The Autumn Issue

March is the start of autumn in the southern hemisphere, and few places wear it better than the country around Queenstown. The willows and poplars along the lakes turn, the old gold-rush town of Arrowtown goes properly gold — it throws a whole festival for the colour — and the summer adventure crowds thin out just as the light turns crisp. It is a short, beautiful window, and worth timing a trip to.

Queenstown sits on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, a long zigzag of deep blue under the sawtooth range they call the Remarkables, and the setting does most of the work. The town itself is compact, busy and built for adrenaline — this is where commercial bungee jumping was invented, off a bridge over the Kawarau gorge — so the calmer stays are often a few minutes out, on the lake, trading the buzz for water, mountains and silence.

Give a day to the drive out to Glenorchy. The forty-odd minutes along the edge of Lake Wakatipu, to Glenorchy and the valley called Paradise where the sealed road runs out, is one of the great short drives anywhere and the gateway to the big walks into the Southern Alps.

And give an afternoon to the wine. The Gibbston valley, in the gorge just east of town, is one of the world's southernmost serious wine regions, making sharp, cool-climate Pinot Noir and laying on the long cellar-door lunches to go with it.

— Vivienne Hartwell, Editor-in-Chief