Glenorchy Scenic Drive, Lagoon Boardwalk, Paradise Valley & Routeburn Track Day Walk

For travellers who want to experience the raw alpine wilderness of the Te Wāhipounamu UNESCO World Heritage Area without the nine-hour round-trip drive to Milford Sound, the 46-kilometre (45-minute) scenic highway from Queenstown to Glenorchy is one of the finest short coastal-style mountain drives in the Southern Hemisphere.

1. The Lakeshore Drive (Bobs Cove & Bennetts Bluff) & Glenorchy Lagoon Boardwalk

• Bobs Cove & Bennetts Bluff Lookout: Winding north-west from Fernhill along the cliff edge of Lake Wakatipu's northern arm, the Glenorchy-Queenstown Road passes two essential stops: Bobs Cove (14 km from town, where a 40-minute return track leads through native beech bush to a turquoise cove, an 1870s stone lime kiln, and the headland viewpoint of Picnic Point) and the purpose-built viewing terrace at Bennetts Bluff (25 km from town), which looks straight up the head of the lake past Pigeon Island (Wāwāhi Waka) and Pig Island (Mātau) to the glaciated 2,830-metre massif of Mount Earnslaw (Pikirakatahi).
• Glenorchy Wharf & the Glenorchy Lagoon Scenic Walkway (doc.govt.nz): At the head of the lake where the braided Dart and Rees rivers empty their milky-blue glacial meltwater into Lake Wakatipu sits the frontier township of Glenorchy. Beside the historic timber wharf stands the late-19th-century Red Boat Shed (originally built to store cargo unloaded from the Lake Wakatipu railway steamers). Directly behind the golf course begins the flat, family-friendly Glenorchy Lagoon Scenic Walkway (3.2 km short loop / 1 hour, or 5 km full loop / 1.5 hours), whose curved timber boardwalks float across mirror-calm reed beds reflecting the snow-capped Humboldt Mountains.

2. Paradise Valley, the Braided Dart River & Routeburn Track Day Hikes

• Driving Past Diamond Lake to Paradise: Continuing twenty kilometres past Glenorchy on a gravel country road brings you across the wide, multi-channelled shingle plains of the Rees and Dart valleys to the pastoral clearing officially named Paradise, an ancient Māori source of treasured greenstone (pounamu / nephrite jade) and the real-world backdrop for Isengard and Lothlórien in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films.
• Day Walking on the Routeburn Track (Mount Aspiring National Park): Twenty-five kilometres west of Glenorchy via the Routeburn Road sits the Routeburn Shelter, eastern trailhead of the 33-kilometre Routeburn Track (one of New Zealand's ten premier Great Walks). While overnight hikers must book huts months in advance, day walkers can hike onto the track free without any booking: cross the suspension bridge over the crystal-clear, jade-tinted Route Burn and follow the well-graded forest path beneath mossy red and silver beech trees to the open river meadow of Routeburn Flats (6.5 km one way / 3.5 to 4.5 hours return, gentle gradient), or climb another hour up to Routeburn Falls Hut (8.8 km one way / 5 to 6 hours return) overlooking the entire Dart Valley.