Blanket Bay

Blanket Bay is alpine luxury at its most dramatic: schist-and-timber lodges and chalets at the wild head of Lake Wakatipu, on a high-country station at Glenorchy and framed by the Humboldt Range. Around forty to forty-five minutes by road from Queenstown and its airport, or arriving by helicopter to the lodge pad, it sits near the Routeburn and Greenstone tracks and the gateway to Mt Aspiring National Park. There are around a dozen rooms and suites across the main lodge and chalets — lake and mountain views, stone fireplaces, sitting areas and big private terraces — plus the grand four-suite Villa of around 1,000 square metres and a two-bedroom Owner's Residence for exclusive use. Dining centres on a creative Pacific Rim menu that changes nightly, served as a five-course degustation with Central Otago wines, alongside the wood-panelled Den, a Great Room and a games room with a complimentary self-service bar. There is an on-site spa with a therapy suite, a heated outdoor lap pool, a jacuzzi and steam rooms. The experiences are pure Southern Alps: heli-picnics and flights straight from the lodge pad, guest-exclusive horse riding across the private high-country station, fly-fishing and jet-boating on the Dart and Shotover, the Routeburn on the doorstep, and the Paradise filming country of Middle-earth nearby.