As I noted in my last New Zealand post, Team Hubbard’s time here ended in August 2025. But it turns out that’s not the final word. After finishing up our adventures in Australia, Julie and I have come back to New Zealand to check a few things off our wish list that we couldn’t do during our first extended visit, mostly because of the weather. Our initial trip to New Zealand was during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, and we are now on the cusp of summer.

One of the activities that Julie and I were excited to do during this warmer season was a biking tour of New Zealand vineyards. We decided to do one in the central Otago region, near Queenstown. Our trip would take us about 16 miles, including some side quests along the way.

Even better, we’d booked the tour with a company that would pick us up at the end of the day, so that we only needed to bike one direction, allowing us more time to explore. We picked up our bikes near Arrowtown, and got a quick briefing from the company on the recommended route and vineyards to visit. Once on our bikes we set off!

We’ve done a lot of exciting things in the past few months, and to a certain extent we’ve forgotten how stunningly gorgeous New Zealand. It’s great to be back!

The trail we were biking on was also super fun, crossing suspension bridges over gorges with glacier-blue streams at the bottom.

As we continued, the gorges got deeper and deeper. If you look closely at this photo you can see me biking across the bridge.

As we biked, we could smell the blooming mountain thyme that covers the hillsides.

We stopped for a short break at the Kawarau Bridge, where we’d bungy jumped back in June.

I was tempted to jump again, but Julie was excited *not* to be jumping. From here we went on a side quest up a dirt road that we’d skipped in June because we weren’t sure how our car would handle it. Fortunately, we were now on mountain bikes with artificial youth (e-assist). We soon reached a spot with great views of the bungy jumping.

But our primary reason for the detour was to visit another LOTR spot, the section of the river that features prominently in the films (where the Argonath were located for you cool kids).

While we were stopped, we also enjoyed smelling and seeing the mountain thyme.

We continued up the road, to reach a ritzy vineyard in an incredible setting, but we didn’t stop for a tasting.

From here we headed off to Gibbston Valley Vineyard, where we did a tasting and had some tasty snacks that we decided counted as lunch.

We also met a nice young couple from Arizona, Timber and Jack. We hopped back on our bikes and headed off to our next vineyard, Kinross.

After more great tastings, it was back on the bikes! As we rode to our next vineyard we stopped from time to time to admire the wine country of the central Otago region.

By this time, we were starting to get a little worried about finishing our ride in time to meet the shuttle, so we headed to our last vineyard, the Church, which was also where the shuttle would pick us up. We bumped into Timber and Jack again and bought a bottle of wine to share with them. We ended the day sipping chardonnay, admiring the mountains, and swapping travel stories. This was a day worth coming back to New Zealand to enjoy!

-Will