Epic South Island Hidden Gems Road Trip - Britz

Thirteen nights and 2,000 kilometres from Christchurch to Queenstown in a campervan, down the quieter side of the South Island.

Okains Bay comes first on Banks Peninsula, a beach in a drowned volcanic crater with a small and unusually good Maori and colonial museum, then Hanmer Springs, and Marfells Beach on the Marlborough coast.

Motueka and Karamea follow at the northern end of the West Coast, where the Oparara arches are limestone spans in dense forest reached down a rough road and among the largest in the southern hemisphere. Hokitika, Methven and Twizel come next, then Saint Bathans in Central Otago, a gold town whose remaining buildings sit beside a bright blue lake left behind by sluicing. The Catlins close the route: Kaka Point, Purakaunui Bay, and Curio Bay with its petrified forest, where fossilised tree stumps are exposed on the beach at low tide.

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. Fourteen days for two thousand kilometres is a fair pace, and the point of this one is that almost none of it sits on the standard circuit. The Oparara road and parts of the Catlins are narrow and slow going. This is a one-way hire, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking. For a second visit to the South Island, or for anyone who found the main circuit crowded, this is the itinerary in the range worth considering.