Why this ride
A regional grand route from Dunedin, New Zealand to Queenstown, New Zealand, via The Catlins. Key character: wild coast; farmland; fiords; mountains. Surface: paved.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Southern Scenic Route
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 588 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 8 h 31
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Dunedin
Dunedin is a Scottish city that happened to be built at the bottom of the world. Settlers of the Free Church of Scotland arrived in 1848 and named it after the old Gaelic name for Edinburgh, Dùn Èideann; they planted churches, a university and a great many stone buildings on the steep green hills around Otago Harbour. The gold rush of the 1860s brought money and made it for a time the richest town in the colony, which explains the Victorian railway station and the grand Octagon at the centre.
Read the complete Dunedin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Southern Scenic Route point 1 sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Southern Scenic Route point 2.
2. Southern Scenic Route point 2
The Catlins is the part of New Zealand that most travellers miss, and the people who live here seem content with that. Down in the south-east corner of the South Island, between Balclutha and Invercargill, the coast is a patchwork of dairy paddocks, wind-bent forest, hidden beaches and headlands, and the roads are quiet. Owaka is the main settlement, a sleepy little place, and the coastline around it holds some of the best scenery on the Southern Scenic Route.
Read the complete Southern Scenic Route point 2 write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Southern Scenic Route point 2 comes up 101 km in. Next is Southern Scenic Route point 3.
3. Invercargill
Invercargill is the southernmost city of any size in New Zealand, a place of wide, flat streets laid out in a grid, low wooden houses, and a sky that is bigger and windier than you expect. Beyond it there is Bluff, the harbour town on the coast, and then a long stretch of sea before you reach Antarctica. About forty-seven thousand people live here, and the city likes to say it is the end of the line, which is a good reason to take a bike.
Read the complete Invercargill write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
202 km in you reach Southern Scenic Route point 3. Next is Southern Scenic Route point 4.
4. Te Anau
Te Anau is the last proper town before Fiordland, and nearly everything about it is a preparation for the wild country beyond. It sits on the eastern shore of the lake of the same name, the biggest lake in the South Island, with the Kepler and Murchison mountains rising on the far side, and about two thousand people live here, serving the hikers, boaters and bus tours that pass through. Maori knew the area as a source of greenstone and a place to hunt weka and eel. In 1948 a doctor named Geoffrey Orbell found a small population of takahe, a large flightless bird thought extinct for fifty years, in a remote valley in the Murchison Mountains across the water, one of the great wildlife stories of New Zealand.
Read the complete Te Anau write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Southern Scenic Route point 4, late in the day. Next is Southern Scenic Route point 5.
5. 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
Southern Scenic Route point 5 sits at 588 km, late in the day.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Southern Scenic Route starting at Dunedin · 1176 km
- Southern Scenic Route (625 km) · 589 km
- Southern Scenic Route · part 4 · 917 km
- Southern Scenic Route: Dunedin to Invercargill · 260 km