The Great Alpine Highway is one of New Zealand’s most beautiful scenic routes and on its traverse of the Southern Alps takes in an incredible variety of scenery.

We started the 245km journey in Christchurch on the East Coast of the South Island and traveled west across the flat expanse of the Canterbury Plains. This green patchwork quilt of fertile meadows and pastures produces 80% of the country’s grains and seeds and stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the mountains inland, which grew ever larger as we approached Springfield on the western fringe of the plains. Once we’d passed through this little township, paddocks transitioned smoothly into tussock and beech as the highway slowly climbed into the foothills of the Southern Alps to Porter’s Pass and into a succession of steep-sided valleys rising to snow-capped peaks.

Unintentionally we traveled at the time of day, late in the afternoon, when the landscape was most beautiful as the light grew soft and smothered everything in golden hues. There was surprisingly little traffic, even at Castle Hill, where the mighty Craigieburn and Torlesse mountain ranges rise to the left and right and the road passes by a battle scenes location of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with enormous monolithic limestone rock formations.

Judging by the size of the deserted car park this place gets quite busy, but we walked among the giant weathered boulders and their long shadows scattered across the field and met no one as the setting sun spilled through one perfectly curved rocky archway like an orange spotlight onto the parched grassland.

It’s a terrific, mystical place that I thought would be impossible to top, until the road started to travel alongside the braided Waimakariri River and then across the wide, wild river bed. I have seen only few places that convey unspoilt nature better than the narrow branches of this river flowing every which way it pleases on the vast expanse of white pebbles. Both, Castle Hill and the Waimakariri River, deserve lengthy stops.

North of the Waimakariri River, the road follows the Bealey River upstream through a glacial U-shaped valley to Arthur’s Pass village in Arthur’s Pass National Park.

While the glaciers shaping this landscape have long since retreated to some small specks of ice clinging to higher peaks, the stunning natural legacy they left behind became the South Island’s first National Park in 1929. Over time, large areas of the park were made accessible by some fantastic hiking trails, but not many are suitable for less experienced hikers.

At least that is my impression when I read through the DOC information about Arthur’s Pass and wondered how many people needed to be rescued there every year. It must be many. The DOC is rarely that reserved in promoting hiking and seldom admits to not developing tracks to their usual high standard. People with little or no backcountry experience and skills are clearly advised to go elsewhere. But despite the strong warnings, we met hikers on the Avalanche Peak Track, who would have better heeded that advice. There are some easier options if not many, one of them is the 45-min Devil’s Punchbowl Track.

After two days in Arthur’s Pass village and some great hiking in the national park, we followed the road to the actual pass at 920m altitude and across the Otira Viaduct winding gracefully through the steep and narrow Otira Gorge high above the valley floor down towards the West Coast.

With every passing minute, the vegetation in the gorge changed, became denser, more lavish, and varied with abundant lichen and moss. Soon, a mix podocarp rainforest with magnificent tree ferns and red-flowering rata rose up the steep mountain face. 

The differences in vegetation between the two coasts so striking, I looked up the annual rainfall in Hokitika (6519mm) and Christchurch (843mm) and wondered just how we managed to pick a week for the West Coast Wilderness Trail with no rain predicted for Hokitika and Greymouth.