Queenstown & Wanaka Holidays

Where are Queenstown & Wanaka?
The resort town of Queensland is in the South Island’s south west to the east of Fiordland and the Tasman Sea. It lies on an inlet on the Z-shaped Lake Wakatipu – the country’s longest – towards the bottom end of the Southern Alps. Queenstown Airport has regular direct flights from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, plus several Australian destinations, and is on the Southern Scenic Route if you’re touring by car or motorhome. A 50-minute drive to the north east across the Crown Range, Wanaka is on the shores of the lake of the same name and is the gateway to the glories of Mount Aspiring National Park.

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Adventure capital
Hardy 19th-century mountaineers were the first to tackle the challenges of Queenstown’s environment for the sport of it, soon to be followed by summer hikers keen to immerse themselves in stunning scenery. It wasn’t until the 1950s, however, that Queenstown really began to take off as an outdoor-activity capital thanks to the launch of inventions such as ski tows and jet boats. The bungee jump was born here at the historic Kawarau Bridge in 1988 and has since spawned a host of other adrenaline-pumping options, including the world’s highest cliff jump. Tandem paragliding is another local creation – one of a host of ways to get a bird’s-eye view of the epic landscape.

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Viewpoint & luge
For breathtaking vistas of Queenstown, take a ride on the recently upgraded Skyline Gondola. On the Southern Hemisphere’s steepest cable car, you’ll glide up to the top of Bob’s Peak, 480m above the town, where you can lap up the breathtaking panorama of The Remarkables, Lake Wakatipu and various peaks including Coronet, Walter and Cecil. From here, you can get your pulse racing – this is Queenstown, after all – on the Skyline Luge. Hop on the chairlift to the top, from where you’ll race back along a thrillingly twisting, winding track in a specially designed gravity-powered land cart to the beginning – where you can start all over again. Tickets are available for unlimited rides, just two or somewhere in between.

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Lake Wakatipu
Occupying what geologists call an ‘over-deepened glacial trough’ carved out of hard metamorphic rock during the last Ice Age, Lake Wakatipu zigzags for 50 miles through the Southern Alps. Not just the country’s longest but also its third largest and fifth deepest lake, Wakatipu provides a habitat for at-risk New Zealand longfin eels along with landlocked Quinnat salmon, brown trout and rainbow trout. Not surprisingly, waterbirds are another feature, from great crested grebes and Pacific black ducks to endemic black teal. Scenic boat cruises are among Queenstown’s gentler activities – or you could try to emulate Ben Campbell-Macdonald, who became the first man to swim the length of the lake in 2012, a feat that took him 18.5 hours.

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Gibbston wineries
About 25 minutes east of Queenstown, along the Karawau River valley, Gibbston is one of the six sub-districts of the Central Otago wine region. It’s known for its award-winning pinot noirs – courtesy of its mineral-rich soil, altitude and hot summers – which you can discover in all manner of enticing ways. Take a guided full- or half-day gourmet tour where your wine may be paired with artisanal chocolates, cheeses and the like, enjoy a self-guided pedal through some of the region’s oldest vineyards with a shuttle to whisk you and your bicycle back to town afterwards, or flit between boutique wineries by helicopter for a special treat. Gibbston also has some superb restaurants where you can eat (and drink) al fresco.

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Tramping
There’s walking, hiking and then what the New Zealanders call tramping, which is altogether more adventurous: trekking for days and days through rough terrain for the sheer joy of it. And with two of New Zealand’s three largest and most remote national parks on the doorstep, Queenstown is a superb base to launch yourself into the backcountry equipped with cooking, sleeping and wet-weather gear. Local knowledge is invaluable, as many of the best routes are challenging – and the weather can be a factor – so we recommend setting out with a guide for the best and safest experience. For the time-pressed, heli-hiking trips will whirl you to remote beauty spots with a fraction of the effort.

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Lake Wānaka
New Zealand’s fourth-largest lake is not just a scenic backdrop to the pretty town of Wanaka. Its crystal-clear waters are ideal for boating, whether you’re heading out by kayak to spend the day relaxing on a remote beach, feeling the wind in your sails as you slide through the magnificent scenery or venturing on a fishing expedition in search of a trout or salmon. There are several islands worth cruising to – on the nature walk on Mou Waho, for instance, you might come across one of the resident buff wekas, endangered flightless birds for whom this has become a sanctuary. Jet boat trips across the lake and into the braided rivers of Mount Aspiring National Park are another exciting possibility.

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Mount Aspiring National Park
Sprawling across 878,000 acres of glacier-draped mountains and snowfields, forests, river valleys and alpine lakes, New Zealand’s third-largest national park is a paradise for walkers and hikers. If you’re fit and ambitious, you can follow the three-day Routeburn Track – one of the 10 New Zealand Great Walks – into Fiordland National Park or tramp the five-day Rees-Dart along winding riverbanks. Fortunately, a host of shorter routes offer a taste of the landscapes that became Lothlórien and Isengard in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. A favourite is the Blue Pools Walk through the native beech forests flanking the Makarora River to a brace of swing bridges overlooking the crystal-clear waters that give the track its name.

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