An Active Relaxer’s Guide to the Top of the South Island, New Zealand
The best trips are the ones where you come home with great memories — and still feel rested. Here’s how to combine the region’s biggest events with a quality time in nature.
Living and working in the Top of the South, I’m often reminded of how much there is to do within a relatively small part of New Zealand. You can spend a day watching vintage aircraft at an airshow, enjoy a performance at the Nelson Arts Festival, or head to an event in Christchurch, then, within a few hours, find yourself surrounded by native forest, rivers and mountains.
It’s one of the things I love about this part of the country. You don’t have to choose between an active holiday and a relaxing one.
At Maruia River Retreat, near Murchison in the Shenandoah Valley, we welcome guests who enjoy getting out and experiencing New Zealand. Some come after a long-haul flight, others are exploring the South Island, and many have a particular event or adventure built into their itinerary. What they often need afterwards is somewhere to slow down.
I call this kind of traveller an active relaxer. They want to see the world, but they also understand the value of leaving space in their itinerary to rest, recover and perhaps reflect and replay the wonderful memories they’ve just created..
If you’re planning a trip around the Top of the South Island’s events calendar, here are a few ways to make the most of your time here.
Why the Top of the South is ideal for active relaxers
The Nelson, Tasman, Marlborough and Buller regions offer a wonderful mix of culture, outdoor adventure, food, wine and nature. We have national parks to explore, alpine lakes to visit, coastal landscapes to discover and some excellent events to plan a trip around.
The other advantage is that you can combine these experiences without spending every day travelling.
Maruia River Retreat is about a two-hour drive from Nelson and Blenheim, and three hours from Christchurch. We’re also 1 hour and 15 minutes from the alpine village of St Arnaud and Nelson Lakes National Park.
That makes our part of the South Island a useful place to pause between destinations — or to build a few restorative days into a trip that might otherwise be filled with driving, sightseeing and events.
My advice is simple: book the event you really want to attend, but don’t fill every day around it. Leave yourself enough time to enjoy where you are.
Nelson Arts Festival: culture followed by quiet
22 October–1 November 2026 | Whakatū Nelson
The Nelson Arts Festival is a lovely reason to visit the region in spring. With theatre, comedy, circus, talks and live performance across the city, there’s plenty to fill a few days.
Nelson is a place I always recommend allowing time for. Enjoy the cafés, explore the local galleries, take in a performance and make the most of the longer spring evenings.
Then consider heading inland for a change of pace.
Maruia River Retreat is about two hours from Nelson. After a few days of shows and city life, you can trade the programme for a quieter rhythm: a walk through our native beech forest, a soak in the forest hot tub, a swim in the magnesium pool or a massage.
You don’t need to plan another packed itinerary once you arrive. Sometimes the nicest part of a holiday is having the freedom to decide what you feel like doing that day.
Late October also happens to be one of the loveliest stretches to be in the Tasman region. Spring is properly underway by then, and the light lasts longer. Because Maruia sits about two hours from Nelson, a common pattern is two or three nights in the city catching shows, then a drive south into the Shenandoah Valley to let the applause fade into birdsong. It is the same rhythm Maruia lays out in its guide to the Top of the South as a destination in its own right: see the region properly, then give yourself somewhere real to land.
This is the second year Maruia River Retreat serves as a patron and supporter of the Nelson Arts Festival. Check out the Pukapuka Talks events that we are sponsoring.
Classic Fighters Omaka Airshow: a weekend of aviation and nature
26–28 March 2027 | Omaka Aerodrome, Blenheim
For aviation enthusiasts, the Classic Fighters Omaka Airshow is a compelling reason to visit Marlborough. Held over Easter, the event brings historic aircraft, warbirds and classic machinery together for a memorable weekend.
Blenheim is around two hours from Maruia, making it possible to include the airshow in a longer trip through Marlborough and the Top of the South.
I’d allow time to enjoy Marlborough rather than making the airshow a quick trip in and out. Explore the region, enjoy its food and wine, and then head towards Murchison for a few days of recovery.
At Maruia, you can spend the morning walking among the trees, take a swim or enjoy the warmth of the sauna before settling into the evening. Our setting is deliberately quiet, with just seven villas across our private 500-acre nature estate.
It’s a very different atmosphere from an airshow — and that contrast is precisely what makes the combination appealing.
NZ Antique and Classic Boat Show: an alpine lake and a forest retreat
6–7 March 2027 | Lake Rotoiti, St Arnaud
This is one of the events I’d particularly recommend combining with a stay in our part of the region.
The NZ Antique and Classic Boat Show takes place at Lake Rotoiti, in the alpine village of St Arnaud, within Nelson Lakes National Park. It’s a beautiful setting for a gathering of classic boats, and a wonderful excuse to explore one of the region’s special places.
St Arnaud is about 45 minutes from Maruia, so you don’t need to organise a long transfer after the event.
Spend the day beside the lake, take in the scenery and enjoy the atmosphere. Then return to the retreat for a hot tub overlooking the river and forest, or simply some quiet time in your villa.
For anyone looking for things to do near Murchison, this is a good example of how easily a local event can become part of a wider nature and wellbeing holiday.
Warbirds over Wanaka: make recovery part of the journey
14–16 April 2028 | Wanaka Airport
Warbirds over Wanaka is worth considering if you’re planning a longer South Island itinerary around Easter 2028.
Wanaka is a considerable distance from Maruia, so I wouldn’t suggest treating the retreat as a quick detour. Instead, think of it as part of a longer journey through the South Island, with time to explore the different regions along the way.
Travellers who have timed a trip around Warbirds over Wanaka, New Zealand's most loved event three years running and next held at Easter 2028, will find Maruia works just as well as the calming final stop. The retreat covers that route in more detail in why it makes the essential next stop after a Queenstown holiday.
The principle is the same wherever you go. If you’re travelling for an event, plan for the recovery as well as the excitement.
What does active recovery look like at Maruia River Retreat?
Recovery isn’t about following another strict programme or feeling that you need to achieve something during your holiday. It’s about having the time and space to notice what you need.
Two nights is usually the minimum to feel a real shift after a big event weekend. Three is where most guests report the clearest shift. Maruia's own piece on winter hibernation and a deep nervous system reset gets into why warmth and sustained downtime matter more than a single spa afternoon ever could.
At Maruia, guests can choose from a range of experiences, depending on how active or restful they feel like being.
Nature walks: Explore our private native beech forest, river frontage and walking trails.
Forest hot tub: Soak in warm water beneath the trees, with views towards the river.
Sauna experiences: Choose between our infrared forest sauna and Finnish sauna.
Magnesium pool: Enjoy a swim or simply spend time in the heated pool.
Massage therapy: Options include relaxation, remedial, deep-tissue and sports massage.
Yoga and mindful movement: Take time to stretch, breathe and move at your own pace.
Thoughtful, seasonal dining: Enjoy meals prepared by Lasse, with an emphasis on local ingredients and our kitchen garden.
You can do as much or as little as you like. Some guests prefer a walk and a swim; others spend much of their stay reading, enjoying the facilities and taking long breaks between meals.
Our Personal Restoration Retreat is designed for guests who want to make this kind of wellbeing time a more central part of their stay. It brings together accommodation, food, nature and restorative experiences in a setting where you don’t have to organise every detail yourself.
If you’ve spent several days travelling, attending events or being on the go, giving yourself two or three nights to settle in can make the experience feel quite different from a single night’s stopover. Real recovery wants warmth, stillness, and enough time for the body to register that it is actually safe to switch off. Maruia's own facilities, detailed in full on its things to do page, are built around exactly that
How I’d plan an active relaxer itinerary
If you’re coming to the Top of the South for an event, I’d start with the dates of the event and then work backwards.
| If you're attending... | How I'd build the trip | Suggested time at Maruia |
|---|---|---|
| Nelson Arts Festival | Enjoy a few days in Nelson, then head inland for a quieter change of pace. | 2-3 nights |
| Christchurch event | Allow time in Christchurch around the event before making the drive north. | 2-3 nights |
| NZ Antique and Classic Boat Show | Combine the show with a visit to Nelson Lakes National Park and a short drive to the retreat. | 1-2 nights |
| Classic Fighters Omaka Airshow | Explore Marlborough before or after the airshow, then continue through the Top of the South. | 2-3 nights |
| Warbirds over Wanaka | Plan a longer South Island loop, with Maruia as a restorative stop along the way. | 2-3 nights |
These are starting points rather than fixed itineraries. Your travel dates, flight times and the experiences you want to include will determine what works best. That is also why Maruia's positioning as a base within reach of four national parks works so well here.
Maruia River Retreat sits close to the middle of all this, in the Shenandoah Valley, about two hours from both Nelson and Blenheim and roughly three hours north of Christchurch. Most international guests treat it as their grounding first stop, the point where the jet lagged version of you who stepped off a long haul flight starts to settle into the one who actually arrives on holiday. For anyone mapping a trip around the region's calendar, Maruia's list of nearby things to do is worth bookmarking alongside this one.
A little travel advice
One of the benefits of travelling through this part of New Zealand is that you can experience very different landscapes and activities in a relatively compact region. But I think it’s easy to underestimate how tiring a full itinerary can become, especially when you’re travelling from overseas.
My suggestion is to leave a few days uncommitted. You might discover a local walk, spend longer than expected beside a lake, or simply decide that an afternoon in the sauna is exactly what you need.
You don’t have to earn your rest by doing everything else first.
At Maruia River Retreat, we offer a quieter side of the South Island: a private 500-acre nature estate, native forest, river views, comfortable villas, thoughtful dining and space to restore your energy.
Whether you’re coming for an airshow, a festival, a sporting event or simply the pleasure of exploring New Zealand, we’d love you to consider including a few days here.
Enjoy the event. Explore the region. Then give yourself time to recover.
If you’re planning a trip around the Top of the South Island’s events calendar, get in touch with us at Maruia River Retreat. We can help you work out how a restorative stay might fit into your itinerary.
Maruia River Retreat - a nature and wellbeing destination near Murchison, Tasman, New Zealand.