Lewis Pass Highway: Hanmer Springs to Murchison

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hanmer Springs

   Hanmer Springs is a small alpine village in the Hurunui district of north Canterbury, set in a broad basin among forested hills about an hour and a half's drive from the Pacific coast. The hot springs here were found by European settlers in the 1850s and have been in use ever since, and the thermal pools at the centre of the village, with their rock pools, sulphur baths and water slides, are what draw most visitors. Around them the village has cafes, restaurants, a handful of shops and a long list of places to stay, and about a thousand people live here year-round.

   Read the complete Hanmer Springs write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Hanmer Springs is where the day begins. Next is Lewis Pass.

2. 2. Lewis Pass

   Lewis Pass is a low, unhurried crossing of the Southern Alps, only 864 metres high, but it feels grander than that because the whole route runs through unbroken beech forest and wild river valleys. State Highway 7 links the Canterbury plains with the West Coast, and it does so by following the Waiau and Lewis rivers up through a corridor of mountains, past the Lewis Pass Scenic Reserve, and then down along the Maruia River toward Murchison. It was named for Henry Lewis, a surveyor who crossed it in 1860, though Māori had used it for centuries to reach the pounamu, the greenstone, of the West Coast.

   Read the complete Lewis Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Lewis Pass comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Murchison, mostly downhill.

3. 3. Murchison

   Murchison is a small town with a big memory. On 17 June 1929, a powerful earthquake, around magnitude 7.8, struck the area, killing seventeen people and triggering enormous landslides that blocked valleys and rivers and cut roads and telegraph lines for weeks. The land was reshaped, and some of the new lakes and scars from that day are still visible. The Murchison Museum tells the story with photographs, and it is quite moving.

   Read the complete Murchison write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 176 km.