Exploring New Zealand by road may be one of the best trips ever, revealing why it truly feels like “Middle-earth” from The Lord of the Rings: a landscape from another age. Perhaps even a land taken from fantasy.
Sparsely populated, and as remote as it gets, it’s hard to not be awestruck by Aotearoa – “The Land of the Long White Cloud”. You’ll find that everyone, from the first Māori to the descendants of European settlers, agrees this is a place to be respected and preserved. As a visitor, you’ll quickly understand why, and feel the magic of this beautiful land.
Only the highest peaks of Zealandia, the ancient, mostly submerged continent, rise above the sea, as if nature had curated its finest and picked the best of the best.
This is a campervan road trip and was supposed to be a full exploration of both islands. However, because of delays starting the trip I had to speed through the North Island and concentrate on the arguably more famous and beautiful South Island.
It is almost a full exploration of the South Island, along the west coast, all of the southern perimeter, and back inland and northbound on the other side of the Southern Alps ending in Christchurch.
The trip requires at least 3 weeks without considering long camping stops in national parks. I did it over the span of 1 month. Distance-wise it is relatively short at 3500 kms but packed to the brim with sights. You will need many many megabytes storage for all the pictures and videos.
Aotearoa rewards the unhurried, the curious, and anyone willing to pull over and take a detour following it’s beauty, in what feels like a greatest-hits album in Nature’s playlist.
