A Queenstown day on Lake Wakatipu and the Glenorchy Road

The Queenstown café locals actually use for breakfast. Order a flat white and scrambled eggs on sourdough. The window looks onto Lake Wakatipu; the Remarkables change colour with the cloud passing behind them. Arrive before the town wakes up.

A coal-fired Edwardian steamship that's crossed the lake since 1912. A ninety-minute round trip to Walter Peak Station, where sheepdogs work the hillside. The farm café there does a table-service breakfast you can add to the ticket.

The Glenorchy-Queenstown Road is an hour of switchbacks along the lake's western shore. Bennett's Bluff is the best lookout halfway — pull over at the signed viewpoint and walk ten paces to the edge. The peaks opposite are the Richardson Range.

The red wooden boat shed at the head of Lake Wakatipu. The water turns glacial blue as the lake tapers and the mountains close in. Walk the short jetty, photograph the shed reflected. The pub across the road has a roaring fire and a coffee counter.

A raised wooden boardwalk through a wetland bird sanctuary. The full loop is an hour; the half that hugs the lake gives you snow-capped peaks reflected in still water. Scaup ducks and pukeko. Pack insect repellent in summer.

A small cove with a short native-bush track to a viewpoint above glacial-blue water. Twenty-five minutes return. Reach it for 18:00 in summer, 16:30 in winter. Beech forest, kingston-meltwater blue water, the Remarkables on the far horizon.

The burger Queenstown is loudly famous for. The line is constant. The Ferg Deluxe is the benchmark; the Southern Swine is for those committing. Walk down to the lakeshore to eat it — there are benches along the esplanade and the lake is five minutes away.