Get out and enjoy the colourful season before it's over. Photo / Supplied
Get out and enjoy the colourful season before it's over. Photo / Supplied
With peak autumn upon us, Peter Dragicevich rates the best places around the country to view the changing colours. But get moving, because they won’t last long.
Best of the best: Arrowtown
It’s not just the nifty alliteration of Autumnal Arrowtown that makes the gold-rush town such a focus of attention at this time of year. Nestled beneath forest-clad hills at a bend in the Arrow River, Arrowtown is peculiarly picturesque at any time of the year. But autumn is when it really dazzles, the whole town swathed in bright yellows, oranges, reds and bronze. This year Covid put the kibosh on the annual Akarua Arrowtown Autumn Festival (how’s that for alliteration!) but there’s still plenty to do, see and eat in the heritage town.
The easiest way to see the changing leaves is to wander from the main street down to the riverside, past the cutesy Police Camp Cottage, and through the historic Arrowtown Chinese Settlement. Take time to stroll up Berkshire St to Rose Douglas Park, named after a long-serving primary school principal, and check out the notable pin oak she planted in 1923. It’s now nearly 31m tall.
The Police Camp historical cottage, Arrowtown. Photo / Supplied
Arrowtown also has arguably the best dining scene per head of population of anywhere in Aotearoa, so it’s a great place to start working on that winter weight. I heartily recommend the sticky buns at Provisions, the tapas at La Rumbla, any kind of grilled meat from Slow Cuts and the Venetian-influenced cicchetti (small snacks) at Aosta. Finish up with a cocktail at the area’s most atmospheric bar, the speakeasy-like Blue Door.
Also spectacular at this time of year is the vast, tree-lined Millbrook Resort. If you can't afford to stay there and have no interest in golf, call in for dinner at one of its five eateries. Our pick is relaxed Japanese restaurant Kobe Cuisine.
Best cycle route: Queenstown Trail
One of our official Great Rides, the Queenstown Trail isn't a simple point-to-point track or even a loop. There are three distinct arms to the 130km network, connecting in a large central loop that takes in Arrowtown, Lake Hayes, and scenic stretches of the Shotover and Kawarau Rivers. The official website (queenstowntrail.org.nz) helpfully breaks it down into 22 different rides, summarised by distance, time required and degrees of difficulty.
Naturally, one of the arms embraces Queenstown itself, starting with a loop around the glorious Queenstown Gardens. An 18m-high English oak near the entrance was one of the first trees ceremonially planted here in 1865, but there are plenty of other deciduous delights providing a burst of colour at this time of year. Autumnal gold is spun along much of the trail but especially around Lake Hayes, which can be cycled in an hour via an 8km loop track.
There's also excellent dining along the way, including the Boat Shed, picturesquely positioned on the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu, and the region's best restaurant, Amisfield, at Lake Hayes.
If you're after autumn leaves, Central Otago and Southern Canterbury are hard to beat – and this highway takes in some of the most scenic stretches of both. Starting near Milton on State Highway 1, it heads northwest through leafy Lawrence before hitting the Clutha River/Mata-Au at Beaumont. It then shadows the river and its attendant hydro lakes through Roxburgh, Alexandra, Clyde and Cromwell. All of these towns are pretty at this time of the year, and the Clyde Dam lookout is a particular highlight of this section.
Of course, it's not just the trees that change their colour – so do the grapevines, which vie with the trees for attention in the wine-growing region around Lake Dunstan. After a climb up the spectacular Lindis Pass the highway drops down into Canterbury where there are more dramatic yellows and reds highlighting the landscape around Ōmarama. Next up, Twizel puts on quite a show, but even it gets upstaged by the lakes that follow. The surreal powder-blue glacier-melt waters of Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo (Takapō) provide a vivid counterpoint to golden poplars and willows lining the lakefronts, with Aoraki/Mt Cook creating the most dramatic backdrop imaginable.
Leaving the Mackenzie Basin via Burkes Pass, the highway flattens out through Fairlie, with its gorgeous avenue of old oaks. A pair of 19m-high pin oaks near the playground on Main St, planted around 1890, are listed on the official New Zealand Tree Register. After the obligatory stop at the Fairlie Bakehouse, press on to Timaru where the road joins State Highway 1 at its northern edge. A little-heralded highlight of the port city is its beautiful Botanic Gardens, founded in 1864. Notable trees contained within its manicured grounds include a Camperdown elm and an 18m-tall dawn redwood.
Autumn by the banks of the Avon River in Christchurch. Photo / Supplied
Best city: Christchurch
Of course, the Garden City was always going to make this list. And right at the top of Christchurch's autumnal attractions has to be Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens. Set aside for public recreation in the 1850s, with the gardens marked out during the following decade, there are now more than 3000 trees in Hagley Park – including an avenue of Oriental planes in North Hagley dating from 1870. The Tree Register separately lists 44 trees within the park as "notable", including vast cottonwoods, elms and oaks. Autumn is also a good time to check out the hydrangeas and herbaceous borders.
Christchurch's seasonal delights aren't confined to its parks. The main route from the airport, Memorial Ave, is a case in point. The magnificent trees along this route date from the 1950s when Burnside Rd was widened and renamed in honour of Air Force personnel who died during World War II.
Many sections of the Avon River are trimmed with gold at this time of the year, making it a pretty time to take a punt from the historic Antigua Boatsheds on Cambridge Terrace. Otherwise stroll along the river on the 2km City Promenade Walk, starting from the hospital, or walk or cycle the 11km Te Ara Ōtākaro Avon River Trail which meanders through the red zone towards New Brighton.
Christchurch's Botanical Gardens show off the season in all its glory. Photo / Supplied
Best specialist park: Eastwoodhill National Arboretum of New Zealand
This magnificent place really should be much better known than it is. Located 35km inland from Gisborne, Eastwoodhill is said to have the largest collection of Northern Hemisphere trees to be found anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere. It views itself as an "arboreal ark", protecting threatened and endangered trees from all over the world. Its 131 hectares contain more than 15,000 specimens spanning more than 2300 species, hailing from 81 countries and six continents. For the arboreally inclined, that makes it a very good time indeed – especially at this time of the year.
There are more than 25km of tracks to explore, with six colour-coded trails set out on the visitor map ranging from short and flat to a solid trek up the slopes of Mt Arateitei. Dedicated tree-huggers can even stay overnight in bunks, en-suite double rooms or campervans.
Best North Island town: Cambridge
It may have its feet in Waikato soil but Cambridge's early colonists had clearly left their hearts in the English countryside. Their efforts to recreate their homeland took the form of village greens, pretty whitewashed churches and avenues lined with Northern Hemisphere trees. As a consequence, the "Town of Trees and Champions" is a highly colourful place in autumn. Lake Te Koo Utu is particularly pretty, right in the centre of town, with an easy 1km track which loops right around it. Further up the road, the large plane trees of Victoria Square provide shade for the vendors of the Waikato Farmers' Market, held there on Saturday mornings.
If you find the Englishness of it all a little disconcerting, the equally beautiful lush greens of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Reserve are only a 20-minute drive away. Of course, Aotearoa's evergreen native trees are gorgeous all year round and, in predator-free sanctuaries like this one, they once again resound with the calls of native birds.
The rooftop bar of La Zeppa is the perfect spot to enjoy Victoria Park's changing leaves. Photo / Supplied
Best Auckland suburb: Freemans Bay
Move over Parnell and Remmers, for my money Freemans Bay's network of tree-lined streets makes it the prettiest part of the city when the leaves are turning. Before you start whining about wealthy inner-city suburbs, it's worth remembering that Freemans Bay has a solidly working-class history and its greenest streets still have some of the highest density of social housing in the central city. This suggests that if you want to improve the quality of life in the city's poorest streets, lining them with trees isn't a terrible place to start. Although you may have to wait a hundred years.
As early as 1873, the Auckland City Council set about beautifying this notorious slum by planting it with London plane trees – a species well known to be tolerant of urban pollution. In many ways, they're the perfect tree for a narrow city street – providing cooling shade in summer and losing their leaves to let in warmth and light in winter. The result is a network of gorgeous tree-lined streets including Howe, Hepburn, Picton, Wellington, Napier and, of course, Franklin Rd – well known for its Christmas lights.
The suburb is also bookended by two substantial parks. Western Park is Auckland's oldest municipal park, stretching down a gully and incorporating a mini arboretum of mature trees including Dutch elms, Himalayan cypresses, Mexican cedars, Canary Island pines, Queensland kauri, oaks, camphors, water gums, red maples and a 38m-high monkey puzzle tree. At its top end, a clever piece of sculpture memorialises beloved buildings lost to the wrecking ball in the 1980s – a lasting (and, perhaps, timely) reminder of the threat to heritage when developers are given free rein.
By 1901 the cove that was Freemans Bay itself had disappeared under Victoria Park, which was built to provide sports and recreation grounds for the working-class neighbourhoods surrounding it. Cricketers, skateboarders and joggers are the main benefactors these days. The entire park is ringed by magnificent London plane trees, planted in 1905 and now reaching enormous proportions.
Spare a thought for the solitary old oak tree just across the road, stoically ignoring the traffic as it sheds its leaves over a traffic island at the busy intersection where Wellesley and Victoria Streets meet. It sits on the old shoreline alongside Victoria Park Market, which occupies the surprisingly attractive brick buildings that were the city's original rubbish incinerator.
Some good eating options can be found here, including iVillage for Indian cuisine and rooftop La Zeppa for Mediterranean street food. The historic Birdcage Tavern at the bottom of Franklin Rd is also worth a look, as is Queenies Lunch Room, further up on Spring St. But remember to bring a cardigan, it's starting to get chilly.
