Arthur’s Pass


Categories South Island Travel
This post was published on Tuesday 15 January 2019.

It was a long drive... but wow, what a good one!

Arthur’s Pass is a long road across the Southern Alps.  Interestingly it wasn’t as up and down as we were expecting, after the road from Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula.  Once you are up into the main section, it’s pretty flat across some huge plains, and following the course of the river. But, the views are spectacular.

We stopped a few times for some photos, and some lunch: soup cooked in the van, and crisps, with Diet Coke... cordon bleu.

It was a pretty mammoth drive, because we moved Franz Josef forward by a day – but the exciting thing is that before we left, we booked a HeliHike with Franz Josef Glacier Tours... a helicopter will take us up onto the glacier, and then we hike for three hours, before a helicopter returns us to the village – and, we had caramel M&Ms for company!

Eventually we arrived, and wow, did we manage to bag a good spot...