The Trip That Made Me Fall in Love With Hiking: A South Island Road Trip

Before Patagonia, before Nepal, before any of it: there was a 2am alarm, a mountain called Roy's Peak, and a rainbow that appeared twice.

The summit of Roy's Peak, just after sunrise, Lake Wanaka spread out below.

Before This Trip, Hiking Wasn't the Plan

Every big trip has an origin, and this one is mine. Not a multi-day trek, not a base camp, not a border crossing gone wrong, just an 11-day self-drive around New Zealand's South Island with a friend, taken to close out a hardworking year with a bit of retreat. I didn't know it yet, but this trip is where hiking stopped being something other people did and started being something I needed.

Trip Highlights at a Glance

A Birthday on the Road

The trip opened in Queenstown, and by pure timing, my birthday landed right in the middle of it. Even the arrival afternoon set the tone: a lakeside spot shaded by willows, locals and travellers alike scattered along the beach, mountains sitting right across the water.

The lakeside spot in Queenstown on arrival day, the same spot revisited the next day for a birthday lunch.

The day started with a good brunch, a gondola ride, and a luge run (properly touristy, properly fun), then a quiet lakeside lunch with the mountains sitting directly across the water, layered like something out of a postcard.

That afternoon, I drove the mountain pass myself instead of letting my friend take the wheel, even though it was my birthday and she'd offered. I wanted to actually feel the road: every switchback opening onto a view that outdid the one before it. Somewhere in that valley, I remember thinking: nature is enormous, and I am small, and both of those things feel good at the same time. Twenty-eight, and it felt like a genuinely meaningful way to mark it.

Chasing Wonder: Wanaka to Haast

The next stretch of the drive (Wanaka toward the Blue Pools, then northeast toward Haast) kept delivering the same lesson on repeat: the beauty here isn't at the destination, it's in the driving itself. Lakes opening up beside towering, snow-streaked peaks; cloud wrapping around summits like it had been placed there deliberately. People always say travel broadens your perspective, that day I felt it directly rather than just believing it secondhand.

The Blue Pools, on the way to Haast: water so clear and blue it barely looks real.

Somewhere on the drive between Wanaka and Haast, one of dozens of views that stopped the car.

A foggy morning near Haast slowed things down: tired, a little worn out, still recovering from a long first few days of driving, shopping, and hiking to the Blue Pools. But even a low-energy day had its reward: an evening walk to Lake Matheson, taken with zero expectations because of the rain and fog, turned into one of the trip's unexpected highlights. Still water, strange beautiful trees, energy coming back out of nowhere. Some places just don't care what mood you arrived in.

Lake Matheson, on a foggy evening with zero expectations, the water so still the reflection barely looks real.

Ice and Sky: A Day on Fox Glacier

If the road trip had a single "I can't believe I'm doing this" day, it was Fox Glacier: a helicopter flight into the mountains followed by real ice climbing, crampons and all. Hanging your full bodyweight off a rope, trusting the process, feeling the ice crack steady beneath your feet, and reaching the top after thinking you might not, that combination of fear, exertion, and payoff turned out to be the exact feeling I'd spend the next few years chasing on bigger and bigger trips. I kept pace with a guide nearly two metres tall and thought, quietly, I might actually be good at this.

Crossing one of the glacier's crevasses, roped in and fully trusting the guide's line.

Geared up and roped in, the moment it stopped being scary and started being fun.

A quiet minute inside the ice itself, the blue light does something photos never quite capture.

The drive out to the glacier township that evening, mist rolling low across the road and dark peaks pressing in on both sides, was its own kind of beautiful: the kind of scenery that makes even a routine grocery run feel cinematic.

The drive back into town after a full day on the ice, the mountains never really let up.

Roy's Peak: 2am, Sunrise, and the Realisation

If this trip has one centerpiece, it's this. A 2am wake-up, hot coffee, and a drive through a sleeping town toward the trailhead: the kind of plan that sounds slightly unhinged until you're standing in a car park that's already nearly full of other people doing the exact same "crazy" thing.

The climb started in total darkness, headlamps scattered across the hillside marking out other hikers on their own pace, their own private mission. Somewhere in the dark, eyes glinted back from the hillside: turned out to be a whole hillside of sheep, dozens of them, sharing the mountain with everyone climbing it. Clear, well-formed paths made the climb manageable even in the pitch black; the effort was real, but the route never felt unsafe.

The unexpected company on the way up, dozens of sheep scattered across the hillside in the dark.

Still climbing before sunrise, the town's lights just visible far below.

Then, slowly: the sky started to change. Peaks in the distance turned pink first, then the clouds themselves, sitting on top of impossibly still lakes far below. A rainbow appeared, then a second one, mirrored on the other side. At the halfway point, with the sun properly rising and the view improving with every step, the instinct was to rush toward the top before the moment passed. The better call, made together, was to just stop and watch it happen. Chasing the sun would have meant missing it.

The rainbow that appeared halfway up, the exact moment that made stopping to watch feel like the only right call.

Two hours in, legs sore, a knee starting to complain from the dark early kilometres, but still moving, still climbing. Reaching the top delivered an entirely different world on the far side: more lakes, more mountains, cloud stretching out below like a second sky. Around 1,000m of elevation gain by the summit, further and higher than anything done before.

Coming down took another three and a half hours, and it hit differently than expected: not the view, but the walking itself. There was a real pull to just keep going, to see what the same trail looked like from the opposite direction, even though it meant leaving the summit feeling behind. That, more than the view at the top, is probably the moment hiking stopped being a single achievement to tick off and became something to keep chasing for its own sake.

The descent, in daylight this time, a much friendlier introduction to the local wildlife than the 4am version.

Coming Down: Aoraki/Mt Cook and the Final Days

The trip wound down beneath Aoraki/Mt Cook, camped between the mountain and Lake Pukaki: the kind of spot that makes you want to hold onto every minute of it, right up until the comfort of knowing there's a tomorrow takes over and lets you actually relax.

Lake Pukaki, on the drive in: the water's colour genuinely looks unreal in person.

Evening light on Aoraki/Mt Cook from camp, the kind of view worth stepping outside the tent for.

The Hooker Valley Walk closed things out: bright sun, cold breeze, glacier-fed water, and legs that were somehow still fine after the week's biggest effort. Sunglasses stayed on most of the walk against the glare, which meant briefly lifting them off to actually see the true colour of the snow and ice hit differently, a reminder that sometimes you have to deliberately look harder to actually see what's in front of you.

The glacial lake at the end of the Hooker Valley Walk, Aoraki/Mt Cook still holding onto its own weather.

Why This Trip Mattered

This wasn't the biggest trip, the hardest hike, or the most remote place I'd been, and that's exactly why it matters. Somewhere between the birthday drive, the ice axe, the 2am alarm, and the walk back down Roy's Peak, something shifted from "I'd like to try hiking" into "this is who I am now." Every bigger trip since (Nepal, Patagonia, the long solo drives) traces back to this one.

If you're looking for where to start your own version of this: you don't need base camp or a five-day trek. You need one sunrise hike, done properly, with someone who'll remind you to stop chasing the summit and just watch the light change.

The Numbers

• Trip length: 11 days, self-drive, South Island New Zealand
• Total cost: ~$3,500 AUD per person, all-in
  • Known costs within that total: flights ~$230 (booked with Qantas points), car rental ~$727 (Christmas period pricing), Fox Glacier heli-hike and ice climbing ~$700, accommodation + camping ~$640, camping gear ~$400
  • The remainder (~$800) covers food, activities, and shopping along the way, not itemized in detail
• Key hike: Roy's Peak, approx. 16km round trip, ~1,000m elevation gain, started at 2am for a summit sunrise
• Other highlights: Fox Glacier heli-hike and ice climbing; Hooker Valley Walk (~10km) near Aoraki/Mt Cook; Blue Pools walk near Haast; Lake Matheson short walk
• Group size: 2 (self-drive with a friend)

Tips & Tricks: Planning Your Own Trip

Best season: late December, Southern Hemisphere summer, with long daylight hours that matter a lot if you're planning a 2am sunrise hike like Roy's Peak. The trade-off is Christmas/New Year pricing on rental cars and accommodation, which pushed costs up noticeably on this trip. Shoulder season (October–November or March–April) would likely bring the car rental cost down while keeping reasonable daylight hours.

Booking tip: flights were booked using Qantas points, worth considering if you have a points balance sitting idle: it dropped the biggest single cost on this trip to a fraction of the cash price. Book the Fox Glacier heli-hike well ahead if travelling in peak season, since it's weather-dependent and slots fill fast around the holidays.

Gear: a headlamp is essential for any pre-dawn summit attempt like Roy's Peak; the trail is well-formed but genuinely dark at 2am.