Hey everyone, can you please help me order a New Zealand (south island) itinerary. I tried doing it myself but got overwhelmed with too many stops. I may not visit all of these places, but I'd like to make a flowing route anyways, from north to south (along the east), and south to north (along the west), with emphasis on mountain scenary, and less so (on livestock/farming areas when possible). Also, I'd like to reduce backtracking when practical (a little backtracking is OK). I'll be traveling by vehicle (in February).
So leaving Christchurch, i'll head south to timaru, and then make a decison to either go inland via tekapo, twizel, omarama, (lindis pass), to cromwell, clyde, alexandra and then the road via palmerston, or middlmarch to dunedin.
OR after timaru continue south to waimate, oamaru, palmerston, waitati, and dunedin.
After dunedin, to milton, balcluttha, owaka, and the scenic route to invercargil (with a sidetrip to stewart island).
After invercargil, to winton, ohai, tuatapere, and te anu and then head to queenstown and then wanaka.
The last stop before heading to the west coast (via the glaciers) is naturally wanaka, it's therefore practical to leave wanaka as the last stop of this itinerary.
gore area seems to be left without a place. Maybe skip the whole gore region, i don't know.
So what do you think?
