New Zealand's South Island Itinerary: PART 2

Our Toddler-Friendly Road Trip

Let’s dive right in with Part 2. This is a quick overview of the total itinerary. In the coming posts i’ll break down each day but I wanted a quick easy visual view of the whole trip.

I want to mention before we get into the actual itinerary, I think we did it really well, not to toot my own horn or anything but I feel the way we went meant that the trip continually got more and more impressive. Now that could be simply because just everything in NZ is jaw dropping and regardless of how you go about it you’ll feel constantly impressed but I dunno, I just feel we did it right. If we ever did, who am I kidding, WHEN we head back to NZ I think we will do a very similar path!

In the longer version i’ll be going into detail on each item and why we did what we did / what you could do differently at each place too as well as all the links. Keep in mind we had a toddler (who is the worlds worst sleeper) in tow so we didn’t want to jam pack every day and kinda focused on one main thing per day, you definitely could do a lot more if you had the energy.

Day 1: Fly to Queenstown (QT)
pm: pick up hire car, check in to accom, walk by the lake in QT

Day 2: Queenstown
am: hike lake Alta track
pm: explore QT, Skyline gondola / luge

Day 3: Scenic Drive out to Glenorchy
Stops along the way: Moke Lake, Bob’s Cove
pm: lunch in Glenorchy before heading back to QT

Day 4: Explore Arrowtown
all day: hire bikes in Arrowtown and ride the Gibbston River Trail, grab lunch at a winery along the way

Day 5: Te Anau + Milford Sound
am: drive from QT all the way to Milford Sound ~4.5hrs
pm: Milford Sound boat tour + head back to accom in Te Anau

Day 6: Milford Sound / Te Anau
Our plan was for a hike this day but due to weather we had a chill day in Te Anau

Day 7: Wanaka
am: drive from Te Anau to Wanaka ~3 hours
pm: lunch in Wanaka, visit Lake Hawea, visit Blue Pools

Day 8: Wanaka
am: hike Roy’s Peak - Many people do this for sunrise but we did it at a more reasonable hour. All up it took about 4.5 hours including time to eat and rest at the top. This is quite a challenging hike, but worth it. Not at all technical, just long slog up a big hill!
pm: recover

Day 9: Wanaka
am: explore town
pm: visit either - toy museum, lavender farm, wineries, etc - details will come in the post.

Day 10: Franz Josef
all day: drive Wanaka to Frans Josef via Thunder Falls, Haast Pass, Fox Glacier, Lake Matherson walk. Total of 4 hours driving time but add in all the stops and this will take most your day.

Day 11: Franz Josef + Fox Glacier
am: hikes at both glaciers to the view points
pm: chill afternoon or alternatives provided

Day 12: Driving day to Mt Cook National Park area (Twizel)
all day: drive from Franz Josef to Twizel via Wanaka. Unfortunately this is a big driving day with the trip taking about 6 hours. I looked at how we could do this differently because you actually go back through Wanaka but either way we would end up with 1 big driving day.
We stayed in the township of Twizel which was a very small town but super cute and had a couple of really great spots to eat considering how small it was!

Day 13: Mt Cook National Park
am: drive from Twizel out to Mt Cook - A stunning drive! Then hike Sealy Tarns - a 3ish hour (round trip) hike that basically just goes up stairs the entire way up to the most spectacular view you will ever see in your entire life!! I do not exaggerate - a follower told me this is her favourite spot in the entire world and I can see why!
pm: lunch back in Twizel and a chill afternoon

Day 14: Mt Cook National Park + Lake Tekapo
am: Hike the Hooker Valley Track - this was 10km long hike but is currently closed at the 2nd bridge. I’ve got suggestions in the post as to what you may do instead. The Dept of Conservation tells me it is permenatly closed however some fellow kiwi followers inform me they are just re-doing one of the bridges and it should open again - TBC.
pm: visit Lake Tekapo - I wish we spent longer here it is so stunning and depending on the time of year you will get the beautiful lupins (we didn’t) again in the post i’ll go into details on how we’d do this differently now.

Day 15: Drive back to QT
am: drive back to Queenstown and either fly home that afternoon or stay in QT for the night and head back the next day. From Twizel to QT is only 2.5 hrs so totally doable to get onto an afternoon flight. We stayed the extra night which i’m not sure was totally necessary.

Okay so long story short, that is the actual itinerary so if you want to get planning go ahead and dive on in. In the next probably 2 posts i’ll go into immense detail about recommendations at each place with all the links. I’m going to apologise in advance, she’ll be long, but she’ll be worth it.

Marika x