Reply to Best two "homebases" for New Zealand's South Island?

Forum Index » Travel Discussion

Reply to "Best two "homebases" for New Zealand's South Island? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Wanaka is about 45 minutes from Queenstown and has a lovely lake with great hiking nearby. It's quieter and perhaps a bit more "New Zealand." Good launching point for exploring the west coast.

FYI my best trips to NZ always involved a road trip. It's easy to move around the country and staying each night (or two nights) at a homestay, guest house, hotel or motel. That allows you to see more of the south island. For example, one of the most breathtaking experience was spending the night in a guest house on a remote sheep station by Lake Tekapo:

https://www.facebook.com/glenmoreaccommodation/

What made it breathtaking was walking outside after a home cooked meal to look up into the sky to see the Milky Way. And for the first time in my life I fully understood why it was called the Milky Way because there were so many stars that it formed a translucent haze, in other words, milky! It was unbelievable. We stared for hours.

I understand the desire to remain rooted in one spot but the scenery is so spectacular and so varied that it does make more sense to take a road trip. It's really the ideal country for road trips because a drive of just a hour or two can take you someplace quite different and just as spectacular. Yet at the same time the distances are just far enough that trying to do lots of day trips from one place is perhaps a little too tiring. Self catering is quite easy, so you can pick up a cooler and bring your food as you go along. Restaurants/bistros are more or less similar across the country. And there's always fantastic coffee ;)

If I were you, I'd spend the first week doing a loop from Queenstown (Q-town, Te Anau and Milford Sound) to Wanaka (Mount Aspiring National Park) to Mount Cook / Lake Tekapo to Castle Hill and Arthur's Pass then over to the West Coast to Hokitika then down the coast to the glaciers and then to Haast, and from there back to the interior to Wanaka / Queenstown. This is all great outdoors, mountains, valleys, brilliant starlit skies, beaches.

Then the second week I'd do the east coast of New Zealand, from Dunedin up to Omaru to Christchurch to Kaikora to Nelson/Abel Tasman. Small historic cities and little towns, great wines in the Blenheim wine country, and the glorious beaches of Abel Tasman. Quite a different vibe from the interior and the west coast.

Ahhh....I want to go back to New Zealand. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics