Three weeks in November moving down the South Island, mostly by road, mostly stopping in smaller towns rather than the tourist circuits. Nothing ambitious — just the kind of trip where the plan is “drive until somewhere looks good, stop there.”
Getting down
Caught the ferry across a flat Cook Strait — the sort of crossing the regulars find boring and I couldn’t stop taking photos of. From Picton I worked south in short hops rather than long ones, which meant a lot of the trip was side roads and small places.
Dunedin
A few nights in Dunedin, mostly wandering. It’s a city that rewards walking — the Victorian and Edwardian bones are still right there on the surface, and the railway station is so theatrical it still feels like a practical joke someone got away with. The Otago Peninsula is a twenty-minute drive that feels like a different country.
Central Otago
From Dunedin I moved inland. Central Otago in early summer is its own climate — dry, bright, a sky that feels higher than it should. Wānaka on a quiet Saturday is hard to beat; by the time anyone turns up to make it busy, you can be halfway up a hill looking back down at it.
Heading home
The drive back took the long way through the Mackenzie country and up the east coast. Long afternoons, evening light that wouldn’t quit until nearly ten. A lot of stopping the car on empty stretches because the paddocks were more interesting than anything I could have planned to see.
Three weeks was about right. Long enough that the days started blurring pleasantly into each other, short enough that I still wanted another week when I turned the car north again.