The South Island of New Zealand is not a fly-and-flop destination, and Wānaka least of all. If you’re planning a significant trip together, a honeymoon or a milestone anniversary or simply the kind of holiday you’ve been putting off long enough that now’s the time, then the default templates of a beach resort, city break, or overwater bungalow, don’t quite account for a place like this. The landscape is too large and too varied. The things to do together are too different from anything on offer elsewhere.
What Wānaka offers, specifically, is the combination of a private base and a region that has almost too much going on around it. A private home on the lake, with the Buchanan Peaks across the water and a hot tub on the deck, is the kind of accommodation that changes the pace of a trip from the first morning. But it’s the range of what’s reachable from there, and how different each day can feel, that makes this work for couples who want their trip to feel like something they actually lived rather than something they watched happen from a sun lounger.
What a few days in Wānaka actually looks like
The lake itself is the obvious start. Kayaks, paddleboards and small boats are all available to hire; on a calm morning the water is flat and the reflection of the mountains sharp enough that the photos are almost too good to post without looking staged. Swimming from the lakefront in town or a private jetty is one of those simple pleasures that requires no planning and can be your first-thing-in-the-morning dip or your end-of-day refresh.
From there, the options branch considerably. The Matukituki Valley is a stunning hour’s drive: the road alone through open farmland below the Southern Alps is worth the trip, and the Rob Roy Glacier walk at the end of it is four hours of beech forest, waterfalls and alpine scenery that most couples put in the category of the best thing they did. Roys Peak, the ridge above the lake, takes a full day and an early start; the view from the top at sunrise over Lake Wānaka is the image most people have seen of New Zealand without knowing where it was taken. For maximum memory making, a guided heli-hike through Wānaka’s backcountry with an alpine picnic lunch is the pinnacle of just-for-two adventures in summer or autumn.
For a different pace, the drive over the Crown Range to Arrowtown takes under an hour. Arrowtown has a handful of genuinely excellent restaurants – Aosta and Swiftsure both worthy of mentions. Century-old trees along the river margin draw the photography crowds come autumn, but the trails through them provide a peaceful glimpse of this gold mining town at anytime of year. The town’s gold rush streetscape provides a sense of having stepped back in time, while the boutiques behind the facades attempt to woo you with local sheepskins, fine merino and organic skincare.
The drive to Arrowtown passes through Cardrona village, which deserves your time on your way out or back. There’s really very little here, albeit more than there used to be. But the Cardrona Hotel is the main draw and it’s akin to a traditional pub with a lush and spacious beer garden. There’s now a (high-end) souvenir shop next door and make the wander to the church. These preserved settlements have so much to tell you about New Zealand’s modern history and the hard lives lived in remote and unforgiving terrain.
Wine sits naturally into most days here. The Gibbston Valley, 10 minutes and left from the end of the Crown Range Road instead of hanging a right to Arrowtown. The valley is famed for producing Pinot Noir from schist soils with a character that serious collectors have been paying attention to for a decade, although if you have time to linger over a guided wine tour here you’ll soon discover how the variances in soil and altitude, and proximity to the river just in this valley impact the vintages quite significantly. Several cellar doors operate along the gorge road.
To make more of this trip, turn the drive into a loop and drive back through the Kawarau Gorge past the Roaring Meg hydropower station and into Central Otago. You could easily be sidetracked to the renowned vineyards of Bannockburn at the first turning, or continue into Cromwell’s orchard country and back along Lake Dunstan to Wānaka. This loop turns a good day into a great one and depending on the time of year you’re here, you might be able to pick cherries and send a box of New Zealand’s best export varieties home. Or during stone fruit season, you’ll see first hand the abundance juxtaposed with how life still moves seasonally here: Moorpark apricots, like all the other fruit, come but once a year and preserving them is an art practised expertly in Central Otago.
For something that marks a trip as genuinely unlike anything else, a scenic helicopter flight over the Southern Alps reframes everything. The scale of the mountains from the road is significant; from the air, with the glaciers below and the main divide stretching in both directions, it’s a different understanding entirely. Many operators offer landing options on snow or in remote valleys, so this really is special – and definitely not an option to be discounted because you flew into Queenstown Airport over the Southern Alps (the best view in the world if you have a window seat).
Why private accommodation changes this
The choice to stay in a private home rather than a hotel shapes what a trip here becomes. A full kitchen means a private chef is a realistic option for a special dinner, at a standard that most resort restaurants don’t match. And if you can’t stretch to a private chef, then the abundance of seasonal produce is definitely worth taking home and devouring over the length of your stay.
The space means mornings at your own pace, without a dining room to get dressed for. A property on the lake means the lake is yours in the early hours before the day starts, which in Wānaka, with the light it gets and the stillness the water holds, is worth setting an alarm for.
Honeymooners come here in significant numbers, which says something about what the place offers for a trip that needs to be worth the wait. Although it’s also a spectacular spot for that most memorable of proposals. The mountains, the wine country, the wilderness access and the quality of the private homes available add up to something that a beach resort, however beautiful, doesn’t quite provide. Clear space in your camera before you arrive – the views change with the light on the mountains and there really is something stunning to hold to round every corner or quiet highway.
What would you get up to on a romantic break in Wānaka?
Did you enjoy this article?
Receive similar content direct to your inbox.
.kadence-form-193324_b35617-ee .kadence-blocks-form-field.kb-submit-field { display: none; }