Author: Emily
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Marlborough Sounds
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Marlborough expertly blends luscious forestry with the aesthetic of small coastal towns. The fishing towns of Picton and Havelock host stunning marinas, white sand beaches, sunlit forest and crystalline waters. Blenheim to the south is the gateway to vineyard country and the epicentre of local food culture. But the most…
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Glenorchy
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Glenorchy is a small town at the head of Lake Wakatipu, a lakeshore shared with Queenstown 45 kilometres to the southeast. The township itself has a very similar panorama to Queenstown, with views of towering mountains over Lake Wakatipu. But similarities end at the road that meanders beyond Glenorchy. The…
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The West Coast
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The West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island is best regarded as ‘the glacier highway’. This is fitting seen as what I recollect most about this expanse of coast is their highway. The highway runs straight as an arrow along the coastline, making it all too easy to bypass the…
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Wānaka
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Wānaka is the cool little sister to its sibling town Queenstown. Both towns are share the same foundation, rolling mountains and a large lake around which all infrastructure is framed. But where Queenstown supports designer labels and global brands, the pillars of Wānaka are creative local outlets and bohemian entrepreneurship.…
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Tongariro National Park
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Driving through Tongariro, I realised the creative director of the Lord of the rings franchise was given a retroactively easy job when choosing the park as a filming location. Tongariro National Park is Tolkien’s Modor made manifest. The park’s vast volcanic plane creates the feeling of lifelessness and desolation that…
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Central Otago
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Central Otago is a dark spot on most guide books maps of New Zealand. A small cluster of towns labelled in humble lowercase and not marked with colour or illustrations to signal that this place is of any significance. It sits in the tourists blind spot, with the tourism giants…
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Kaikōura
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A picture of Kaikōura is likely pinned on the inspiration board of every British seaside town, an aspiration that the likes of Brighton and Blackpool inevitably fall short of. Kaikōura is rustic, but not in the way that is synonymous with cheap and tacky. There is an absence of the…
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Fiordland National Park
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Before you cross the Homer tunnel into the territory of Milford Sound, you must drive the Milford Road; the gateway not only to the famed sound but to the wider Fiordland National Park. The Milford Road is a chest full of treasures that should not be bypassed or hurried through…
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Mt Aspiring National Park
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Mt Aspiring national park encompasses the southernmost section of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, flanked by Fiordland national park to the west. It lies directly to the north of Glenorchy, with Queenstown and Wanaka on its west boundary. Named after its highest peak, Mt Aspiring, the park spans 355,000km of almost…
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Milford Sound
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My first impression on the drive into Milford Sound was that we were entering a Jurassic lost world. By sheer happenstance, having not seen the film, I have now discovered that much of the Jurassic park movie that takes this name was filmed in the wider Fiordland national park which…