About New Zealand
New Zealand society is diverse, sophisticated, and multicultural. The honesty, friendliness, and openness of Kiwis will impress you. The great advantage of New Zealand is that all of its diverse physical, cultural, and artistic landscapes are so close to each other making exploring the islands easy and affordable.Popular Destinations
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area or Greater Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest urban area of the country. With over 1.2 million people it has over a quarter of the country's population. Auckland is popularly known as the "City of Sails" because the harbour is often dotted with hundreds of yachts and has more per capita than any other city in the world. Viaduct Basin hosted two America's Cup challenges, and its cafes, restaurants, and clubs add to Auckland's vibrant nightlife.
Sky Tower High Street, Queen Street, Ponsonby Road, and Karangahape Road are also very popular with urban socialites. Newmarket and Parnell are upmarket shopping centres. Otara's and Avondale's famous fleamarkets and Victoria Park Market are a colourful alternative shopping experience. There are major shopping malls at Sylvia Park, Botany Town Centre, Albany and St Lukes.
The Auckland Town Hall and Aotea Centre host conferences and cultural events such as theatre, kapa haka, and opera. Many national treasures are displayed at the Auckland Art Gallery, such as the work of Colin McCahon. Other significant cultural artefacts reside at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). Exotic creatures can be observed at the Auckland Zoo and Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. The Sky Tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, it is 328 m tall and has excellent panoramic views - bring a camera! Auckland has its fair share of rugby and cricket grounds, and venues for motorsports, tennis, badminton, swimming, soccer, rugby league, and many other sports.
Christchurch
Christchurch is the regional capital of Canterbury, New Zealand. It is the largest city in the South Island, as well as the second largest city and third largest urban area of New Zealand. A coastal city, it is situated just north of Banks Peninsula, midway down the South Island's eastern coast.
Botanic Gardens Christchurch New ZealandThe large number of public parks and well-developed residential gardens with many trees has given Christchurch the name of The Garden City. Hagley Park and the 30-hectare (75-acre) Christchurch Botanic Gardens, founded in 1863, are in the central city, with Hagley Park being a site for sports such as golf, cricket, netball, and rugby, and for open air concerts by local bands and orchestras. The Floral Festival held in February each year is certainly one of the most popular festivals on the annual calendar...a time when the city is a blaze of colour.
The city is known for its many live acts, and also has a professional symphony orchestra. Christchurch hosts a wide range of rave dance parties. While most of the parties are either house or drum'n'bass, occasionally there are trance and hardhouse parties. Drum'n'bass is however particularly popular, with more d'n'b events than events than for any other types of dance music. There are usually buskers around the town square, and Christchurch also hosts the World Buskers Festival in January each year.
There is something different to see and do within one or two hours 'drive of Christchurch, in any direction. To the east lie the open ocean and Banks Peninsula, featuring sheltered bays, sandy beaches, bush clad valleys, rocky coastline and high, wild places. To the west, past fertile plains and braided rivers, are forested foothills and lakes. Clearly visitors are spoilt for choice and residents have a superb outdoor lifestyle at their doorsteps.
View Christchurch Accommodation
Queenstown
Queenstown is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. The town is built around an inlet on Lake Wakatipu, a long thin lake shaped like a staggered lightning bolt, and has spectactular views of nearby mountains.
Remarkables QueenstownQueenstown is a centre for adventure tourism. Skiing, jet boating, bungy jumping, mountain biking and tramping are all strong promotional themes. Along with Mount Ruapehu, Queenstown is a major centre for snow sports in New Zealand, with people from all over the country and many parts of the world travelling to ski at the four main mountain skifields (Cardrona Alpine Resort, Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Treble Cone).
In recent years Queenstown's hostels have become a popular destination for young Australian and American tourists. Queenstown provides adventure tourism during the day and a vibrant nightlife scene during the evenings.
Locally, Queenstown has a reputation as one of New Zealand's wine and cuisine centres. Neighbouring, historic Arrowtown features excellent restaurants and bars, and Queenstown lies close to the centre of a small wine producing region, reputed to be the world's southernmost. Pinot noir produced in this area fetches premium prices.
Rotorua
Rotorua is a town on the southern shore of Lake Rotorua in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. It has a population of 53,000, of which one third is Māori. Thermal activity is at the heart of much of Rotorua's tourist appeal. Geysers and bubbling mud-pools, hot thermal springs and even a village buried by a major volcanic eruption, Te Wairoa, are all located within easy reach of the city. Kuirau Park, to the west end of the central city, is also remarkable - hot bubbling mud pools dot the park, lending a surreal air to the setting. The mud pools there had their last major explosion in late 2006, with an hour-long mud fountain spewing boiling hot matter up to 15 m high and 30 m wide.
Polynesian SpaRotorua is known (ironically) amongst the locals as "Rotovegas" due the abundance of hotels and motels on Fenton Street which resembles "The Strip" of Las Vegas , but to non-locals as "Rottenrua" due to the rotting egg-like odour of the Hydrogen Sulphide gas produce by the prolific geothermal activity. The odour is most noticeable on cooler and rainy days,especially when there is low cloud, although most locals are immune to it and are usually unaware of its presence. The especially pungent smell in the central-east 'Te Ngae' area is due to the dense sulphur deposits located next to the southern boundary of the Government Gardens, in the area known as 'Sulphur Point'.
Rotorua is home to not only geothermal interests, but botanical gardens and some interesting historic architecture. Known as a spa town and major tourist resort for more than a century, many of the buildings hint at this history. The formal Government Gardens close to the lakeshore at the eastern end of the town are particularly worthy of note.
Another of Rotorua's attractions is the mountain biking, Whakarewarewa (also known as the "Redwoods") forest has been described as 'the disneyland of mountain biking' and has some of the best mountain bike trails in New Zealand.
Wellington
Wellington is the capital of New Zealand, the country's second largest urban area and the most populous national capital in Oceania. It is in the Wellington region at the southern tip of the North Island, near the geographical centre of the country.
Oriental Bay WellingtonWellington has a reputation for its picturesque natural harbour and green hillsides adorned with tiered suburbs of colonial villas. The CBD is sited close to Lambton Harbour, an arm of Wellington Harbour. Wellington Harbour lies along an active geological fault, which is clearly evident on its straight western coast. The land to the west of this rises abruptly, meaning that many of Wellington's suburbs sit high above the centre of the city. Wellington Harbour has three islands: Matiu/Somes Island, Makaro/Ward Island and Mokopuna. Only Matiu/Somes Island is large enough for settlement. It has been used as a quarantine station for people and animals and as an internment camp during the First and Second World Wars. It is now a conservation island, providing refuge for endangered species, much like Kapiti Island further up the coast. There is access during daylight hours by the Dominion Post Ferry.
Wellington is the arts and culture capital of New Zealand, and is the centre of the nation's film industry. Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and a growing team of creative professionals have managed to turn the eastern suburb of Miramar into one of the world's finest film-making infrastructures. The local music scene, on the success of bands like The Phoenix Foundation, Shihad, Fly My Pretties, Fat Freddy's Drop, and The Black Seeds has become a diverse and thriving pool of talent.
