AuthenticAs Day into Night
Some experiences fit neatly into a morning or an afternoon. This one takes the whole day - and then keeps going.
AuthenticAs Day into Night combines one of our private 4WD adventures with a Starry Night Adventure under some of the darkest skies on the planet. From the first stop of the day to the last photograph of the night, it's a single unbroken experience guided by the same people, in the same vehicle, with the same unhurried pace that runs through everything we do.
Whenua (land) first, then kā whetū (the stars).
At A Glance
Top & Back Day into Night | from $3,199
Private 8-9 hour experience for up to 4 people
Full day journey to Tāhuna / Glenorchy and beyond - Paradise, the Dart Valley, the Routeburn
Picnic included
Night stargazing at the Tāhuna Dark Sky Sanctuary, Glenorchy - some of the darkest skies on the planet
Astro portraits under the Southern night sky
Professional photography throughout the day
A2 Fine Art Print available
Travel by Land Rover Defender
Operates year-round
AuthenticAs Queenstown Day into Night | from $2,049
Private 5 hour experience for up to 4 people
Three hour guided exploration of the Queenstown region
Night stargazing at a selected dark sky location near Queenstown
Astro portraits under the Southern night sky
Professional photography throughout the day
A2 Fine Art Print available
Good to know
Travel by Land Rover Defender
Operates year-round
Simon holds a full passenger endorsement and operates certified passenger vehicles
Learn more about our local family business → About Us
Flexible planning around weather conditions
Operated under DOC concession
Health & Safety audited by Qualworx
Qualmark Silver accredited
Ideal for couples, families, or small groups seeking a private, curated adventure
More than 4? emailus@authenticAs.org and we’ll find you a solution
About Your Guide
Simon has lived in the Lakes District for over 20 years. His deep knowledge of the local environment, wildlife, and culture informs every tour, ensuring you experience more than just the sights.
Each adventure is carefully curated to showcase the best locations for your group, and Simon captures professional photographs along the way, creating lasting memories of your time in Queenstown and beyond. Past guests have praised the relaxed pace, attention to detail, and quality of the images — whether couples on a romantic getaway or families exploring the region.
Start Times Vary Throughout The Year
Please select the 14:00 appointment to book - approximate start times are;
Month - Top & Back | Queenstown
January - 16:30 | 19:30
February - 16:00 | 19:00
March - 15:00 | 18:00
April - 13:30 | 16:30
May - 12:30 | 15:30
June - 12:00 | 15:00
July - 12:00 | 15:00
August - 12:00 | 15:00
September - 13:00 | 16:00
October - 14:30 | 17:30
November - 15:00 | 18:00
December - 16:00 | 19:00
This is a long day. That's the point.
Most people come to Queenstown and see it in fragments. A gondola ride. A walk along the waterfront. A jet boat. Each thing ticked off a list, each one shared with a hundred other people. AuthenticAs Day into Night is something else entirely.
Your day begins with a pickup from your accommodation. From that moment, your time is your own - or more accurately, it's ours together. There's no group to keep up with, no commentary delivered to the back of a bus, no rush to the next stop before you've properly taken in the last one. Just you, Simon, and a landscape that rewards the people who slow down enough to actually look at it.
We travel in JAS, our 2015 Land Rover Defender - one of the last six factory Defenders imported into Aotearoa before production ended. She's not a prop and she's not a workhorse. Leather seats, factory plush, genuinely beautiful, and looked after the way you look after something you love. Everyone who travels in JAS comments on it - clients, mechanics, people who just see her parked on the street. She's part of the family.
As the day unfolds, Simon guides and photographs in equal measure. You don't need to think about capturing anything - that's taken care of. What you get to do is be present. Stand at the edge of a lake and actually look at it. Walk into a valley that most visitors never reach. Eat a picnic somewhere that would take most people half a day to find on their own.
Then the light changes.
As evening comes in, the experience shifts. The landscape you've been moving through all day takes on a different quality, and kā whetū begin to appear.
Kā taka o te marama is a 24 hour way of seeing. What is observed in the sky is reflected on the whenua. What the day delivers is shown in the stars.
Simon began his formal study of kā taka o te marama in late 2024, guided by leading experts who carry intergenerational knowledge spanning time to before people arrived in Aotearoa. They gave him a start and an inspiration. The more he learns, the more he finds there is to learn. It's become a way of living and observing that shapes his photography, his guiding, and how he moves through this landscape every day.
When the stars appear and the conversation turns to the night sky, what you hear isn't a rehearsed presentation. It's someone sharing what they're genuinely in the middle of discovering.
Meanwhile the camera keeps working, this time placing you inside the frame of the Southern night sky. Astro portraits that are unlike anything you'll find anywhere else in Aotearoa.
This is a long day. That's the point.
"This was by far the best experience in Queenstown. Hand on heart can say this experience is a must do in NZ if you are into star gazing and enjoy photography. AuthenticAs truly go above and beyond to curate something specially for you. We witnessed magic during our star gazing tour and the photoshoot was by far the best. It never felt that we met them for the first time as they instantly put us to ease for the photoshoot and the stories about our solar system was truly beautiful and unique. I would recommend them to everyone in a heartbeat. Thank you Emma and Simon for giving us memories that we will cherish forever. Your passion and skills made it possible to give my partner the ultimate surprise. We are truly grateful to you."
Sam and Kritika - Tripadvisor 5 stars
authenticAs Top & Back Day into Night
This is the full version. A day that begins in Queenstown and travels north along the edge of Lake Wakatipu towards Tāhuna / Glenorchy - a drive widely regarded as one of the most beautiful in the country. Beyond Glenorchy the sealed road gives way to gravel, and JAS comes into her own. Depending on the day, the season, and what calls to us, we might venture into the Dart Valley and Paradise, run along the base of Pikirakatahi / Mt Earnslaw until the road ends, walk into the ancient beech forest of the Routeburn, or follow the Rees Valley towards dramatic Muddy Creek. We hold DOC concessions across this whole area and we know it intimately.
Emma's picnic is part of this one. Somewhere along the way, in a spot most people will never find, we stop and eat well.
As evening arrives, the landscape you've spent the day moving through reveals itself again. If conditions allow, the night component takes place right there at the Tāhuna Dark Sky Sanctuary - one of the genuinely dark places left on the planet. No ambient light, no township glow on the horizon. Just the full weight of the Southern night sky above a landscape you've already come to know through the day, and Simon alongside you helping you understand what you're looking at.
The drive back to Queenstown gives the night time to settle - and if conditions have shifted during the day, Simon knows this road and this sky well enough to find the right place for it.
8-9 hours. $3,199 per trip for up to 4 people.
authenticAs Queenstown Day into Night
Not everyone has a full day to give, and not everyone needs to. The Queenstown Day into Night is a complete experience in its own right - three hours exploring the quieter, more beautiful corners of the region that most visitors never reach, followed by two hours under the night sky at a selected dark sky location near Queenstown.
The same vehicle. The same guide. The same unhurried pace. The same astro portraits under kā whetū. A different landscape, a shorter day, and a price that reflects it.
If you're based in Queenstown and want to experience both sides of what AuthenticAs offers without committing to a full day in the field, this is the one.
5 hours. $2,049 per trip for up to 4 people.
In the words of our manuhiri (guests)
We drove until the road ran out
My newlywed husband and I had two amazing adventures with Simon. Our first day he took us to Glenorchy. We literally drove until the road ran out. Crossing streams, mountains, and everything in between. We saw so many faces of the beautiful landscape. Simon is incredibly knowledgeable about Queenstown and all of its geological and astrophysical features. Because we encountered poor conditions our first day, we decided to delay our stargazing to another night, and we’re so glad we did. We had perfect conditions. We had stargazed a few days earlier with another guide but weather damped our experience. We got lucky with Simon (in every way), so remember weather can have a big impact on the stargazing. It happened to be drizzling our first day too, but it made the photos amazing.
The photos! My husband and I are so happy we got these photos to commemorate our honeymoon. We will cherish them for years to come.
Lastly, the food and preparedness. Simon brought us the most delight snacks thoughtfully catering to our dietary needs. He brought hot cocoa for our stargazing and tea for our day trip. He had the warmest coats too.
Simon is a master of his craft both as a guide and as a photographer. This trip is a must for the curious adventurers looking to make amazing memories.
Jodie & Ivan - Google Review 5*
Discover ...without distraction!
So often as solo travellers our time leading up to the trip is spent planning for it and after arrival it's a battle between wanting to enjoy ourselves but also capture the experience. Authentic As is your answer to that dilemma!
I stumbled across Simon and Emma's website while I was working on my South Island itinerary. Despite all my years in Aotearoa, I had spent more time visiting overseas locales than I had our gorgeous Te Waipounamu. It's easy to push things in your backyard further down the bucket list isn't it? But with an imminent move to Australia coming, I knew I had to make the most of my time.
The initial email exchange with Simon and Emma instantly put me at ease. They understood my desire to enjoy the day without having to whip out the phone for selfies lol. Ofcourse the day itself was absolutely memorable - really appreciated how organically our plans unfolded based on the light conditions and the spots I was enjoying. Simon spared no efforts in making sure that I not only got to enjoy the natural beauty around us, but also that he captured those moments for me, so I could remember them by. Thanks to Authentic As, I got to discover all sorts of spots - underrated and well loved that day.
And I have to mention that I was wholly unprepared for Emma's fabulous picnic - what an absolute treat! After a wonderful day out, Simon made sure to send an initial set of pics out to me so I could share the excitement of the day with friends and family (despite having a very early start the next day for a community event I must add). Soon after that Simon shared the full photo package as well - what an absolute delight it was to re-live the stunning day turning to dusk turning to night. The transition had been magical to experience in the first place and getting to see it all over again was a gift <3
Queenstown and its surrounding locales are so gorgeous, it'd be a shame not to let yourself be fully immersed because you are distracted by the desire to capture your memories on camera. I never took out my phone once to click pics during the trip; I didn't have to do any planning; I thoroughly enjoyed my day ...what more could one ask for? As Simon likes to say... "let me do the hard work!" :)
Parul - Trip Advisor 5* Review
The Night
As the last of the light leaves the sky, the experience changes completely.
Simon guides you through kā whetū - the stars - weaving together the astrophysics he studied at university with his growing understanding of kā taka o te marama and what the night sky has meant to the people of this place long before telescopes existed. These aren't two separate ways of looking at the same thing. They're layers. And the darker the sky, the more there is to see.
At the Tāhuna Dark Sky Sanctuary, that darkness is remarkable. This is one of the least light-polluted locations in Aotearoa - a sky that on a clear night delivers the full Southern hemisphere in a way that very few places on earth can match. The Milky Way doesn't appear as a faint smear. It has structure, depth, and detail that takes your breath away the first time you see it properly.
While Simon guides, there are moments where the camera comes out - sometimes a second body running alongside the conversation, sometimes a natural pause where the photography takes over. The astro portraiture that comes from these nights is a speciality - placing you or your group inside the frame of the Southern night sky to create images that are genuinely unlike anything else available in Aotearoa. These aren't snapshots. They're considered, crafted photographs that happen to have kā whetū as their backdrop.
An A2 Fine Art Print is available to add to your Day into Night package. These are separate works - a single image that can take several hours to create, printed to archival standard and ready to hang. If you're still in the region when it's ready, we'll bring it to you before you leave Aotearoa. A way to bring the sky home with you properly.
If you'd like to go deeper - extended night sky photography tuition, more time behind your own camera, or an extended astrophysics presentation - add A Little Bit Extra to your booking. It extends the night component and gives you the time to properly explore what's above you.
A few practical details
Day into Night tours are private. One booking per trip, one vehicle, up to 4 people. Every itinerary is shaped around you - your interests, your pace, your day.
If you're a group of 5 or more, get in touch. We'll work out whether a second vehicle makes sense and price accordingly.
All prices are per trip, not per person. From our perspective there's not much difference in what we deliver for 1 person or 4. What changes is who you share it with.
Both options operate year-round. Winter brings longer nights, colder air, and some of the best seeing conditions of the year. This isn't an off-season experience - it's a different season, with different rewards.
Start times vary throughout the year to make the most of the available daylight and darkness. Approximate pickup times are below - if you're unsure what works for your dates, just ask.
The night component is weather dependent. If the sky doesn't deliver, the day tour stands completely on its own. We'll always be honest with you about conditions before you head out.
Comfortable footwear is recommended. Some stops involve short walks - nothing demanding, but you'll want to be able to move easily.
A Little Bit Extra
If you want more from the night - extended time under the sky, night sky photography tuition with your own camera, or an extended astrophysics presentation - add A Little Bit Extra to your booking. Because you're already out in the landscape on a Day into Night, it also opens up the option of astro portraits across more than one location during your day and night. For a lot of people that's the most natural upgrade there is - you've already been somewhere beautiful during the day, and the night takes you somewhere else entirely.
Photography tuition is available throughout the day component too. Let us know when booking and we'll build it in.
If you have questions before booking, emailus@authenticAs.org. Let us know your dates, group size, and where you're staying and we'll take it from there.
