Find your next adventure.
Tracks, caves, beaches, campsites, mountains, wildlife, history and the strange places that make us pull over.
Every guide begins with somewhere our family actually went. We add the practical information here, then leave the uncertainty, reactions and payoff for the video.
What are you looking for?
Pick a specific adventure here, choose a region on Destinations, or follow a whole journey through Road Trips.
Adventures
Find individual tracks, caves, beaches, campsites, wildlife stops and other places worth exploring.
Destinations
See our adventures grouped around the parts of New Zealand where we have spent enough time to actually be useful.
Road Trips
See how several adventures connect when the road between them becomes part of the story too.
A few adventures to start with.
Mountain tracks, hidden history, wild coastlines and places that turned out to be far more interesting than we expected.
Mount Sunday, Edoras
A short walk into a huge Canterbury valley and the real landscape used for Edoras in The Lord of the Rings.
Godley Head WWII Tunnels
Gun emplacements, underground magazines, coastal defence history and a headland with some very good ocean views.
Everywhere we have built a guide so far.
These are real Scenic Route adventures with their own pages. Use the filters to narrow the library by region.
Mount Sunday, Edoras
The real Edoras filming location, reached by a short walk through one of Canterbury's biggest-feeling valleys.
Godley Head WWII Tunnels
Underground magazines, gun emplacements, wartime history and a coastal headland overlooking the Pacific.
Dog Stream Falls
Mountain beech forest, stairs, a few muddy patches and a 41 metre waterfall waiting at the end of the climb.
Cathedral Gully & Gore Bay
Strange fluted cliffs, ocean views, a quiet beach and the kind of coastal road that keeps tempting you to go one turn farther.
Tākaka Hill Via Ferrata
Our first via ferrata started gently, climbed into serious exposure and showed us exactly where our limit was that day.
Rāwhiti Cave Track
A steep bush track leading to a giant cave entrance filled with formations reaching toward the light.
The Grove Scenic Reserve
Nīkau palms, huge limestone blocks and narrow passages packed into one very strange little forest.
Te Waikoropupū Springs
Extraordinary clear water, a much bigger underground story and one of the easiest major stops of our Golden Bay trip.
Wharariki Beach
Huge dunes, wild surf, the Archway Islands and a beach millions of people have already seen on a computer screen.
Janie Seddon Shipwreck
A 1901 shipwreck with two World Wars, harbour defence, Motueka fishing history and a first-shots story we had to fact-check.
Spooners Tunnel + Kawatiri
A 1.4 km walk through railway darkness, then Kawatiri's bridge and tunnel carried the same unfinished railway story south.
Whites Bay Campsite
Beach, forest tracks, wildlife, glowworms and stars turned one campsite into a full day of exploring without moving the car.
Motuara Island
The boat ride, remote bays, island birdlife and historic stops all became part of one very good morning in the Sounds.
Bealey Spur Track
Winter forest, alpine river valleys and the point where fading daylight helped us decide the view was destination enough.
Tunnel Terrace Walk
Old mining tunnels, dripping fern forest, glowworm threads and the first wētā we finally managed to find.
Blue Spur Bushwalk
Rougher forest, old mining remains, orange markers and a deep rock-cut water race that just kept going.
Hokitika Gorge Walk
Turquoise water, native forest and two suspension bridges made this one of the easiest big-payoff walks on our West Coast trip.
Cesspool Swing Bridge
A rougher Arahura Valley walk ending at a narrow one-person wire bridge hanging over blue water and the gorge below.
The website helps you plan. The video keeps the adventure.
We do not want these pages to become transcripts with all the reactions and surprises written out before you watch.
What surprised us, where we slowed down, what our family enjoyed and the things we would know before doing it again.
Access, track details, facilities, restrictions and other useful planning information are checked against reliable sources.
History, conservation, geology and the strange details that made us want to understand the place better.
The uncertainty, family reactions, weather, mistakes, humour and payoff still belong in the episode.
Sometimes the region is the adventure.
If you know where you are heading but not what you want to do, Destinations groups these guides geographically.
Golden Bay + Tasman
Heights, caves, clear springs, wild coast, maritime history and railway darkness.
Coast + Sounds
Beach camping and a boat journey through the Marlborough Sounds.
Mountains + Coast
Alpine valleys, waterfalls, WWII history, strange cliffs and the roads between them.
Hokitika + Arahura
Mining tunnels, turquoise gorge, reclaimed goldfields and one wild swing bridge.
The page tells you where we went. YouTube shows you what happened.
Come along for the drive, the discoveries and the moments we definitely did not plan.
The Scenic Route is first a family adventure channel. The website gives the places we find a useful searchable home once the episode is over.
Eighteen guides. A lot more road ahead.
We will keep adding places when we have actually been there, learned something useful and have a story worth sharing.
