CURVESCOUTThursday Ride #7 · 24 December 2026
Queenstown · Crown Range and Milford Approach
A loop from Crown Range Road · New Zealand
- 356 km
- 6 h 51 min riding
- 5 stops
- loop
This Thursday: Queenstown · Crown Range and Milford Approach. 356 km as a loop from Crown Range Road in New Zealand, about 6 h 51 min in the saddle. In December the southern hemisphere is in its riding season - long days and warm roads.
Keep this if you want the highest main road in New Zealand on a clear, dry day. The Crown Range Road climbs steeply from near Lake Hayes before dropping through the Cardrona Valley, and there is only one passing bay, south of Cardrona. From May to October it is often under snow or ice and chains must be carried. Pass on it when the conditions look marginal: the Kawarau Gorge route through Cromwell is longer but safer. Keep it in the warmer months, when the climb and the valley descent can be ridden as they deserve.
- Mara, CurveScout scout
The map loads with the stops and the ride's road.
The ride, stop by stop
1Crown Range Road
The Crown Range Road is the highest sealed public road in New Zealand, topping out at about a thousand and seventy-six metres, and it connects Queenstown with Wānaka by a route that is as beautiful as it is steep. On one side, the land falls away toward the Wakatipu basin, with the jagged line of the Remarkables across the valley. On the other, the Cardrona valley opens, golden and broad, leading toward Wānaka.
The Cardrona Hotel, built in 1863 during the gold rush, still stands at the foot of the descent, with a long veranda, a garden and a reputation for good food, and it is a favourite stop for riders and skiers. The valley once held a town of thousands, and the remains of the gold workings can be seen along the roadside. In winter, the ski fields of Cardrona and Treble Cone draw crowds, and the road carries a stream of cars with skis on the roof.
2Wanaka lakekm 46
Wanaka sits at the southern end of its lake, with mountains stepping away to the north in long blue ranks, and the water itself is the colour of a glacier-ground gemstone. The lake is New Zealand's fourth largest and was carved by an ice tongue that once pushed down from the Southern Alps, leaving behind a deep basin and the smooth hills you ride through to get here. The town is a modest four thousand people, but it feels bigger in summer, when walkers, skiers and holidaymakers fill it, and it works neatly as a place to fill the tank, eat well and look out at the water.
The famous bit of shoreline is a lone willow growing out of the lake just by the waterfront, which has become the most photographed tree in the country. It is pretty, but it is easy to be cheeky about it, because the real beauty is everywhere else. The Clutha River, the country's largest by volume, begins right here at the lake's outlet and runs out south and east in a cold, fast, blue-green flow. Behind the town, Mount Iron and Roys Peak offer walks with views, and to the north the Matukituki valley leads towards the heart of Mount Aspiring National Park.
3Milford Road high sectionkm 150
The Milford Road does not so much climb as march into a wall. Past the beech forest of the Eglinton Valley and the long flat tussock of the Hollyford headwaters, the Darran Mountains rise in grey granite slabs on every side, and at the top of it all sits the Homer Tunnel, a rough, unlit hole in the rock that was a work-relief project for decades before it finally opened in 1953. It is just over a kilometre long and drops steeply toward the western end, and riding through it is a small adventure: cold, wet, loud, and more atmospheric than any modern tunnel has a right to be. The high section where the road approaches it is among the most dramatic stretches of tarmac in the country.
Everything here is about scale. Waterfalls hang off cliffs after rain, hundreds of metres of them, and in the right weather the whole valley is white with cascades. Kea, the cheeky alpine parrots, loiter around the tunnel entrance waiting for tourists, and they will happily unpick a seat or a bag strap if you leave your bike alone, so watch your kit. The Cleddau valley beyond the tunnel falls away in a series of hairpin bends, steep and tightening, down to the beech forest and eventually to Milford Sound itself.
4Te Anau overnightkm 238
Te Anau is a small town with a large job. It sits on the shore of the lake of the same name, the biggest in the South Island, and serves as the gateway to Fiordland National Park, one of the wildest places in New Zealand. About two thousand people live here year-round, many of them working in the tourism that comes through, and in summer the main street is full of campervans and people with boots and cameras.
What lies beyond is extraordinary. Fiordland is a mountainous rainforest country of glacier-carved valleys and sea inlets, shaped by some of the heaviest rainfall in the country. Milford Sound, at the end of the 119-kilometre road from Te Anau, receives so much rain that waterfalls appear by the dozen after a downpour. The Milford Road itself passes through the Eglinton Valley, with its wide flat floor and beech forest, then the Mirror Lakes, where the peaks reflect on calm water, and finally the Homer Tunnel, a rough-hewn tunnel about 1.2 kilometres long that was completed in 1953 after decades of work, with a steep descent to the sound on the other side.
5Crown Range Roadkm 356
The Crown Range Road is the highest sealed public road in New Zealand, topping out at about a thousand and seventy-six metres, and it connects Queenstown with Wānaka by a route that is as beautiful as it is steep. On one side, the land falls away toward the Wakatipu basin, with the jagged line of the Remarkables across the valley. On the other, the Cardrona valley opens, golden and broad, leading toward Wānaka.
The Cardrona Hotel, built in 1863 during the gold rush, still stands at the foot of the descent, with a long veranda, a garden and a reputation for good food, and it is a favourite stop for riders and skiers. The valley once held a town of thousands, and the remains of the gold workings can be seen along the roadside. In winter, the ski fields of Cardrona and Treble Cone draw crowds, and the road carries a stream of cars with skis on the roof.
Before you go
356 km loop, about 6 h 51 min of riding. Check the weather and any road closures before you leave; mountain and coast roads change with the season.