New Zealand Travel: South Island (Part 1)

New Zealand Travel (Part 1)

Through this blog I will outline what we did in New Zealand and what to do in New Zealand, focusing on primary pointers I think are useful for other travelers. You’ll notice I have some vegan food information in this blog, but check out my Vegan Travel: New Zealand blog to see how to eat vegan in New Zealand following our itenerary.

We had the most incredible trip around New Zealand. We toured both islands in two weeks. This will be a two part blog, this blog is for the South Island and part 2 is for the North Island. In this blog post I’ll outline what to do on New Zealand’s South Island in one week. I’ll show you what we did in each place and provide great options that we didn’t do, but would still recommend.

Brian and I did the whole trip on our own, instead of with a travel group. We’ve heard positive things about New Zealand travel groups, but we wanted more alone time and to be able to move from location to location with ease.

We rented a car on each island. Shoot us a message at in**@fo**************.com if you have questions about what rental cars we used. Note about driving: If you are from the United States (or any country which drives on the right side of the road), in New Zealand you drive on the left side of the road, and the driver is on the right side of the car. This took some getting used to (for Brian, who drove us around, thanks babe!).

Our itinerary:

Covered in this blog on New Zealand Travel

Flight from (LAX) Los Angeles, CA to (AUK) Auckland, NZ, short layover, AUK to (CHC) Christchurch, NZ
One day in Lake Tekapo
One day in Mount Cook National Park
Two days in Wanaka
Two days in Te Anau
One day in Milford Sound
Two days in Queenstown

Notes for New Zealand Travel

How to use your cell phone when visiting New Zealand: You are able to buy a sim card at the airport. A sim card with 300 text messages and 300 minutes costs about $25 NZ for two weeks of service. You can compare companies before you arrive through a review website, but I recommend grabbing whatever is most easily available at the airport. Buy the sim card while you’re still in duty free and you don’t have to pay taxes

How to find Wi-Fi in New Zealand: We didn’t have trouble with this. We found Wi-Fi at most restaurants and lodging that we had. That combined with the data that we had with our sim card plan and offline navigation, we weren’t ever left without the connection we needed

PRO TRIP: Download GoogleMaps of where you’ll be traveling to ahead of time so you can navigate while offline. Here is a how-to for downloading (caching) Google Maps for offline use.

Flights

We live in Los Angeles, so we flew into Auckland then to Christchurch after a short layover. The flight from Los Angeles to New Zealand was about 13 hours. We grabbed some snacks and drinks in a lounge, boarded, settled into our seats, and fell asleep for the rest of the flight.

We flew Air New Zealand which was a very pleasant experience complete with comfortable seating, free entertainment, and a fun safety video. Because we requested vegan meals, we got our meals before everyone else on the plane and then we were able to go to sleep sooner! Add that to the list of perks of eating vegan food. In order to get a vegan meal onboard you need to call before your flight and specifically request a vegan meal, and they will accommodate.

Our vegan onboard dinner complete with my choice of New Zealand wine:

Lake Tekapo: 1 Day

Activities:

Enjoy the lake
Mount John Observatory
Walk around the little town
Church of the Good Shepherd
Maybe: Star gazing

In less than three hours of driving, we arrived in Lake Tekapo. We spent one of our eight days on the South Island in Lake Tekapo. One day here felt like the right amount of time, even after nearly 24 hours of traveling.

Lake Tekapo is a small, quiet town. It has one central area with about six restaurants and one bar. We are pretty friendly people, but we didn’t find anyone who was interested in socializing with us in this town.

HOWEVER, it was absolutely beautiful. I don’t know why no one has told me before how gorgeous Lake Tekapo is and blogs and travel sites don’t emphasize how remarkable the water is. Because Lake Tekapo is a glacier-fed lake, it is bright blue in color:

The pictures truly don’t do it justice. The turquoise of the lake made my jaw-drop. I was so awe-struck by the lake I wanted to gaze at it for hours.

We drove 10 minutes from the town to the Mount John Observatory. You can hike up or drive up to the top and park for $8 NZ. The hike looks like it would take about 30 minutes up and 20 minutes down.At the top of the observatory is Astro Cafe, a lovely spot to grab a drink or a snack.

That evening we took a short 15 minute walk from our AirBNB (there are many lodging options on AirBNB) and a 10 minute walk from downtown Lake Tekapo to the Church of the Good Shepherd. We arrived as a big storm was moving in and the rain began to come down. It’s a beautiful lookout to enjoy the views but you don’t need to spend more than 20 – 30 minutes here unless you’re attending a service at the church.

My tripod headstand in front of the Church of the Good Shepherd (my yogi inclinations follow me around the world):

That night we had planned to go star gazing in Lake Tekapo, as the city is known for. I have to put in a huge warning here – don’t book your star gazing tour ahead of time. Once we saw the clouds rolling in we went to the start gazing company and asked to cancel. They wouldn’t let us cancel but they said that even if there are crazy storms the tour is still worth it. SPOILER ALERT – It wasn’t. We were supposed to learn about stars and then gaze at the stars in hot pools. Instead we saw a poor indoor projector presentation then sat in lukewarm pools under clouds and sprinkling rain.

SO, if you are going to go star gazing I highly recommend booking it as close to the tour as possible and only doing so once you can confirm the weather will be good. Okay, rant over.

I’ve created this blog that outlines most of the places we ate while in New Zealand so if you’re using this New Zealand itinerary as a travel guide you can use those sites to see where I’ve been. I’ve also reviewed restaurants in Lake Tekapo on Trip Advisor, Yelp and HappyCow.com where I can.

Mount Cook National Park: 1 Day

We grabbed breakfast in Lake Tekapo then started the gorgeous drive to Mount Cook National Park.

Activities in Mount Cook

Described below:
Lake Pukakai
Hooker Valley Hike
Tasman Lake and Glacier

We didn’t take the Mount Cook Ski Planes and Helicopters but they looked like an absolute blast.

Along the way we stopped at Lake Pukaki which was this remarkable turquoise lake. These were the last turquoise lakes that we saw on this trip so I actually wish we’d spent a little more time with them.

Before heading to Hooker Valley for a hike during sunset (described below) we first stopped for an hour long hike with short loops through Glacier Valley and The Blue Lakes at Tasman Glacier Lake. Full disclosure, we thought those little chunks of ice in the lake were glaciers at first. After reading signs later, we realized the glacier was actually the enormous mountain just to the left of this picture below.

You’ll notice these lakes look like chocolate almond milk. That is because they have a lot of dirt in them still, after melting from the glacier and flowing over rock to get into the lake. Over the next miles of flowing water, the sediment in the water is filtering out, so that when it reaches the lakes that we saw up above, it’s that remarkable blue color.

Lodging in Mt Cook, New Zealand

We finished up that hike and headed back to our hotel. We booked most of our lodging a few months in advance (we’re planners, by heart). Even with a few months advance notice, Mt. Cook lodging was mostly sold out when we went to book. We ended up finding a park where people could hook up RVs and such. I thought I was going to have to deal with sub-par lodging for this part of the trip.

To my sweet surprise, Glentanner Park Centre was LOVELY. It was rustic, not fancy, but totally charming. Brian and I got a little cottage-like room at the end of the park, overlooking a meadow with tons of bunnies, and a view of the lake. We had a sitting area, a comfy bed, a cute kitchenette and a bathroom.

We snuggled on the porch with some rosé and talked after a long day of adventuring.

Wanaka: 2 Days

Before leaving Mt. Cook, Brian made me breakfast in our kitchenette and we took a walk to the lake past dozens of bunnies. Then got on the road to Wanaka. Being the party animals that we are, we were excited to get to a town that had some lively energy.

Activities in Wanaka

Described below:
Roy’s Peak hike
That Wanaka Tree
Exploring Wanaka

Things we didn’t do but are worth checking out:

Many adventures
Diamond Lake hike
Horse Trekking

We arrived at Wanaka, settled in to our hostel, Wanaka Backpaka, and went to grab some food. (This is a great time to go add me as a friend on Yelp and review this blog if you’re interested in the vegan food we ate in Wanaka all over New Zealand).

We planned to hike Roy’s Peak the next morning. My ambitious husband planned for us to get up at 3 am so we could reach the peak at sunrise. The weather, however, didn’t cooperate and threatening clouds rolled in. We decided to get up at 7 am, have a nice breakfast, then start the hike and pray for the clouds to clear by the time we were reached the epic view. Roy’s Peak is pretty wild. It is about a 3.5 hours with 400 feet in elevation gain – 5 miles up and 5 miles down. The hike is very steep. There are beautiful views of Wanaka and the surrounding lakes. There are tons of sheep (I affectionately call them sheepies) that are not fenced off, they’re just alongside the hiking trail.

We then wandered town to check out the live music, and fun restaurants.

The next morning we headed out for a day trip to Milford Sound from Te Anau.

We pre-purchased our Milford Sound cruise on bookme.nz (which is New Zealand’s Groupon or LivingSocial, essentially). We drove through the beautiful, windy, misty mountains to Milford Sound. The drive is about 2 hours without any stops and there is no gas on the route from Te Anau to Milford Sound, so get enough gas to make it both ways before departing.

The cruise was awesome. I highly recommend it. We saw fjords, a penguin, seals, incredible waterfalls, and sheer mountain faces that have been carved through by glaciers moving through over the years. Fun fact: Milford sound isn’t a sound, it’s a fiord. Sounds are carved by water, fiords are carved by glacier ice.

Along the way (there or back), there are many short (10 minute walks) and longer (2 hour loops) trails that are quick stops off the main road. Street signs signal the car parks so you can pull over to hop out and explore. Here and here are two lists for the hikes you can do along the way if you want to really plan ahead. You can also find maps in Te Anau to plan out which stops you’ll take beforehand. What we recommend the most is the Milford Guide phone app (you can grab it here for iPhones). Download it before leaving Te Anau since there isn’t great cell service along the route.

We stopped at Mirror Lakes:

We went back to our Te Anau AirBNB, cleaned up, and walked into town for some dinner.

Queenstown: 2 Days

Activities

Things we did, reviewed below:

Awesome restaurants (check out this blog on places to eat vegan food in New Zealand)
Queenstown Hill Trek
Big Night Out Pub Crawl
Wandered the town

Queenstown activities you may want to consider:

Bikes you can rent to tour the city or go on a bike wine tour (approximately $30 NZ / pp)
Sightseeing cruises or flights
Bars and restaurants
Jetboat! (This is about $129 NZ if you buy it ahead of time, but there is sometimes a crazy good sale deal for $1 on bookme.nz if you catch it at the right moment)
Gondola and luge down the mountain. We didn’t do this in Queenstown because the locals recommended that we do it in Rotorua instead. This is a New Zealand must do so make sure you do it in Queenstown if you aren’t going to Rotorua.

We drove to Queenstown, dropped our rental car at the airport (we didn’t need the care while in Queenstown before flying to the north island) and took the bus into town. We checked into Tahuna Pod Hostel. Again, I was worried. This was the only place that we had booked where Brian and I didn’t have a private room. I prefer cleanliness and privacy. But again, this place was better than I expected. They were friendly, clean, and the pod provides a good amount of privacy. They also served vegan vegetable stew with lentils every evening, so that did a lot to make me like them.

In Queenstown we did the Queenstown Hill hike. The whole trek took about 2 hours and was fairly steep on the way up, it’s definitely a hike. We walked to the beginning of the trek from our hostel, missioned up the hill, and it began to rain. We put on our rain jackets and kept on heading up.

Author

Seyka Mejeur

Seyka is a multi-passionate entrepreneur with feet in two worlds: first leading and teaching a plant based lifestyle, wellness and living an empowered life, and second as professional headhunting and people operations. Seyka and her husband Brian recently completed a 21 Country Vegan Voyage where they traveled around the globe, interviewed top chefs and enjoyed epic plant based cuisine. Seyka and her husband Brian co-own an Aerospace Headhunting and People Operations Consulting company AdAstra Seyka is also an indoor cycle instructor, 15 year yogi, dog trainer, a home chef, event planner, and a researcher and a published author of academic literature.

View all posts

Author: Seyka Mejeur

Seyka is a multi-passionate entrepreneur with feet in two worlds: first leading and teaching a plant based lifestyle, wellness and living an empowered life, and second as professional headhunting and people operations. Seyka and her husband Brian recently completed a 21 Country Vegan Voyage where they traveled around the globe, interviewed top chefs and enjoyed epic plant based cuisine. Seyka and her husband Brian co-own an Aerospace Headhunting and People Operations Consulting company AdAstra Seyka is also an indoor cycle instructor, 15 year yogi, dog trainer, a home chef, event planner, and a researcher and a published author of academic literature. View all posts by Seyka Mejeur