Why this ride
A one-way ride of 329 km, Queenstown to Invercargill - roughly 4 h 23 in the saddle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Southern Scenic Route · part 3
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 329 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 23
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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. 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 back through Te Anau.
2. back through 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
back through Te Anau comes up about 171 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Invercargill.
3. back through 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
The route ends here after 329 km.
Leg by leg
Queenstown to back through Te Anau
Queenstown → back through Te Anau is 171 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Te Anau to back through Invercargill
back through Te Anau → back through Invercargill is 158 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.