Welcome to the third installment of my recap for my April trip to New Zealand! If you haven’t already, check out my previous post for part 2.
Auckland → Bay of Islands → Auckland →Wellington → Queenstown →Milford Sound → Aoraki Mount Cook → Christchurch →Auckland →Hobbiton → Auckland
On New Zealand’s South Island, I stepped off the plane in Queenstown and was immediately struck by how breathtaking the view was. I flew on one of those tiny planes that allow you to deplane from the back into open air, and the mountains in the distance were just gorgeous. My time in Queenstown and the surrounding areas was featured a succession of incredible, breathtaking vistas. Just a warning: I’m going to grossly overuse the word “breathtaking” in this post.
The reasonably priced bus from the airport into town was equipped with oversized windows that maximized views of the landscape from inside the bus.
Queenstown
Once in town, I headed over to Lake Wakatipu’s waterfront just in time for a mini cruise on the TSS Earnslaw.
The TSS Earnslaw is a vintage coal-fired steamship that still makes trips around the lake (with the option to disembark at Walter Peak for a farm tour), and visitors can even explore the steam room and the mini museum on board.
The cruise itself is only an hour and a half, but 1.5 hours of viewing Lake Wakatipu from on the water allows for some…you guessed it – breathtaking views.
After the cruise, I made my way over to my hostel for the next two nights, the Haka Lodge Queenstown. This Haka Lodge was located in a homey building with winding stairwells and a hodgepodge of different levels that reminded me a bit of Hogwarts’ interior. I settled into my small, 4-person room, which came with a cute little patio, and walked off to check out Bob’s Peak.
The Skyline Gondola is a little pod the runs visitors up the side of Bob’s Peak, ending at a café at the top that has amazing panoramic windows showing yet more spectacular views. I think of all the “high places with awesome views” tourist attractions, this one might have been my favorite.
Milford Sound
The next morning, I crept out of my bunk to spend the day in Milford Sound. One of the wettest and most visited places in the world, Milford Sound is part of Fiordland National Park and is an almost ethereal experience. My Jucy bus tour set off at 9am on a scenic 6-hour drive which included stops along the way to see some truly awesome stuff. One of my favorite stops was Mirror Lakes, where the water can be so clear and still that you can see detailed reflections of the Earl Mountains on the water surface.
There was also a stop at The Chasm, easily reachable via a little walking trail with some great selfie opportunities that I nearly missed my bus for – which would have been tragic given how remote the area is – but we don’t need to talk about that.
The cruise itself was about 2 hours, and it was completely worth having dedicated an entire day to go see.
The scenery was breathtaking, majestic and otherworldly, and the weather, though a bit foggy in places, was remarkably clear for the type of environment. In fact, I was unbelievably lucky in weather throughout the entire trip – the forecast had promised rain every day, and I had mostly sunny, beautiful fall days the whole time. I took about 200 photos and videos just from cruising Milford Sound – here are some of my favorites.
The ride back only took about 4 hours since we weren’t doing any scenic stops, so it was about 9pm when we pulled back into Queenstown. My Milford Sound day was long and tiring, but it was completely worth it, and Jucy’s glass-roof coach and comfortable seating made is a relatively painless day of lots of sitting.
If you’re going to be on the South Island, the two things I wholeheartedly recommend you not miss are Milford Sound and Aoraki Mount Cook, which was the next day’s destination and one of my favorites from the whole trip!
