Christchurch to Wanaka via the West Coast - Britz

Nine nights and 1,011 kilometres from Christchurch to Wanaka in a campervan, over Arthur’s Pass and down the West Coast.

Arthur’s Pass comes first, the highest road crossing of the Southern Alps, where kea work the car parks and the Otira Viaduct carries the road down a slip-prone slope, then Greymouth and Punakaiki, where the Pancake Rocks are limestone weathered into stacked plates with blowholes beneath them.

Hokitika follows, the centre of the pounamu trade, with the gorge inland where the river runs an improbable milky blue, then Okarito, a lagoon settlement of a few dozen people that is the best place in the country to see a kiwi in the wild and holds the largest unmodified wetland in New Zealand. Fox Glacier comes next, then the Haast Pass turns the route inland to Wanaka, with Arrowtown and Queenstown beyond.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Ten days for 1,011 kilometres is unhurried, which the West Coast rewards: the weather there decides the programme and several metres of rain fall each year. Okarito kiwi tours go out at night and need booking. This is a one-way hire, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking. Sandflies on this coast are a genuine nuisance and repellent is not optional. The Haast Pass at the end is the quietest of the three alpine crossings and the most heavily forested.