Tag Archives: invercargil

Road Trip Highlights

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Did you enjoy riding along with us on our month long road trip across the north and south islands of New Zealand? We had so much fun exploring and adventuring  and sure hope you have the opportunity to explore it in person some day.

If you are interested in getting a copy of our itinerary, please email us at christine@svSugarShack.com.  The itinerary is broken down by day, with kilometers to each location, links to all activities, bars, restaurants, and hotels.  Here is a recap of our road trip.

Overall journey was well over 5,000km and took us about 28 days.

Here are highlights of each major stop:

North Island

Auckland- The City of Sails: Sky Tower and Viaduct

Loads of fun in Waitomo starting with the beautiful glow worms

And The Lost World Adventure where we abseiled 100m into the earth!

The road trip continues to Wellington, the southern most point in the North island and the capital of NZ.

South Island

We take a ferry across the straight to the South Island.  We visit the Nelson Classic Car Museum and take a Sky Wire ride over the valleys and trees.

The Abel Tasman Forest has several really cool hikes and caves to explore.

Next we make our way down the west side of the south island:  Westport, Charleston, Greymouth and Inchbonnie.

The absolutely beautiful pancake rocks stun us with their unique beauty.

We took a phenomenal helicopter ride over the Franz Josef glacier and dozens of other glaciers.

We get perplexed at Puzzling World and see a huge waterfall in Wanaka.

Definitely one of the highlights for me was our Shotover Jet Boat ride.  A truly thrilling and exhilarating experience!

My favorite day was our trip to Milford Sound where we took a 5.5 hour bus ride, 2 hour boat ride, and 45 minute plane over one of the world’s 8th wonders!

We make it all the way to the southern most point of the south island, Stirling Point at 46 36.53!

Stewart Island

Although we did not technically “drive” to Stewart Island (as you can’t bring your car over), we did take a ferry and enjoyed exploring this “3rd island” of New Zealand.

Our road trip finally turns us around and we have to head back north.  We start by going NE toward Dunedin which has the world’s steepest street (San Francisco has the world’s crookedest street).

We find beautiful, little blue penguins and a steampunk museum in Oamaru!

Christchurch is a city of potential being rebuilt after several natural disasters.

North Island

Tongariro National Park is the home of the world’s best one day hike.  Even though we could not do it, we did manage to hike over 15miles in 2 days.

Lake Tapu has many hot springs, geysers, and mud pools.

One of my favorite waterfalls is Huka Falls where 200,000 liters of water push through the falls every 9 minutes.

Orakei Koroko Geothermal Pools fascinated me with the vibrant colors, geysers, and hot pools.

The road trip continues on to Rotorua where we take a float plane over the lakes, volcano, and hot springs.

We loved the Redwood Tree Walk where we crossed over 28 swing bridges!

And we conclude our road trip with a relaxing day at Polynesia Spa where we soak in acidic and alkaline hot springs.

A truly once in a lifetime experience to be able to explore this amazing country by land.  Even though I felt like we saw a lot, we did not touch on so many other wonderful things.   I think a return visit will be in our future.

Events from this blog occurred in mid-February to mid-March 2023.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.

Stewart Island: NZ 3rd Island

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New Zealand’s third largest island is Stewart Island which is located 30nm further south from the South Island.  It is truly the furthest south you can get in New Zealand.  At this point, I have gone to the furthest north point of Cape Reigna in the North island and the the furthest south point in Stewart island.

We arrive to the ferry dock early, so we decide to detour 10nm down the road to Stirling Point which is 46 degrees south on the South Island!  That’s pretty far south!  I am pointing to each direction I’ve been (Cape Reinga and Stewart island).

We have to take a ferry ride across Foveaux Straight which is known to be a treacherous crossing.  Our ferry holds about 100 people and is about 23m long and 8.5m wide.  When filled with passengers and cargo, it can weigh up to 70 metric tons!  We cruised at 22kts and had a bit of a lumpy ride over, but not terrible.  The “no go” threshold is 50kts of wind and or 4.5m seas.  Can you imagine?  No, hell no!

We get waves crashing on the sides of the window more times than I can count.

We leave the Bluff on the south island around 0945 and arrive into Half Moon Bay (or the city of Oban) around 1045.

Stewart Island Tour

We immediately hop on to the bus to take our 1.5hr Stewart Island tour.  It is a small island with only 410 full time residents.  There is a small library, community center, museum, market, school (2-12 years), fuel station, shops and eateries.  

After we drive through town, we stop at Observation Rock which gives you a beautiful view of the town and harbour.

We drive by bathing beach and Meghan’s beach which have absolutely beautiful sandy beaches.

The very stunning Half Moon Bay took our breath away.  Perfect sandy beaches and not a soul on it!

We pass by a telephone tree which actually has a telephone on the tree!   We ate at Kai Kart which has been voted the best fish and chips in NZ!  They were pretty darn good.

A life size chess set sits on the coast just by the ferry dock.  Our ferry is coming in as I snap the photo.

We head back to the hotel just in time to enjoy the sunset at the 7th floor bar.

Anchored to the South Island

Maori creation stories tell how Maui, a legendary Polynesian voyager, pulled up from the sea floor anchor stone Te Puka a Maui (Stewart Island) to act as an anchor for the great ancestral canoe Te Waka o Aoraki (South Island of New Zealand)

The stylized anchor chain is secured firmly on land by a shackle but disappears beneath the Foveaux Straight to remind us of the physical and spiritual connections between the traditional taurapa or stern post o the Te Waka or Aoraki.

The bronze anchor chain is on Stewart Island and the silver is at Sterling Point (Invercargil).  Stewart Island anchors more than Maui’s canoe.  It anchors in its rocks, rivers, and rugged shores and in its garnishments of plants and animals, the hope of generations unborn that places like this will always exist.

Fun Facts about Stewart island

  • Stewart Island is 180,000 hectres (bigger than Hong Kong and Singapore combined)
  • 85% of the island is protected as a national park
  • 6% is protected by the government DOC
  • 6% belong to the Maori tribe
  • 3% belong to local NZ
  • All households are sold and currently unavailable.  It is a 4-year wait to hire the 2 local builders on the island and bringing in housing materials costs 3-4 times more than standard fees.
  • There are no mice, ferrets, stokes, or pigs on island.  However, they do have rats, possums and feral cats which they are desperately trying to remove from the island.

Fun filled and fabulous day.  Wonderful opportunity to go to this little island.

  • Kilometers travelled:  75km
  • Hotel: Laglands Hotel
  • Kilometers walked: 5km

Events from this blog occurred in early March.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  Our last blog post took us to Invercargil where we visit a rockin transport and motorcycle museum.

Invercargil: The Southern Tip

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Invercargil is the southern most city on the south island of New Zealand.  It is known for its sweeping landscapes, unique museums, and quirky attractions.  We come here to access the ferry which will take us to Stewart Island.

We had a leisurely 2.5hr drive from Queenstown.  It was a brisk morning, but no rain or cloud cover which is a nice change.  We did not have anything “scheduled” to do in Invercargil, but there were a few museums we wanted to visit.

Bill Richardson Transport World

Bill Richardson spent decades restoring vintage vehicles – now, his family has infused his collection with their own interests to create a world-class experience. There are over 300+ vehicles, memorabilia, toy cars, antiques, and more.  

We were a little gun shy after our disappointing visit to the National Transport and Toy Museum in Wanaka.  But, we were so happy we came to the Bill Richardson Transport World.

This museum is gorgeous, clean, orderly, and filled with surprises in every room.  I did not go crazy taking photos of all the cars because, well frankly that would be boring to blog about. But here are a few of my favorites.

A few old, and very small BMWs

And even a few fashion designs made of the most unusual recycled items (including tires, stamps, balloons, gloves, stickers, and more).

Classic Motorcycle Mecca

Our next stop is the Classic Motorcycle Mecca which takes up an entire city block!  From motorcycles (classics, antiques, racing), to bicycles, bikes and side cars, a few race cars and more.

I am not a huge motorcycle fan, but I sure can appreciate a beautiful bike!  I am particularly fond of Harley’s, Indians, and Nimbus.

And they had the actual bike from the movie “The World’s Fastest Indian.

Wouldn’t be a good day if we did not have a few photo ops.

We enjoyed another tasty burger at Burger Fuel and walked around the fairly large town.

  • Kilometers traveled: 195km
  • Hotel: Langlands
  • Kilometers Walked: 4.2km (gesh)

Events from this day occurred in early March.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  In our last blog, we visit Milford Sound by bus, boat and plane.