Thanks for that. I have not heard about the chains on tires thing for Milford Sound, but if need be we can do a tour from Te Anau. A friend in NZ who also saw this itinerary did not mention anything about that.

Re: driving a lot, we have two nights in Te Anau, two nights in Dunedin, two nights in Christchurch, and two nights in Nelson (one night each in Invercargill and Westport). It is a fair amount of driving, but we do break it up with an internal flight and a train ride. I’m pretty used to road trips and small roads (have done plenty of this in Scotland, for example). Plus, the drives themselves and the scenery alongside are part of the appeal for me. I might consider doing the Te Anau-Dunedin segment in three days vs. two, since the Catlins Coast has a lot of sights to see and that’s a long, slow drive. Westport to Nelson is listed on Google Maps as just over 3 hours, which is entirely manageable (even 5 hours would be manageable).

weibelt, thanks for the car rental suggestions! And yes, this misses out on the glaciers but since my friend and I have already been to both Antarctica and the Arctic, we don’t really feel the need to see more glaciers. The train ride from Christchurch to Greymouth sounds a lot more interesting.