When to go & weather

Weather

With the Southern Alps blocking the prevailing wet winds from the Tasman Sea, the east coast of Otago has a relatively dry climate, similar to that of Canterbury to the north. Summer days are generally warm to hot and rainfall is very low. In winter it’s a different story: temperatures can drop to well below freezing, as hinted at by the name of NZ’s most famous motorcycle rally, the Brass Monkey (as in ‘freeze the nuts off a…’).