Stay At The Furthermost Edge

Tucked up in the high country of the South Island, Mount Aspiring teetering to the rear, Lake Wanaka far down below, the 65,000-acre Minaret Station is not so much the middle of nowhere as the furthermost edge of it — 3000ft up, miles from any road, impossible to reach even on intrepid foot. The Financial Times’ Tom Fordyce checks in to the luxury tented lodge via helicopter. “By rights it should be a godforsaken place of cold wind, brutal privation and lost hope,” Fordyce writes. “Like many things in the southern hemisphere, it’s the other way round. Understated opulence is the order of the day, the elements kept at bay or harnessed to cosset and comfort, the welcome warm and the views almost laughably epic.”