Fiordland & Southland
Incorporated in this new centre is a pleasant cafe (lunch mains $10 to $22, dinner $26 to $38), visitor centre and the Gateway, a modern museum with a…
Fiordland & Southland
Incorporated in this new centre is a pleasant cafe (lunch mains $10 to $22, dinner $26 to $38), visitor centre and the Gateway, a modern museum with a…
Fiordland & Southland
Your best chance of spotting rare yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) is from a hide at Roaring Bay, 8km south of Kaka Point's main drag. The hide is accessible…
Westland Tai Poutini National Park
Follow Cook Flat Rd for its full 21km (the final 12km is narrow, winding and unsealed) to this remote beach, a ruggedly beautiful, wind-blasted length of…
Owaka Museum & Catlins Information Centre
Fiordland & Southland
Vaguely canoe-shaped in honour of the town name (Owaka means 'place of the canoe'), this modern museum is a pleasant surprise. Salty tales of shipwrecks…
The West Coast
Serene Lake Māhinapua lies 10km southwest of Hokitika, screened from SH6 by its surrounding forest. The scenic reserve, gazetted in 1907, has a picnic…
Christchurch & Canterbury
Near Broken River Bridge, 2km northeast of Castle Hill, you'll find this 594m-long cave. As indicated by the information panels in the car park, the walk…
Fiordland & Southland
Two falls for the price of one! A fork in the road leads you, on the left, to the graceful drop of Matai Falls, while stairs to the right bring you to…
Fiordland & Southland
Nicknamed the ‘Goreggenheim’, this gallery has a truly impressive treasury of contemporary New Zealand art, including a large Ralph Hotere collection and…
Dunedin
Even in Presbyterian Dunedin, the 'established church' (aka the Church of England) gets the prime spot on The Octagon. A Romanesque portal leads into the…
Fiordland & Southland
Salty tales whisper from the portholes, driftwood and barnacle-clung planks displayed at Bluff's small museum by the container port. The best part is…
Te Papa Ōtākaro/Avon River Precinct
Christchurch
One of the city's key post-earthquake redevelopment projects is reinvigorating the area around the Avon (Ōtākaro) River. Running along the river as a self…
Queenstown & Wanaka
Strung along the creek, near the site of Arrowtown's first gold find, is NZ’s best example of an early Chinese settlement. Interpretive signs explain the…
Westland Tai Poutini National Park
It's a very long way from the actual glacier, but this parking area provides a surprisingly good view over fields to Fox Glacier (weather permitting)…
Dunedin
This impressive brick-and-glass structure is the flash home of Emerson's, the microbrewery founded by local-boy-made-good Richard Emerson in 1992. Forty…
Christchurch & Canterbury
The picture window behind the altar of this pretty stone church (built in 1935) gives worshippers a distractingly divine view of the lake and mountains;…
Maerewhenua Māori Rock Painting Site
Dunedin & Otago
Sheltered by an impressive limestone overhang with amazing views over the valley, this site contains charcoal-and-ochre paintings dating to before the…
National Transport & Toy Museum
Wanaka
Mixing Smurfs with Studebakers and skidoos (and an authentic MiG jet fighter flown by the Polish Air Force), this completely eclectic and absorbing…
Dunedin
Founded in 1869, the University of Otago is NZ's oldest. Today the university is home to some 21,000 students, and is well worth a wander, with many…
Fiordland & Southland
Standing on a desolate but beautiful point surrounded by farmland, this 13.4m-high lighthouse was built after the SS Tararua disaster, an 1881 shipwreck…
Christchurch
Take a ride to the top of Mt Cavendish (500m) on this 862m cable car for wonderful views over the city, Lyttelton, Banks Peninsula and the Canterbury…
Queenstown & Wanaka
The area's oldest commercial winery (established in the early 1980s) offers tours of the winery ($35) and NZ's largest wine cave ($20). It also has a…
Dunedin & Otago
This weighty museum plans to reopen after renovation in March 2020. The new space will house Waitaki Taonga (the Willetts Collection), one of the most…
Christchurch
Wrapped around the Botanic Gardens, Hagley Park is Christchurch's biggest green space, stretching for 165 hectares. Riccarton Ave splits it in two, while…
Queenstown & Wanaka
With gold rushes came lawlessness. Arrowtown's prisoners were originally manacled to logs, but in 1876 this schist jail, now surrounded by homes, was…
Dunedin & Otago
Stop into this volunteer-run centre to dig out your own real limestone fossils (to keep!) or check out the frightening 25-million-year-old shark-toothed…
Lakes District Museum & Gallery
Queenstown & Wanaka
Exhibits cover the gold-rush era and the early days of Chinese settlement around Arrowtown. Kids are kept engaged by the likes of an 'Odd One Out' game…
Christchurch
Orana is an 'open range' zoo, and you'll know exactly what that means if you opt to jump in the cage on wheels for the lion encounter ($52.50 per person)…
Queenstown
These 2 hectares are home to 10,000 native plants, geckos, skinks, tuatara (an endemic reptile) and scores of birds, including kiwi, kea (alpine parrots),…
Dunedin
Gaze upon local and international art – including a small collection of Impressionists – at this expansive and airy gallery. Only a fraction of the…
Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial
Christchurch
Unveiled in 2017, this moving monument comprises a 100m-long memorial wall, curved along the south bank of the Avon and engraved with the names of the 185…
Fiordland & Southland
Marvel at the rare phenomenon of fossilised forest, extending south of Curio Bay. Preserved by silica in the ashy floodwaters that submerged these…
Dunedin
Dating from 1863, these 30 hectares of peaceful, grassy and shady green space include rose gardens, rare natives, a rhododendron dell, an exotic bird…
Christchurch & Canterbury
Scattered across lush paddocks around 33km from Springfield, these limestone formations reach up to 30m high, and look so other-worldly they were named …
Wanaka
It's worth raising a glass to the view alone at Rippon since the Tuscan-styled cellar door has surely the finest winery view in NZ. In a bid to contain…
Christchurch & Canterbury
Perched on a hillside overlooking the valley, this striking black barn is home to some excellent drops – try the pinot noirs from the winery's three…
Fiordland & Southland
Built in 1889, this elegant brick-clad structure resembles a lighthouse more than it does a water tower. Almost 43m high, it was built to supply the city…
Dunedin & Otago
Offering over 40 local wines by the glass, including River T's own well-regarded pinot gris and chardonnay, this new cellar door is gaining a reputation…
Christchurch & Canterbury
The variety of craft beers available to taste at this wee brewery never wanes. Stop in to fill a rigger (flagon) to take away, or sup an ale alongside a…
Queenstown
Peregrine by name, peregrine by design…the award-winning construction of the cellar door, shaped a bit like a falcon's wing in flight, looks particularly…
The West Coast
At nightfall, bring a torch (or grope your way) into this grotto on the northern edge of town, signposted off SH6. The dell is an easy opportunity to…
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