11 days visit to New Zealand - South Island

Recommendation

1. Choose good AirBnBs (which are a bit high on a hill, we chose at Fernhill and Frankton (both in opposite direction to get diff views) in Queenstown. You will not regret it
2. If taking helicopter ride on Franz Joseph, chose the one which drops you higher (HeliHike) for further hiking. Glaciers are receding.
3. Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki offer unbelievable views. It should be there in your trip.
4. Going to Puzzling World (in Wanaka) on a hot day could lead you to frustration when searching for routes in the maze.
5. You should book a good car (higher power) as many drives pass through mountains.
6. Accommodation in Milford Sound (only one lodge) gets filled up pretty fast, so book them early if planning to go during festive season.
7. There are lot of scenic routes in South Island, so you would want to stop at every point to take pics. At most places, you would find look out point which will anyway offer spectacular views. So follow the signboards.

New Zealand South Island journey has been the most spectacular journey thus far. Routes are most scenic, first time on glacier - hiking, different color lakes, milford sound, seals, beautiful views of queenstown, gorges etc etc. We avoided Sky Diving and Bungee as we have done it before. But in all, driving south island is a ggreat package. I'm listing down my journey route, nights we spent at different places and costs etc to plan your own trip. We landed in Christchurch and decided to go anticlockwise as shown in figure below. From my research, it didn't appear that we should be spending anytime in ChristChurch so we left directly from airport and stayed at Hokitika.

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