending the rest of the day walking all the way back down.
That night, we parked our camper next to the beach so we could spent the whole of the next day just relaxing by the sea.
The Wild West Coast, Punakaiki & Pancake Rocks
Our next stop was Punakaiki, which is most famous for its Pancake Rocks and Blowholes Walk.
The Pancake Rocks, which apparently started forming 30 million years ago, do look a bit like pancakes thanks to their hundreds of closely stacked layers. The Punakaiki Blowholes are also pretty cool - especially on a windy day - as they shoot sea water over all the pancake formations.
After we’d done the walk, we also went to The Pancake Rocks Café for some incredible (although pretty pricey) pancakes.
Again, the coastal views were amazing on the drive along the Wild West Coast. You really have to watch out for the sand flies when you’re camping around there, though. They get everywhere and they’re pretty relentless!
Arthur’s Pass
Next up was Arthur’s Pass, which is one of the most incredible mountain drives you’ll ever do.
In fact, ridiculously scenic drives pretty much became the new normal while we were driving around the South Island!
Along the way, we stopped to hike up to The Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall, which was stunning, and also ended up seeing one of New Zealand’s famous but endangered kea birds!
Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers
After seeing Arthur’s Pass, we drove straight to the famous Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Both were amazing, but for safety reasons you can’t usually hike that close to them, so we had to just walk to their viewing points and see them from a fair distance away.
You can also take a heli hike over each of the glaciers, which is apparently an amazing thing to do, as you actually get dropped off on the glaciers and explore them from the inside. The only problem is that the heli hikes cost a couple of hundred dollars, and we were saving our money for adventures like skydiving and bungying later on in our trip.
Wanaka
Wanaka - joint with Queenstown - was one of my favourite places in the whole of the South Island.
Lake Wanaka itself was absolutely gorgeous (and enormous!), set against a backdrop of towering green mountains, and the walk up to Roy’s Peak was the most beautiful hike I think I’ve ever done in my life.
It does take quite a few hours (and your legs will feel like jelly afterwards), but I don’t think a trip to Wanaka would be complete without it.
Wanaka was also where the highlight of my whole New Zealand trip happened. I skydived from 12,000 feet with Skydive Wanaka! It was the craziest experience I’d had in my whole 18 months of travelling!
Apparently I got almost a minute in freefall, but it was such a surreal feeling it felt like it all happened in about 5 seconds!
I also couldn’t have asked for a better instructor. He made me forget to feel nervous as we were all flying up in the plane - even though I was the first to be jumping out - and even let me control the parachute as we floated back down, admiring the views.
If you want to just chill after all the hiking adrenalin rushes in Wanaka, there’s also a really cute cinema there called Cinema Paradiso, where you can sit on a sofa to watch your film and pop out during the interval for a homemade cookie or a beer.
Plus, there are some lovely breweries around Wanaka, like Rhyme and Reason, where you can try some local beer or cider.
Queenstown
I absolutely loved the vibe in Queenstown! Not only is it super green, laid-back and surrounded by beautiful lakeside scenery, it’s also such a lively place filled with backpackers, cafés, music, little shops, street performances and even a floating bar.
Thanks to a very kind Christmas gift from Ben’s parents, the first thing we did in Queenstown was the Shotover Jet; an 85kph jet boat ride through the Shotover River and its canyons. It felt like a rollercoaster and you get absolutely soaked by the end!
Next, it was time to take on The Nevis Swing.
I didn’t do a bungy jump but I did do the bungy swing with Ben and it was honestly the scariest activity I’ve ever done. Much scarier than the skydiving!
I was expecting the 300m arc to be smooth all the way through, but no one warned me about the 60m drop at the start! I screamed like I was being murdered but I’d still 100% recommend it!
Another highlight was the Ben Lomond walk we did, which was pretty similar to the Roy’s Peak hike in Wanaka - both in terms of its gorgeous scenery and it being really long and difficult!
You start by heading up the Tiki Trail for a couple of hours (or just take a cable car to the top), then walk through the mountains for a few hours to get to the most amazing views at Ben Lomond’s highest point.
We also hired bikes to do the Queenstown Trail and cycle around the river and wineries in Arrowtown, which is one of the cutest and quirkiest little villages we visited. It’s a historic gold mining settlement which felt like it was straight out of a Wild West movie and was packed with little cafés and bars.
Queenstown was such a great mix of chilled, beautiful and fun that we ended up staying there for a full 6 days!
In that time, we had plenty of burgers from Fergburger (where there is always a massive queue but it's so worth the wait), pies from the almost-as-famous Fergbaker, apple ciders on the lawn and sunny afternoons by Lake Wakatipu.
Milford Sound
Milford Sound, New Zealand’s most famous fiord, is known for being one of the most beautiful places in the South Island. I can see why it’s got that reputation because we saw it on the rainiest, greyest day of our whole trip and it was still amazing!
The gloomy sky actually made all the rainforest scenery, huge cliffs and waterfalls look extra dramatic and Jurassic.
We paid for one of the Jucy cruises, which take you on a couple of hours’ cruise around Milford Sound. It’s really fun standing on the outside of the boat and getting soaked by the enormous waterfalls!
Lake Pukaki
Lake Pukaki was hands down the prettiest lake I saw in New Zealand. It’s set against a backdrop of icy mountains (Mount Cook being the most visible) and I cannot tell you how blue the water was! It almost didn’t look real.
The pictures we took on our Go Pro while swimming in it really didn’t do Lake Pukaki any justice, but just look at these unedited iPhone photos:
We managed to get a spot right next to the lake in our camper and spent the day swimming, relaxing and cooking pancakes by the lake. I could have stayed there for days!
Mount Cook and The Hooker Valley Trail
The Hooker Valley Trail is New Zealand’s most popular one-day hike - and for very good reason. It only takes a couple of hours, it’s a super easy walk and the views you get of Mount Cook as you approach it are incredible.
Lake Tekapo
We only stopped by Lake Tekapo for one afternoon, but if you’re there around November you’ll probably end up staying longer because that’s when its iconic purple lupin flowers are in full bloom.
The famous Church of the Good Shepherd there is also very pretty, but it was packed with tourists on the afternoon we were there.
For me, Lake Tekapo couldn't beat Lake Pukaki, but it was still insanely beautiful!
White water rafting down Rangitata River
If you’re looking to do some white water rafting in New Zealand, I would 100% recommend Rangitata Rafts.
Our raft guide, Deano, was absolutely hilarious, the scenery along Rangitata River was beautiful and the grade 5 rapids we rafted through were just the right amount of terrifying!
For context, grade 5 is the upper limit of what you’re allowed to take on in a commercial raft. Grade 5 rapids are classed as “extremely difficult, long and very violent rapids, with significant hazard to life in the event of a mishap.” Grade 6 is classified as “Nearly impossible and very dangerous. For teams of experts only.” As you can imagine, it was a pretty intense couple of hours, but it was also so much fun!
Deano had us all working as a team, teaching us all the basic manoeuvres before we got to the biggest rapids (and being very patient with us all along the way)! We were pretty proud to finish without even capsizing once, but we all jumped into the water anyway to float downstream (and get stuck in some whirlpools) on the way back to the camp.
Christchurch
We actually only had a few hours in Christchurch before we dropped off our camper and headed to the airport to fly home.
That was just enough time to visit one of Christchurch’s most famous coffee shops, C1 Espresso, where not only is the coffee amazing but the food you order gets delivered to your table from a mailroom-style tube!
From start to finish, New Zealand was one of the most stunning places I’ve ever been to. I was sad to fly home from it and bring my 18 months of travelling to an end, but I really couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish an incredible trip around the other side of the world.
