Skippers Canyon Road

Hand-cut gold-rush shelf road clinging to a schist canyon above the Shotover River.

Skippers Road branches off the sealed Coronet Peak Road and threads north along a single-lane ledge blasted into the canyon wall by miners in the 1880s. It is gravel for its whole length, with sheer unfenced drops to the Shotover River far below and almost no room to pass an oncoming vehicle. The reward is the historic Skippers suspension bridge and some of Queenstown's most dramatic scenery, but most rental agreements specifically forbid driving it. Mind the unguarded cliff edges, blind single-lane corners where you may have to reverse, and loose gravel.