Outside of Glenorchy (which is outside of Queenstown, which is outside of…well, nothing, really), there is a town called Paradise. Town is stretching it. Queenstown is a town. Glenorchy is a general store and a cluster of buildings. Paradise is a sign.

You don’t really go to Paradise for Paradise–you go there for the drive. (If you think about it, this is a rather telling metaphor.) The Road to Paradise is supposedly one of the most scenic drives in New Zealand which is saying something, as New Zealand has scenic drives coming out the wazoo.

Last week, Lisa, Macky, Geoff and I headed to Paradise. As is often the case when Macky and I are involved in an excursion, we were leaving several hours behind schedule and struggling to maintain blood sugar at acceptable levels. Someone–I won’t name names– may have slept through half of New Zealand’s most scenic drive. Don’t worry, we woke him/her up for this view:

The Road to Paradise is not for the faint of heart. Actually it’s not that bad, I just liked how that sounded–but seriously, it’s not for people with low clearance cars. Luckily, we were able to leave Medium Red (did I mention we named the car?) at the campground and take Geoff’s Mitsubishi Delica which, in addition to being a trooper through the river crossings, was piloted by Geoff, who has lots of interesting theories about driving on gravel, like “you just have to go fast enough to smooth out the bumps,” which actually works, by the way.

The only obligatory activity on the road to Paradise is a stop at the Paradise sign for goofy pictures.

After passing through Paradise (blink and you miss it), we continued to the end of the road and took a little hike on the Dart River Track. Lisa gave us some good lessons in glacial geology (you should always bring a geologist with you on hikes in NZ, it comes very in handy) and Macky and Geoff got stuck up to their knees in a sinkhole. And by “got stuck” I actually mean “jumped into a sinkhole because even though they are both supposedly over the age of 25 you usually can’t tell.”

Our little hike, or “tramp” as they call it here, ended in a beautiful glacial valley with golden tussocks and a rushing gray-green river, further proof that New Zealand is the most astoundingly beautiful country on earth.

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