Christchurch to the West Coast and Kaikōura: a 16 day campervan food, wine and outdoor itinerary - Britz

Fifteen nights and 1,700 kilometres in a loop from Christchurch in a campervan, over the alps to the glaciers, north to Abel Tasman and back down the coast, with the eating and drinking taken as seriously as the walking.

Arthur’s Pass comes first, the highest road crossing of the Southern Alps, where the Otira Viaduct carries the road down a slip-prone slope to the West Coast. Ross follows, an old gold town where the largest nugget ever found in New Zealand came out of the ground, then Franz Josef and its glacier, and Reefton, the first place in the southern hemisphere to have a public electricity supply.

Kaiteriteri and Abel Tasman National Park come next, where granite headlands and golden beaches are walked or kayaked in sections, then Nelson, which has one of the densest concentrations of craft breweries in the country and the hop gardens behind it that supply a good many of them. Anakiwa sits at the end of the Queen Charlotte Track on the Marlborough Sounds, then Blenheim and Picton in the vineyards, where most of New Zealand’s sauvignon blanc is grown, and Kaikoura for the crayfish the town is named after.

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. Sixteen days for 1,700 kilometres is a genuinely slow pace, with time for a long lunch most days and two nights at the stops that deserve them. Waipara and Hanmer Springs close the loop, a small cool-climate wine region and a set of thermal pools respectively, which is a reasonable way to finish. Sixteen nights is also enough to absorb a wet week on the West Coast without losing the trip.