There’s a version of experiencing New Zealand’s Southern Lakes that involves booking a guided walk, staying in huts for a few nights and arriving at the other end with abundant photos of spectacular vistas and some very good stories. This isn’t that. This is about what’s accessible as a day hike from a warm house, a proper breakfast and a car, and the answer turns out to be quite a lot.

The trails around Queenstown, Wānaka and Arrowtown reach genuinely serious terrain within an hour of leaving town. What makes this corner of New Zealand unusual is the combination: mountains that would be a destination in their own right elsewhere in the world, accessible without multi-day logistics, with a good dinner waiting at the other end.

Lingo tip: New Zealanders call hiking ‘tramping’.

Roys Peak, Wānaka

This is probably the most photographed trail in the Southern Lakes and possibly the

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