[denalipop]

Hi, we're arriving in Nelson on 3 Nov, and are planning a South Island road trip shortly afterwards. We've got about a week and a half, and would like to focus on the southern part of the island, since it might be a while until we have enough vacation days to head down there again.

I'm trying to plan a realistic itinerary.

How many hours can we expect to spend driving each of the following legs:

1) Nelson - Greymouth
2) Greymouth - Haast
3) Haast - Queenstown
4) Queenstown - Milford Sound
5) Milford South - Invercargill
6) Invercargill - Dunedin
7) Dunedin - Timaru
8) Timaru - Christchurch
9) Christchurch - Kaikoura
10) Kaikoura - Nelson

We might decide to skip certain areas or focus on particularly scenic drives, so here are some alternate legs we're considering:

a) Greymouth - Christchurch
b) Queenstown - Dunedin
c) Milford Sound - Dunedin
d) Queenstown - Twizel - Timaru

Does our main itinerary look doable (and enjoyable) in 9 or 10 days? Would you suggest any alterations?

[rogercruse]

I can't help with whether you have enough time for your trip, but it seems quite busy and you may want to see more than just roads & petrol stations.

BTW When we first visited NZ back in October 1998 we booked, through a local travel agent, a roundtrip flight from Christchurch over Milford Sound, Dunedin, etc. to reduce the amount of driving time and to see more of the country.

However, the weather didn't allow us to do this trip and we never got to see the far south. We did spend a great day in Akaroa instead.

[denalipop]

I don't mind long days of driving, as long as they are mixed with a few hours of walking/hiking. So maybe 5-8 hrs of driving a day would be what I had in mind. Is that realistic?

[Duncan74]

We started early, ie off the site about 7am, drove until wee got wherever, normally by 5pm, then spent 2 nights at each location, so a day without driving. Normally we got wherever early afternoon so had time to have a mooch around.

[petri]

I would recommend keeping the driving to 3-4 hours max. That gives you much more time to enjoy the things on the way / at the destinations. 10 days and 5-8 hours of driving is pain in the ass -- literally.

On our first trip to NZ we spent there about 10 days and did Queenstown-Fox Glacier-Christchurch-Kaikoura and Rotorua-Waitomo-Auckland-Whangarei. That schedule wasn't too tight but we still felt that we didn't see much and rushed through. The next visit to NZ was without schedule and we ended up spending two months.

If I was you, I would split the south island in half and do just one half now. For example a circle around the top or bottom part of the island. Spend more time in places and less time driving. I think the best part of NZ is that you can do things everywhere, not just see and drive.

[denalipop]

Our plan is to definitely focus on the southern part of the island. Day 1 would be a marathon haul from Nelson, trying to get as far south as possible (outside the "weekend radius" of Nelson). We can either go down the west coast for the "big loop" (coming up the east coast later), or cut over at Arthur's Pass towards ChCh.

My hope is that 6 or 7 days will be south of Timaru and Haast. Does that seem enough to see Queenstown, Milford Sound, Dunedin, and maybe Invercargill?

[victoria24]

i'd just turn up and see what occurs? you might find a place you love and want to explore further or movin on swiftly might be the order of the day?

[newarrival]

Just to answer one part of your question, I would have to look up the driving times (which are quite realistic in the "usual" road map)- I did a tour around the South Island with my mum (84) and my aunt (74) in March, we had about 8 days.
We went down the West coast, then over Haast pass, as far south as Bluff and back up on the East coast. It was a lot of driving, we did not do anything like Milford Sound or any bigger walks (obviously;) ), but we had stops for scenery, smaller walks (Pancake rocks in Punakaiki, Fox and Franz Josef glacier), some fun ( Shanty Twon on the West Coast, Glow-worm caves in Te Anau), information (small museum in Hokitika, Greenstone museum and shops in Greymouth, museum in Invercargill).
It gave a good overview, I think, and was the right thing for the purpose, but we could have easily spend at least double the time!

[hosebergine]

Driving over here is quite tiring - no big roads, lots of mountains and wiggly corners, and a low speed limit. Plus a load of stopping to take pictures because the views are amazing. Oh and don't forget to recover from jetlag too. There was a really sad story the other week about a guy who hadn't got over jetlag properly before hitting the roads.

On a lighter note, you'll see some terrific stuff :-) We toured the North island on our recce and just rambled about, deciding on where to go based on a bit of reading but also a lot of recommendations from people we met along the way. Tapping into local knowledge - it's the way forward :-)

[mylesdw]

1) Nelson - Greymouth
2) Greymouth - Haast
3) Haast - Queenstown
4) Queenstown - Milford Sound
5) Milford South - Invercargill
6) Invercargill - Dunedin
7) Dunedin - Timaru
8) Timaru - Christchurch
9) Christchurch - Kaikoura
10) Kaikoura - Nelson


Itinerary looks good.

My suggestion is to split #3 into

3a. Haast - Wanaka
3b. Wanaka - Queenstown

and then gain the day back by doing Dunedin - Chch in one go. The drive up the east coast from Dunedin to Chch is easy but rather dull and there is nothing of great note to see or do at Timaru. The whole journey would be about four and a half hours. Wanaka on the other hand is a nice little place on a beautiful lake, personally I like it a lot more than Queenstown, and well worth a stopover.

[newarrival]

Have lunch or a coffee in Timaru at one of the very nice places overlooking Caroline Bay- usually you just drive through along the main road (SH1) and don't get to see that lovely part of the town.

[tim&em]

Your itinerary is definitely doable and we always find that we stop so many times on the way that a long day's driving never feels that long. Especially in some of the remote areas you can stop every half hour and do a short waterfall walk, or scenic lookout.

A general point, as other posters have hinted at, is that you should try to have a general route, but with some flexibility. The great thing about road tripping around New Zealand, is that you never know exactly where you'll end up, how long you'll stay and also, which places you'll skip straight through.

[denalipop]

Thanks for the info, guys!!!

The legs I mentioned weren't intended to correspond with actual days. I was just listing the major waypoints.

If I had to pick a day-by-day itinerary, I'd try something roughly like this:

Day 1: Nelson to Franz Joseph or Haast (MARATHON DRIVING)
Day 2: Wanaka
Day 3: Queenstown
Day 4: Milford Sound, and then back to Te Anau
Day 5: Invercargill, Dunedin
Day 6: Dunedin
Day 7: Timaru, Christchurch
Day 8: Christchurch
Day 9: Kaikoura, Blenheim, back to Nelson

Hopefully (depending on how quickly we find a rental house), we'll have 1 or 2 additional days to space out the driving a bit and give us more time on foot.

Does that day-by-day itinerary look realistic? If you had to allocate more days to specific areas, where would you recommend?

[macs gold]

Thanks for the info, guys!!!

The legs I mentioned weren't intended to correspond with actual days. I was just listing the major waypoints.

If I had to pick a day-by-day itinerary, I'd try something roughly like this:

Day 1: Nelson to Franz Joseph or Haast (MARATHON DRIVING)
Day 2: Wanaka
Day 3: Queenstown
Day 4: Milford Sound, and then back to Te Anau
Day 5: Invercargill, Dunedin
Day 6: Dunedin
Day 7: Timaru, Christchurch
Day 8: Christchurch
Day 9: Kaikoura, Blenheim, back to Nelson

Hopefully (depending on how quickly we find a rental house), we'll have 1 or 2 additional days to space out the driving a bit and give us more time on foot.

Does that day-by-day itinerary look realistic? If you had to allocate more days to specific areas, where would you recommend? You could add a day in Te Anau, or even en there and Dunedin. The Southern Scenic Route through Riverton, Invercargill and Catlins is a great drive probably best done over 2 days.

And time allowing, I would always recommend doing Dunedin-Oamaru-Mt Cook one day, and Mt Cook-Tekapo-Christchurch the next.

I agree getting from Nelson to the glaciers in one day is worth doing.

[denalipop]

We ended up doing this:

Day 1: Nelson to Franz Josef
Day 2: Fox Glacier (Lake Matheson), Wanaka
Day 3: Queenstown
Day 4: Milford Sound, Te Anau
Day 5: Invercargill, Bluff, Catlins
Day 6: Dunedin
Day 7: Otago Peninsula, boulders, Oamaru
Day 8: Mount Cook, Twizel
Day 9: Lake Tekapo, Christchurch
Day 10: Lyttleton, Akaroa, Christchurch
Day 11: Kaikoura, Blenheim, back to Nelson

It was an average of about 6 hrs driving per day. We got going early (usually around 6:30) and so had time to hike or walk for a few hours each day.

The baby and I were both sick, but aside from that, we had a great time!

[Kiwi Mac]

It's more of a slog than it looks, I always find!

[denalipop]

Well, we liked it so much that we're going to do it again, at least parts of it, and at a much slower pace.

I'm working again now (via the internet), and our rental house isn't available until mid-January. Our plan is to spend each week in a different town until then. This week we are in Nelson, next will be Kaikoura, and after that either Christchurch or Twizel. This lets us get nice rates on hotels and/or internet, to keep costs down. It also lets us have a chance to explore several different areas of each place.

Any suggestions on places to stay a week?

(Since the busy tourist season is approaching, we want to hit the popular places first, and then save the boring or cheap places for the tourist rush.)

[Nolan]

We ended up doing this:

Day 1: Nelson to Franz Josef
Day 2: Fox Glacier (Lake Matheson), Wanaka
Day 3: Queenstown
Day 4: Milford Sound, Te Anau
Day 5: Invercargill, Bluff, Catlins
Day 6: Dunedin
Day 7: Otago Peninsula, boulders, Oamaru
Day 8: Mount Cook, Twizel
Day 9: Lake Tekapo, Christchurch
Day 10: Lyttleton, Akaroa, Christchurch
Day 11: Kaikoura, Blenheim, back to Nelson

It was an average of about 6 hrs driving per day. We got going early (usually around 6:30) and so had time to hike or walk for a few hours each day.

The baby and I were both sick, but aside from that, we had a great time!

Looks like a great road trip....well done. Curious to see when and where you settle in the Nelson area. Did you mention the possibility of creating your own blog, with pics of ccourse???? Cheers

[denalipop]

We found a nice house in the Wood, on Cambria St.

At some point, yeah, I was thinking of blogging everything. On the first plane, I wrote a one-page journal entry about that flight. Then our daughter got sick (with a fever), so all thoughts of writing took a backseat. I did, however, capture each of the 4 landings on video. And I continued to take photos and videos each day while we traveled the South Island, plus some very terse notes about what towns we hit on which days. Nothing bloggy, though. I guess verbosity is a luxury that we don't seem to make time for. We're too busy exploring, entertaining our daughter, and paying for things. Lots of paying for things. NZ is not cheap! The blogs will have to wait until we get stable.

[newarrival]

A place we really loved was Otematata- Lake Benmore/ Lake Aviemore are huge Lakes (used for producing electric power), it is close enough to the Mount Cook Area to do that in a day trip, we had one tour to Tekapo visiting the Mt.John Observatory (well worth it, we thought), there are walks in that area as well...
The village is very small, but they still have a nice cafe, a pub and a well stocked shop.

If you are not looking for vibrant night life:cool:, what about Carter's Beach/ Cape Foulwind in the Westport Area? Again- there are some tracks there, but I guess it is mainly quiet.....

[denalipop]

Thanks for the tips! We're definitely not into night-life!

We passed avemore on the way to mt cook... neat place!

[Richard7666]

I'd say do the Milford Sound-Invercargill-Dunedin like you originally plan, not Milford Sound-Gore-Dunedin which is what you would be doing if you went straight to Dunedin. The Southern Scenic Route is really lovely, even if it takes an extra few hour's drive, as opposed to fairly mundane farmland if you go overland.

[denalipop]

Yeah, we did the southern scenic route, which was great! Much more interesting than Invercargill itself.