4-Day Great Southern Island Circle Tour from Christchurch

Christchurch, New Zealand

Picturesque mountains, deep fiords and icy glaciers - this is New Zealand's South Island. See for yourself on a four-day independent tour highlighting this scenic region. Travel by coach from Christchurch to Queenstown and up the West Coast to Greymouth before a return to Christchurch. View Franz Josef glacier and experience Milford Sound.

Day 1: Christchurch/Mt Cook/Queenstown
Travel through the Canterbury Plains to the Southern Alps. Cross Burkes Pass to Lake Tekapo and visit the Church of the Good Shepherd. Travel up Lake Pukaki to Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain. Stop for lunch (not inclued) before crossing Lindis Pass. Travel along Kawerau Gorge to Queenstown. Accommodation: Heartland Hotel Queenstown or similar

Day 2: Milford Sound Day Excursion
Travel along Lake Wakatipu beneath Remarkables to Te Anau. See the Mirror Lakes and continue past Christie Falls. Enter the Homer Tunnel, drilled through the solid rock of a mountain. Cruise along Milford Sound where you'll see Mitre Peak and rock walls rising 1200m vertically from the sea. Re-board your coach for a Queenstown return. Optional lunch on cruise available. Accommodation: Heartland Hotel Queenstown or similar

Day 3: Queenstown/Franz Josef Glacier
Travel along Lake Wanaka to Haast Pass. Pass through Central Otago and the majestic peaks of the Southern Alps with its rivers and rainforests. Continue up the West Coast past mountain ranges, native forests and lakes to Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Franz Josef Glacier is a 'living river of ice', 11 kilometers long and over 7,000 years old. Accommodation: Scenic Hotel Franz Josef Glacier or similar

Day 4: Franz Josef/Greymouth/Arthur's Pass/Christchurch
Travel along the West Coast to Shantytown, a reconstructed Gold Rush town and then to Greymouth, where thousands of diggers lived during the gold strikes of the 1860's. Travel through Arthur's Pass to Christchurch via the TranzAlpine Express.

USD $1,093.44

Review by: Norman M	January 2011
Very very early starts to get to the destinations listed on the tour, understandable given the large distances travelled. Of particular note would be the time spent reaching Franz Josef Glacier, arrival at 5p.m. still feel disappointed that it was not possible to reach the glacier due to the time constraints, perhaps a 5 day tour could be organised to give an extra day at Queenstown. The voucher for shuttle to connect to bus at Heartlands Hotel was incorrect and we were confronted by a very irate driver in fact he was just about to drive off and leave us - another criticism was shuttle bus from hotel at Franz Josef picked us up as per instructions to drive us to the bus stop where we waited for the bus to collect the people from the hotel that we had just left . Our accommodation was comfortable the voucher system with the exception of the above worked well and our collection from the Tranzalpine train station was efficiently done with a very information driver (Aaron) who gave us information on things to do at Christchurch, which we followed and had a pleasant day. All in all it was a lovely few days in a beautiful country. Even though it was a 4am departure from New Zealand it did not dampen our enthusiasm, and pleasure at what we had seen.

Review by: Jon B, China	February 2009
Too much bus travel, point to point travel could have been better organized to reduce time riding in buses. Need to provide ability to request accommodation upgrades. Need to be better informed, didn't know we had to make arrangements for lunch on the Milford Sound cruise. After arriving in Franz Josef were not aware that we needed to schedule a visit to the glacier, so missed this opportunity during our stay there. The TranzAlpine train was more than an hour late, travel was quite slow, and didn't see much more of the countryside than we would have seen from a bus. All of this aside, New Zealand's South Island is quite beautiful.

Review by: Anonymous, Australia	January 2009
My main disappointment with the trip was that although it was promoted as a four day tour, it was actually four separate day trips, which meant that we had a different driver and passengers each day. We didn't arrive at Franz Josef glacier until 4.30pm and left the next morning at 9.00am. This did not allow us to do a tour of the glacier. I was also disappointed with the time wasted collecting and dropping off people at the different motels. On previous bus trips we have been on, we have all stayed at the same place thereby avoiding these delays.

Review by: Cynthia W, United States of America	October 2008
This was a great trip - all the sites were very beautiful. I thought, though, that there was too much shuffling around of people, and too many different companies and connections that Viator scheduled me with - it made things confusing.

Review by: Cynthia L W	October 2008
This was a great trip - all the sites were very beautiful. I thought, though, that there was too much shuffling around of people, and too many different companies and connections that Viator scheduled me with - it made things confusing.

Review by: Andrew S, Australia	April 2008
Great tour. I was shocked, however, that the Franz Josef glacier day did not actually take you to see the glacier, and we had to pay for an extra bus. Every other bus company seemed to stop at the glacier.

Review by: Anonymous, United Kingdom	November 2007
The tour went according to plan. It would have been helpful to have had a more detailed itinerary before the tour began. Apart from that excellent.

Review by: Clare B, United Arab Emirates	September 2007
Lots of travelling to see Milford sound and probably better if they have more rain than we had, but still very lovely and peaceful. Can do helicopter flight over glacier and land which was amazing. Probably best to do that with the trip back from Milford Sound as it's 5 hours each way.