Crown Range Road from Queenstown

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Queenstown

   The town sits on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, a long, dark, glacier-carved lake shaped like a lightning bolt, with the Remarkables mountain range rising straight from the far side in a wall of grey rock and snow. A Māori legend says the lake is the burnt outline of a giant, Matau, whose heart still beats under the water, and the lake level does rise and fall in a slow rhythm, a seiche caused by wind and pressure, which is the scientific explanation for the legend. The old coal-fired steamship TSS Earnslaw, launched in 1912, still crosses the lake to a high-country farm.

   Read the complete Queenstown write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Queenstown is where the day begins. Next is Crown Terrace.

2. 2. Crown Terrace

   Crown Terrace is a flat shelf of farmland high above the Arrow River, a wide green apron tipped against the Crown Range, and the first place on the road up from Queenstown where you can breathe out. Behind you the Wakatipu basin falls away to the lake and the zigzag of the Remarkables. Ahead, the tussock-covered slopes of the range rise in folds, brown in summer and white in winter. Sheep, cattle and deer graze the paddocks, and the roadside fences are lined with hawthorn, poplars and old stone walls. On a clear, still morning the light here is brilliant, and the air smells of cut grass and dry earth.

   Read the complete Crown Terrace write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Crown Terrace comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crown Range Summit.

3. 3. Crown Range Summit

   The Crown Range summit reaches 1,121 metres, which makes this the highest paved main road in New Zealand, and it earns the title with a steep, twisting climb out of the Wakatipu basin. From the lookout at the top, the whole country seems to fall away: to the south, the Wakatipu basin and the jagged line of the Remarkables, and to the north the bare brown folds of the Cardrona valley, with Wanaka's lake beyond. The land is tussock and rock, treeless and bleached by wind, and the sky is enormous. Snow lies on the tops from May to October, and sometimes lingers into December.

   Read the complete Crown Range Summit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 29 km into the recorded legs you reach Crown Range Summit. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Cardrona, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Cardrona

   Cardrona is a handful of buildings in a bare valley below the Crown Range, and it is one of the best-preserved relics of the Otago gold rush. In the 1860s the valley held thousands of people, with stores, hotels, a school and a brewery, all of them chasing gold in the river gravels. The rush faded, the crowds left, and the town shrank to almost nothing. What remains is the Cardrona Hotel, a white wooden building with a verandah that has stood since 1863 and still serves meals and drinks, along with a few old buildings and the remains of the diggings. The place has the unmistakable feel of a ghost town that has been revived, and the hotel's open fire is welcome on a cold day.

   Read the complete Cardrona write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cardrona, late in the day. Next is Wanaka.

5. 5. Wānaka

   Wānaka is a lakeside town that grew up without quite deciding to. A few thousand people live here, on the southern shore of a long glacial lake, with mountains in every direction and the white bulk of the Southern Alps closing the northern horizon. The great peak of Mount Aspiring, nearly three thousand metres high, is a pyramid you may glimpse on a clear day beyond the lake, and it is a rewarding sight after the climb from Queenstown.

   Read the complete Wanaka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Wanaka. That is the ride.