3,000 km driving across NZ’s South Island

Hi there, I’m back to civilization from a long road trip in the ultimately pure and unspoiled southern New Zealand.

For the first time we camped among the wild. G brought with him a lightweight tent that comfortably accommodated us throughout the adventure. Camping is the kiwi way of immersing into nature and it saved us a big chunk of money too.

For days we ventured out into the unknown in quest of NZ native sea life. We waited hours in the freezing drizzle outside the nest of the yellow-eyed penguins, and felt the utmost joy when finally seeing one returning home. We knew how fortunate we were — considering that the yellow-eyed penguins can only be found in New Zealand and are among the world’s rarest penguin species. While roaming secluded beaches in the Otago Peninsula, we were lucky enough to encounter with NZ’s fur seals and sea lions as they were resting on the dune. These looked-like-cute animals, we were told, might get aggressive when feeling disturbed, therefore we could only get as close as 10m from where they were.

We also disciplined ourselves with a good amount of scenic walks and day hikes throughout the trip. In Arthur’s pass national park, we took the Scott’s track (6-8 hrs return), which was rocks all the way to the summit and extremely exposed, but the unobstructed view of Mt. Rolleston (2,271 m) in the end was worth every sweat. The Roys Peak track (6 hrs return) was no less challenging with more than 1,200m gain in elevation. Franz Josef Glacier & Fox Glacier tracks, surprisingly, were more like walks in the park, however we were both in awe of the spectacular alpine landscape that has been shaped over thousands of years. Aoraki Mt Cook (3,724m), King of the Southern Alps, probably offered the best tracks of all. Views of the Mueller glacier were clearly visible from the driveway, and the popular Hookey valley track made us wow all the way from the car park to the glacial lake for its rugged landscape of mountains, rocks, glaciers, streams and icebergs.

So through this post I want to showout to G for planning this trip. It was him who made sure our itinerary a good mix between adventure and leisure, hiking and sight-seeing, moving and taking time off the road. Most of all, he made sure we had the most authentic experiences of New Zealand!

Stay tuned for more stories of our favorite attractions! In the meantime, here’s a quick recap of our NZ South island adventure.