Southern Alps New Zealand trip report.

We arrived in Christchurch about 3 pm. We bought a sim card/data for each of us ($USD25 each).
Cleared customs and were promptly picked up by Jucy and taken to their depot.
After a quick run through of the campervan workings and a tip on where to camp the first night we were off on our journey.
After a quick supermarket shop night one was a campground about 20 mins out of Christchurch at Spencer's Beach.
Next stop Geraldine. Nice town, nice forests nearby.
From Geraldine we headed to Lake Tekapo. A popular spot for the instagram crowd. We had thoughts of staying a night. Unfortunately Lake Tekapo didn't win our hearts. A very picturesque area but it was raining and just after our arrival a large number of coaches arrived. With about 500/600 tourists descending on a village of 250 all at once we decided to move on.
We soon reached Lake Pukaki. Breaks in the cloud cover kept teasing us with views across to the giant white peaks of the Mt Cook area.
We moved onto Twizel a pleasant, unremarkable small town but a good base for trips to Mt Cook NP.
Our 3d morning in NZ had clear skies and from the campground an incredible panorama of snow covered mountains.
The drive along the stunning blue Lake Pukaki to Mt Cook was simply jaw dropping beautiful.

The next couple of days were spent hiking around Mt Cook. Stunning scenery, amazing nature.

Highlights. Governers Bush and Red Tarns hike. Only one other hiker on these trails. Magnificent forests incredible views and no crowds.

Tasman Valley. Less crowded than Hooker Valley. My wife and I wandered off by ourselves until being joined by a cheeky NZ falcon for several kms he/she followed us closely, hopping from rock to rock.
The glacial lake had a massive iceberg floating in it and occasionally big chunks of ice would explode onto the surface.
Another major highlight was that amazing drive twice each day between Twizel and Mt Cook. About 40 mins of driving but always took much longer as we couldn't resist multiple stops to soak it in.

We moved onto little Omarama further south.
Near Omarama are some amazing clay cliffs. Giant towers and steep narrow valleys and canyons. Well worth a visit.
From Omarama to Cromwell via Lindis Pass. This was a very scenic drive.
Cromwell was our first "freedom camp" at a location on the edge of Lake Dunstan.
Cromwell's old main street is now under the waters of Lake Dunstan, flooded for hydro power in 1992. There is a very interesting reconstruction of much of the main St in the Heritage Precinct. An excellent little time capsule.
We found our way to the Rainbow takeaway and splurged on excellent fish n chips.

From Cromwell we headed towards Queenstown stopping a few times to check out the magnificent Kawarau Gorge.
Queenstown is super popular, even in the off season very crowded. The roads were pretty crazy, we had to drive 5 km out of town to find a place to park stop for lunch. A great spot mind you overlooking beautiful Lake Wakitipu with the Remarkables in the distance. We ate our lunch watching powerboats doing crazy acrobatics down below on the lake.
After lunch we headed up to the Top 10 campground well out of town on Arthur's Point.
Well appointed but easily the most expensive of the campgrounds ($USD 37 per night). Good location and we were able to do some decent wandering on foot. We found a massive swing over a gorge and down at the river a nice beach and a fabulous canyon but it was being used by jetboats. That is Queenstown, just about everywhere has a commercial tourist setup.
We only stayed the one night and skipped all the high octane adventures. We had somewhere to be.
My wife had one non negotiable for this trip, we had to do a Milford Sound cruise.
So we were off to Fiordland, specifically Te Anau.

Te Anau is on the shores of a huge lake of the same name. It is a small town in an astonishingly beautiful landscape, surrounded by high wild mountains, all snow covered during our visit.

Te Anau.
We had heard good things about Doubtful Sound so decided to do both Doubtful and Milford (they are actually fjords not sounds).
So after arriving in Te Anau we booked a coach/ cruise tour for Doubtful Sound for the following morning and a coach/cruise tour of Milford Sound the day after.
This was our big spend for the trip, all up about $USD600.

Doubtful Sound. On a clear frosty morning with fresh snow on the mountains we walked the short distance to Real NZ HQ to start our tour.
A short bus trip to Manapouri then we boarded a boat. An hour or so cruise on NZ's 2d deepest lake with wonderful mountain scenery. Down the lake's West Arm near a mostly underwater hydro station we disembarked then caught another bus. The buses here have to come in by barge as no roads lead to the road we were about to journey on. About an hour or so on the bus through magnificent pristine forest (a few stunning vista stops along the way) over Wilmot Pass and down into lonely Deep Cove. We boarded another boat and began our cruise of about 3 hours. A one word description would be MAGIC. Mountains on either side, numerous islands, wildlife inc penguins, seals, dolphins, albatross etc. Doubtful is I think 10 times the size of Milford.
We even briefly ventured out into the Tasman Sea.
It is a long day, about 8 hours but the time flew.

Milford Sound.
A later start (10 am) as our small Te Anau group would be joining a bus coming from Queenstown 2 hours away.
The bus journey to Milford from Te Anau was about 3 hours with a number of stops along the way. Fortunately I never get sick of stunning scenery as there was plenty along this road.
Milford is a stark contrast to Deep Cove/Doubtful Sound. An airport and a huge harbour building.
The cruise on the smaller fjord of Milford Sound was shorter than Doubtful, maybe about 90 minutes. I wondered whether Milford would be a let down after Doubtful but not at all. Milford is narrower and a bit steeper, seems to have more waterfalls and is probably a bit more spectacular if anything. Our skipper backed us right up under one of the falls. One of the many dolphins we saw decided to show off at one stage and did a series of flips and rolls.
The return bus journey was much quicker without the stops. Another long day but a brilliant one.

Regrettably we had to move on from Te Anau the following afternoon. We headed back in the general direction of Queenstown stopping for the night at the southern end of Lake Wakitipu near Kingston. Another freedom camping night, plenty of snow up high and frost all around. Glad we brought that hot water bottle.
Next day we skirted by Queenstown and went into neighbouring Arrowtown. Cute as a button the streetscape has the look of a Western movie set.
A great informative museum. A gold mining town in it's day.
We moved on in the afternoon driving up a series of steep switchbacks to a high point on the Crown Range. Great views from the roadside lookout stop. Even better a foot track led higher up the range. I threw on the trail runners and shorts while my wife made herself a cuppa. I ended up running to a nice high snowy viewpoint and a great whooping high speed return. My wife was on her 2d cuppa by then.
We continued on into Wanaka. Wanaka is quite beautiful but it was only going to be a brief stop.
We would be heading to the West Coast the next morning.

West Coast.

We headed north from Wanaka between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea.
This was a journey of many short walks featuring impossibly blue rivers, dramatic waterfalls and mysterious forests as we crossed Haast Pass to reach the West Coast.
The little town of Haast was our overnight stop.
Beautiful spot. A special treat during the evening was Aurora Australis putting on a fabulous show.
From Haast we headed to Fox Glacier, a small village at the foot of the Alps. Great spot for lunch at the Cook Saddle Saloon.
A wonderful trek through yet more of those incredible forests brought us to a great lookout to the Fox Glacier.
Our overnight was at the bigger village of Franz Josef Glacier.
A bit of luxury this night as we were booked into the backpackers lodge, at $USD30 for a double it was hard to resist. We were greeted with hot scones, jam and cream at reception. Very clean and comfy.
We spent the next morning hiking about near the Franz Josef Glacier.
In the afternoon we headed on to the town of Hokitika. Quite a large town which was good as we were needing to do a bit of grocery shopping.
The following morning we visited the Hokitika Gorge. Another place with bright blue water, nice easy hiking. Lunch then the Treetops Walk along high platforms inc a very high tower. The trees are an amazing biological metropolis.
From Hokitika the next morning we headed back inland climbing the impressive Arthur's Pass. Our little green Jucy van was working overtime up the 16% gradient.
At the Otira Viaduct viewpoint we had a wonderful close encounter with a couple of very cheeky Kea.
Lunch at Arthur's Pass Village then an afternoon of hiking. Yep more mountains, waterfalls and forests.
Our stop for the night was at Klondyke Corner a Dept of Cons campsite (just a shelter and toilet block). Lovely spot.
We were off to Christchurch the following day but the first part of the journey was very slow as a herd of cattle were being moved along the elevated road. We followed them slowly for 20 mins before we had room to get by.
This was a surprisingly beautiful drive for quite sometime along winding undulating roads between high mountains. Then into the burbs of Christchurch then we headed to the seaside back to Spencer's Beach where we had spent our first night.
The next morning was our last with our little green Jucy van. A visit to Christchurch Botanic Gardens and also the Quake Museum.
We dropped off the van and spent our last night at a motel near the airport.

We had a great time. Everything fell into place. Our biggest catastrophe was my wife losing her toothbrush, I kid you not.
Very inexpensive. We spent $USD 2500 on airfares, van hire and insurance before leaving home. We took just shy of $USD 2000 with us and didn't spend it all. So all up just under $USD 4500 total for 2 oldies for 3 weeks of great travel experiences.

Thanks for the wonderful and informative trip report. Touring by camper van sounds intriguing. Did the places you camped have toilet and shower facilities?

Hi Andrea. We predominantly stayed in commercial campgrounds with powered sites for the campervan. These all had well appointed communal kitchens, common rooms and shower and toilet facilities.
We did 3 nights of freedom camping at approved locations. These locations had only basic toilet facilities. Our van was registered as self contained, it had an approved toilet. It also had a shower (tiny and we only used it once). Campervans must be self contained if camping other than in commercial campgrounds.
The kitchens and common rooms were great places to socialise and get info.

Thanks for your review - has inspired me to look more closely at campervan holidays in NZ.

I’m curious as to how you found campervan hire with toilet and shower for (my rough translation of USD1800) $NZ3000 for 3 weeks. Just had a quick look on the Jucy website for next April and it is over $5000. Any tips?

Your trip report was fun to read! Thanks for posting.

Hi Ethel.
What size vehicle? We hired a vehicle called the Chaser. A little fella, 3 birth, pretty tight in the kitchen area with the shower/toilet in the back. We probably didn't need the shower.
I just searched out a quote for the same vehicle for April/May next year. $NZD 2700 for 19 days.
No better way to see the South Island I reckon.

Thanks Eatsrootsandleaves, I’ll play around with the dates and see if I can come up with a better price.

Nice report Wombat!

Regards Ron

We went to NZ last September and had a great time. We weren’t brave enough to do a camper; driving on the opposite side of the road in a sedan was difficult enough! My favorite places were the Hooker Track (we went pretty early, and only saw some tour buses on the way back) and Milford Sound (we did an overnight, which was amazing). Your trip sounds delightful and you got to see Hokitika, which we couldn’t fit in.

I have 21 nights (plus an earlier stay in Dunedin) for the SI, so will be moving more slowly than you - and will have a car. All lodging booked and several “activities”. You did a good job of describing the differences in Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. I have Milford booked but am waffling on Doubtful. I have a day in Te Anau unscheduled, so could fit it. I guess I am asking for further reassurance that it is different.

I will also be in Wanaka, heading then to Franz Joseph, where I will hopefully have a glacier flyover and landing (I am barely a “walker” and certainly not a “hiker”). I figure between Fox and FJ, I will have plenty to see if the heli ride is cancelled.

Then it’s on to Hokitika for a couple of nights mainly to break up driving. Thoughts on Hokitika Gorge for a non-hiker?

I will add the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch to my list. I added Cromwell after your report and after looking at some photos and reading about it.

Thank you!

Hi TTM.
Look I absolutely loved Doubtful Sound so am quite biased.
I (and my wife) loved the remoteness of it. To get there you cross one very big lake then a long bus trip through beautiful country on a non public road. The view from Wilmot Pass is spectacular. Deep Cove where the cruise starts has just a few buildings.
Milford Sound is reached by a public road, a very beautiful one I might add. There is a huge harbour facility, a nearby airport etc. So quite a contrast in all of that.
Once on the water there are more similarities than differences. Milford is narrower and maybe a bit more dramatic and has more waterfalls. Doubtful is much much bigger and the cruise was much longer. It was also less trafficked.
We were also very lucky to strike an extraordinary crew with Doubtful. Absolutely nothing wrong with the crew we had at Milford but the Doubtful crew were just absolute rippers.

There is another cruise option in Te Anau and that is the glow-worms. We didn't do it (budget constraints) but something to think about.

Also if you get a chance have a wander around the little bird sanctuary. Volunteer run gold coin donation. It is just along the beautiful lakeside path not far from the campground we stayed in. A few very special birds (a particular interest of mine).

We drove from Wanaka to Franz Josef over 2 days staying a night in Haast. The Wanaka - Haast drive was really lovely. A lot of stops along the way it took us nearly 8 hours although probably only 2 hours of driving. I think we had 10 stops that day. We are mad lovers of forests, rivers, mountains and lakes.
Fox is pretty tiny but we had a great lunch at the Saloon smack bang in middle of town, rip roaring log fire on a chilly autumn day. Wait until FJ if you need petrol or supplies though. Fox petrol price was $3.19 a litre, FJ $2.79. I'm guessing a bit more than you pay in Texas.

Hokitika Gorge is a very easy walk. Stunning water, lovely spot. A few swing bridges but not scary. We also visited the treetop walk. I believe you are a bit acrophobic so that may not be one for you. The tower climb was a bit intimidating even for my wife trained in rooftop rescue.
There is a small glow-worm dell in Hokitika too.

Cromwell is worth a stop itself but more impressive are the roads either side of it. Lindis Pass on one side and the impressive Gorge on the way towards Q'town.

C'church Botanic Gardens had some fantastic conservatories which were of great interest to my wife. Wander over for a visit to the Quake Museum too if time allows.

I loved our time on the South Island but I am notoriously easily pleased by beautiful scenery, geology, flora and fauna.

P.S. I really enjoyed Dunedin when visiting 2 decades ago.
Cheers.

Ok, you have given me lots of wonderful things to think about. I do have the glow worms and bird sanctuary in Te Anau on my schedule (my daughter was there in January and dictated part of my schedule - ha!).

I probably won’t be back (age, distance, and a long list) so I should probably just add Doubtful Sound in….. I have time.

And no, no treetop walks for me. Ha! No bridges over high places that move when I walk on them….. No stairs with open space so that I can see between them if it’s more than one flight. No logic, just panic.

In Christchurch, in addition to the gardens and Quake Museum, I will probably hit the Antarctica Museum. And rest up for Tasmania…. lol.

TTM I will advise against you ever doing Everest Base Camp in that case. The last of many suspension bridges on the way to Namche Bazaar is about 140 metres long and 120 metres above the river.