New Zealand’s south island, is the largest of the two islands but only 23% of the population live here.

The island is so diverse with mountain ranges, rain forests and fjords.

Here is my experience of the south island, but first a little story on how we arrived here:

We started our adventures in the north island, read about it here. https://myscenictravels.com/new-zealand/

New Zealand’s rail service is quite limited, (the trains have changed now.) So when we visited we took the overnight train south from Auckland to Wellington. We were then supposed to catch the ferry to Picton travelling through the beautiful Marlborough sounds. Then catch another train south to Kaikoura. So the trains only went once a day, can you see where this is going?

Unfortunately at the time New Zealand was experiencing bad weather and flooding so our train to Wellington was delayed. Whilst on the train we came to the conclusion we were going to miss the train from Picton. The staff onboard were amazing and arranged another form of transportation. This form we found out once we were taken to the airport at Wellington. A tiny plane was waiting for us on the runway.

“that wasn’t a co pilot, it was another passenger!”

This plane had a single nose propeller and the few of us squeezed into the cabin with our luggage by our feet. The whole 80km flight from the north island to the south island, I was too scared to look out of the window. Relieved that we finally landed safely, (even though we weren’t in any danger.) Once we landed one of the passengers turned to us and said “the co pilot did a good job” we responded with “that wasn’t a co pilot, it was another passenger” You should of seen his face.

Well we made it to the station and caught the train south to kaikoura. Our adventure here was going to start, click below to read about it.

After stopping at Kaikoura we caught the train again south to Christchurch. Then the next day embark on what should of been one of the best rail journeys to take. The tranzalpine train takes 5hrs to travel the 223km miles across the country to Greymouth. The beautiful scenery along the way is out of this world. Well it should of been! We woke to low clouds and fog, and the whole journey we saw nothing! Typical.

Once we arrived in Greymouth we got our hire car and drove south towards Franz Josef our stop for the new few nights.

After our incredible stay in Franz Josef, we headed north to Punakaiki. This was our stay for another couple of nights.