Most people know the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in New Zealand, but there’s so much more to this place than the rolling hills and snow-capped mountains. It’s also in the Southern hemisphere, which means February is summer. Here’s my trip report for our 3 week stay on the South island.

A mere 24 hours of traveling brought us from San Diego to Queenstown. We arrived on February 6, which is Waitangi Day (the closest American analog to this national holiday would be Thanksgiving, because of the undertones of genocide/displacement of the people who were there first). We met up with East Coast friends Erica and James, who were on their honeymoon, and were introduced to Andrew (an expat), Pauline (his girlfriend), and their roommates. It turns out Andrew is a rock climber from New Jersey and we have mutual friends.

Jet-lag was not much of an issue for us, because it’s just a 3 hour difference if you ignore the day of the week (we crossed the international date line). Traveling to NZ we skipped an entire day; on the return we arrived before we departed.

Our first scheduled activity was the Shotover Jet. Imagine a giant jet ski (which was invented in New Zealand) that holds 15 people, zooming up and down a river, buzzing the canyon walls, with occasional 180° spins. It was exhilarating and pure fun.

Our next agenda item was a cruise in Milford Sound, but we learned about massive flooding (more than a meter of rain within 60 hours) that closed the road to Milford Sound a couple days earlier. Instead we played 18 holes of disc golf at the Queenstown Gardens, then drove up to the Garston Ski Hut for an impromptu party and overnighter.

The next day we visited Kingston and Arrowtown, which were two of many gold mining towns that now survive only on tourism. We did see a man panning for gold on the Shotover River, so the dream is still alive for some.

The following day we paddled 10 miles in kayaks from Diamond Lake, along the Dart River, to Lake Wakatipu in Glenorchy. The aforementioned big rains forced us to limbo under a bridge, and portage around a dam of fallen trees.

From the Queenstown area we drove South to Manapouri, went by boat across Lake Manapouri to the power station in West Arm, rode a bus over Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, and took another boat out into Doubtful Sound and around Bauza Island. Doubtful Sound gets its name from Captain Cook’s assessment of his chances to catch a westerly wind out into the ocean, and the misunderstanding of its formation (it would be more correct to have called it Doubtful Fjord because it was carved by glaciers). We were lucky to have calm waters and clear skies; the Fiordland area gets more rain than the Amazon. We were even luckier to have a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins swim along with the boat as we returned to port.

Jess and I did some light spelunking in the Clifden Limestone Cave and saw our first glowworms. This was also our first night of “freedom camping”, which is permitted outside of the cities, and in designated areas, if your vehicle is certified self-contained. Campervans and small motorhomes are a popular accommodation option for tourists.

We continued driving South to Colac Bay, Invercargill, Bluff, Curio Bay, and Papatowai along the southern coast. This region, called the Catlins, is similar to Scotland in terrain, weather, and even street names. We saw the remains of a petrified forest, Purakaunui Falls, and Matai Falls.

From Balclutha we drove Northwest to Wanaka, and stopped at Puzzling World. We just happened to see it from the highway, but it turned out to be a highlight of the trip. They have exhibits of illusions and ambigrams, disentanglement puzzles, a slanted room, an Ames room, and a large outdoor maze.

For Valentine’s Day we hiked a 16 kilometer (10 mile) round trip to Isthmus Peak. The total elevation gain was 1 kilometer (3,300 feet) and it offered a panorama view of glaciers, Lake Hawea, and Lake Wanaka. It was steep, but worthwhile.

We also hiked out to the Blue Pools, which might have been worthwhile if we had jumped off the bridge into the glacial melt, as others did.

The next day we drove to Franz Josef and hiked out to see the glacier. It has receded so much in the last 20 years, offering clear evidence of a warming climate. Then we soaked in the hot pools (36-40°C, 95-104°F) to relax our sore muscles.

Continuing North, along the West coast road, we stopped to see the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki. It is still unclear what geologic process created the alternating rock hardness.

Then we had a scheduled booking for Underworld Rafting. This consisted of a short train ride, a hike up to the mouth of Metro cave, an exploration of said cave (which has unexpectedly large limestone formations for its age), a lecture on the lifecycle of glowworms, a drift in inner tubes in pitch black to admire the glowworm colonies, and then navigating a couple rapids by tube on the way back to the train. This was a great package, and was even fun in the rain, since they decked us out in wetsuits. We then enjoyed fresh seafood and live music at the Star Tavern.

From Westport we drove East, across the island, to Kaikoura. From the campground (read: parking lot for self-contained vehicles) we walked Tom’s Track down to the beach, and ate more delicious seafood at Strawberry Tree (including green-lipped mussels, and lobster-sized crayfish).

The coast of Kaikoura continues to descend hundreds of meters in an underwater gorge. This is what attracts the deep-diving sperm whales, and makes the city synonymous with whale-watching. Sperm whales need to reoxygenate their blood by surfacing for about 10 minutes. This gives the cruise boats time to approach and provide their passengers a view of the immense tail breaching as the sperm whale returns to the depths.

Our boat was lucky enough to also spot an endangered sei whale. The sei whale eats krill nearer the surface, and thus comes up for a few short breaths before going under. After we docked, we walked over to the seal colony to watch pups playing in the shallow pools.

One of my college roommates is from Christchurch, so we paid a visit to the Hagley Park botanical gardens. Then we found a lovely freedom camping spot on Pukaki Lake with a view of Mt Cook.

We also hiked the Sealy Tarns Trail and then Kea Point, for better views of Mt Cook. We also saw a tent on a ridge approaching Mt Sefton. It must be an attempt to summit the “hard way”, following the path taken by the first ascent party.

The next day was a bit rainy, so we relaxed, did a little geocaching, and then watched bungy (or bungee) jumpers at Kawarau bridge with Aussies Ben & Kim.

On our way back to Queenstown Jess and I played Laser Tag for the first time, against two tweens and their mom, and raced Go Karts. We then met up with Andrew and Pauline for a nice dinner out (half price thanks to First Table).

The next day the four of us hiked and climbed around the Remarkables and Alta Lake. This is a ski area in winter, but offers rock climbing in the summer. Dinner was from Fergburger (pro tip: call ahead and you can skip the long line of waiting tourists).

Another rest-day activity in Queenstown is Escape Quest, which offers historically-themed escape rooms. In the room we did, we investigated the 19th century murder at the Prince of Wales Hotel, infiltrated the gang’s lair, disarmed a booby trap, collected the evidence, and escaped before the gang returned.

On our last full day in New Zealand we went to Moke Lake and saw some horseback riders. I hiked up Bob’s Peak, above the gondola, to the paragliding launch point to watch people fly.

New Zealand is far from most of the world, but has enough variety of landscape and weather to suit most people, including hobbits and wizards.