New Zealand South Island Road Trip - Day 1 - Queenstown to Te Anu

I haven't gone on a trip with my mother for a long time, and she had told me a few times that she'd like to go on a long road trip. What better place for a road trip than New Zealand. After months of planing the day of our trip arrived.

We drove to Brisbane airport, dropped the car and got on board our flight with over a 40min delay and were on our way to New Zealand. I have been to New Zealand before, but this was their first time for both my mother and Krish.

New Zealand didn't fail to impress us from the sky itself. Landing in the Queenstown airport is such a scenic landing, where pilots manouver the plane carefully into the valley. 


After clearing the formalities, we picked our car from Ezi Car Rental. A quick tip from the girl behind the desk, 'dont drink tap water these days, as there's a bug hanging around'.

After pickingt the car we were on our way to explore New Zealand, starting from the airport itself. Queenstown airport is located in a scenic location and you can't help but take pictures there.

Our next aim was to stash some groceries, so we could prepare at least some meals ourselves and have enough snacks for the road trip. Woolworths in Australia is called CountDown here and prices were higher than in Australia! And my mother wanted a picture at the Woolworths flowers section! Lol

Our first stop was going to be Te Anu, where we were going to base ourselves to explore Te Anu and Milford Sound. The drive from Queenstown to Te Anu is impressive, first winding along the lake Wakatipu and then through green farm lands studded with thousands of white sheep.

I was warned by my colleagues before I left Australia to be careful on NZ roads, that they are winding and narrow. So far it is ok and I loved driving the RAV4. After about a 2 hour drive we arrived in Te Anu around 8.30pm. We bought a big Indian dinner and went to settle in our lodge. 

As we were late the lodge staff had left a message for us, with our lodge number. It was a nice little lodge, bit old, but served the purpose for its budget. 

Soon after dinner we slept, excited what was going to be tomorrow, the Milford Sound!

Location: Queenstown, New Zealand

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