Things to do in Wānaka

Where Wānaka is and what it is like

Wānaka sits at 290 m in the Otago high country, in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps, which is why it gets around 620 mm of rain a year while Franz Josef, 285 km away on the far side of the Haast Pass, gets several times that. The town was surveyed as Wanaka in 1863, renamed Pembroke a month later, got its own name back in 1940 and its macron in 2021. It has grown fast: 9,552 people at the 2018 census, 13,200 by the middle of 2025, and the traffic on the lakefront in January shows it.

The lake is the point. The town wraps around Roys Bay at its southern tip, with a grassed foreshore, a small marina, and the willow that stands alone in the water off the western end of the beach, photographed by most of the people who walk past it. West of town the Matukituki Valley is the main way into Mount Aspiring National Park; south of it the Cardrona Valley climbs to the Crown Range. Our guide to Wānaka on its own terms goes further than this page can.

Roys Peak and the walks worth your legs

Roys Peak is the walk everyone has seen: a 1,578 m summit above the lake reached by a farm track that climbs more than 1,200 m in about 8 km, five to six hours return, with no shade and no water on the way. The car park is 6 km from town on the Mount Aspiring road and it is full by eight in summer. DOC closes the track from 1 October to 10 November every year for lambing, which catches out spring visitors. If you want the photograph without the whole climb, the viewpoint most people shoot from is about half an hour below the summit.

• Mount Iron: a loop of about an hour and a half from a car park 2 km from town, up a glacier-shaped hill 250 m above the flats, with the whole basin laid out at the top. The best short walk in Wānaka and the one to do on the afternoon you arrive.
• Rob Roy Glacier Track: three to four hours return to a hanging glacier in the Matukituki, from the Raspberry Creek car park 54 km west of town. The drive is the catch. The last 30 km are gravel with creek fords that rise after rain and can stop a two wheel drive, and it takes about an hour and twenty minutes each way. DOC says stay below the lower lookout from May to November because of avalanches.
• Blue Pools: about half an hour each way to glacier-fed pools where the Blue River meets the Makarora, 10 km past Makarora on the Haast road and about 1 h 10 from Wānaka. The bridges were closed for two years and reopened in May 2025 with a new swing bridge and a raised boardwalk. Most of our itineraries that cross the Haast Pass suggest a stop here on the drive to the glaciers. After rain the pools are brown, not blue.
• Lake cruise and island walk: 27 of our itineraries include the Eco Wanaka cruise to Mou Waho, an island with its own small lake on top and a nature reserve around it. A gentle half day and, for people who do not walk far, the best way to see the lake.
• Puzzling World, on the highway 2 km east of town, has been baffling people since Stuart Landsborough opened the maze in 1973. It is built into 8 of our itineraries, and children rate it above most scenery.

How to get to Wānaka

From Queenstown you have two roads. The Crown Range Road is 69 km and about an hour, climbing past Arrowtown to a 1,076 m saddle and dropping into the Cardrona Valley past the Cardrona Hotel, which has been pouring drinks since 1863. It is the drive to do at least once. The other way is State Highway 6 through the Kawarau Gorge and Cromwell, 120 km and about an hour and a half, flatter, and the road the coaches use when the range has snow on it. From May to October you must carry chains on the Crown Range, and some rental companies will not let their cars cross it in winter at all.

Aoraki / Mount Cook village is about two and a half hours away over the Lindis Pass, which is how 4 of our itineraries arrive. The airport is Queenstown (ZQN), an hour over the Crown Range or ninety minutes round by Cromwell; Wānaka's own airfield is for scenic flights and skydiving.

Queenstown or Wānaka: which to base yourself in

Both, if you can. With four nights in the southern lakes our answer nearly every time is two in each. Queenstown has the airport, the restaurants, the Milford coaches and the price tag; Wānaka has a quieter lakefront, better walking from the door and fewer people on the beach in January, though it is no longer cheap and no longer sleepy. Of our itineraries that sleep in Wānaka, 31 arrive from Queenstown and 21 head back that way, usually over the Crown Range in one direction and through Cromwell in the other. The full argument is in Queenstown or Wānaka: which base suits you, and the seven day South Island itinerary shows how the two-nights-each version fits together.

The ski fields: Treble Cone and Cardrona

Wānaka is the base for two of the country's main ski areas. Treble Cone, a 35 minute drive up the lake, has 550 hectares and 700 m of lift-served vertical, long groomed runs and steep off-piste terrain that regulars will tell you is the best in the country. The access road is unsealed, steep and famous for its corrugations. Cardrona, up the Crown Range road on the Queenstown side, became the largest ski area in New Zealand when its Soho Basin chair opened in 2025; it is gentler, better for beginners and families, and has the terrain parks; the Cardrona Distillery in the same valley is on 6 of our itineraries and a stop at the Cardrona Hotel on 7. The season runs from around the middle of June to early October depending on snow.

Our ski packages are built around one field or the other. Most of them open with the line "arrive into Wanaka and collect your lift pass", and 7 of them stay four nights or more. The ski fields guide compares the two properly, including the transport question, because neither field has beds at the base.

When to go: weather by season

Wānaka has four real seasons by New Zealand standards. January highs average about 24°C and the lake is swimmable for anyone who grew up in the northern hemisphere, if not for Queenslanders. Autumn, from late March through April, is when the photographers come: the poplars and willows around the lake turn gold and the light goes soft. Winter is cold and mostly clear, with July highs of about 8°C, frost most nights and a record low of minus 8.6°C; it snows in town a few times a year and stays on the hills. Spring is windy and brings the lambing closure on Roys Peak. Rain is the thing you will notice least, around 620 mm a year, half of Auckland's, and settled spells of a week or more are normal. Check MetService the night before any walk with height in it.

Two dates drive prices. Easter in even numbered years is Warbirds Over Wanaka, the country's biggest airshow, when beds sell out a year ahead; a handful of our itineraries are timed to it, including a 15 day South Island tour built around the show. The July school holidays fill the ski fields. April and late February are our favourite times, for what it is worth.

Where to stay in Wānaka

Our itineraries keep to a short list of properties. Edgewater, on the lakefront at the western end of Roys Bay, twenty minutes' walk from the shops, is the one they use most: 25 name it outright and 7 more book it as Edgewater or similar. It is the safe choice for a first visit, with lake views and its own stretch of shore. Clearbrook Motel and Serviced Apartments sleeps 10 of them, The Moorings, apartments across the road from the lake, 8, and the Wanaka Hotel in the middle of town 3. Bella Vista (2), Lakeside Apartments (2) and Oakridge Resort on the Cardrona Valley road (1) cover the rest. Independently, the town has everything from hostels to lodges charging more a night than a Queenstown week, and in January, at Easter and in the July holidays it is genuinely full, so book the bed before the flight.