Somewhat different than the Flying Safari’s offered in neighboring Australia where visitors are shuttled by tour operators from place to place to explore maximum amounts of the vast country with great efficiency, the Flying Safaris organized in New Zealand take the form of an event attracting recreational and professional flyers from all over the world. Up to 80...

Cardrona Alpine Resort is a ski resort in New Zealand's South Island about an hour from Queenstown. The skifield ranges from 1,260m to 1,894m. The resort is good for beginners and intermediates, but there’s not as much to do for advanced riders even though they say the distribution of slopes is 25% beginner, 50% intermediate and 25% advanced. There are 2 detacha...

Queenstown is about an hour’s drive from Cardrona resort and is home to additional ski resorts of Coronet Peak and The Remarkables. Coronet Peak is a commercial skifield in Otago, New Zealand located 18 kilometres to the northeast of the town of Queenstown and seven kilometres west of Arrowtown, on the southern slopes of the 1,649 metre peak which shares its nam...

The Bounty Islands are a small group of 13 granite islets and numerous rocks, with a combined area of 135 ha (330 acres), in the south Pacific Ocean that are territorially part of New Zealand. Ecologically, they are part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion. The group is uninhabited by humans, but is also heavily populated by penguins and albatrosses...

A stay at New Zealand’s Huka Lodge allows lovers of the outdoors an opportunity to enjoy nature’s bounty while truly enveloped in the lap of luxury. Located on the banks of the Waikato River below Huka Falls on New Zealand’s North Island the Huka Lodge has hosted some of the world’s richest and most famous travelers including members of Royal F...

New Zealand’s South Island presents some of the most famous and productive Fly Fishing rivers in the world. One such highly regarded location is the mouth of the Lochy River where it meets iconic Lake Wakatipu in the Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island at the Lake’s extreme southern end. Lake Wakatipu, along with the rivers by which it is fed,...

Central Otago has become one of New Zealand’s fastest growing lifestyle and tourism destinations and is located on the South Island. At 45 degrees southern latitude it is considered to be the most southerly wine producing region in the world. The valley’s vineyards are protected by surrounding mountains providing the perfect environment for the microclimat...

The Mackenzie Basin (popularly and traditionally known as the Mackenzie Country), is an elliptical intermontane basin, located in the Mackenzie and Waitaki Districts, near the centre of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest such basin in New Zealand. Historically famous mainly for sheep farming, the sparsely populated area is now also a popular tourism de...

Stewart Island (Rakiura) is the third-largest island of New Zealand. It lies 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of the South Island, across Foveaux Strait. The only town is Oban, on Halfmoon Bay. This hilly island with a wet climate has an area of 1 746 km². The north is dominated by the swampy valley of the Freshwater River. The river rises close to the northwestern co...

Blokart is a type of compact land yacht rapidly gaining popularity as a major land-based sailing sport. The New Zealand designed Blokarts are small, fast and maneuverable and therefore able to be sailed in small urban areas. They can be disassembled quickly without tools and packed into a bag able to be carried in a car or as check-in luggage on a plane. Blokarts have...

Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand, reaching a height of 3,754 metres (12,316 ft). It lies in the Southern Alps, the mountain range which runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki / Mount Cook consists of three summits lying slightly south and east of the m...

Te Urewera National Park is one of fourteen national parks within New Zealand and is the largest of the four in the North Island. Covering an area of approximately 2,127 km², it is in the north east of the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island. On 28 July 1954, the catchment areas of Lake Waikaremoana, Lake Waikareiti and other Crown reserves were gazetted as a ...

Rakiura National Park is a nature reserve park located on Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand. It is the 14th of New Zealand's national parks and was officially opened on 9 March 2002. It covers 1,570 km², which is about 85% of Stewart Island, New Zealand's third-largest island. The park area excludes the township area around Halfmoon Bay (Oban) and some roads as...

Skippers Canyon is a historic and scenic gorge, some 22 kilometres in length, that is located several kilometres north of Queenstown. Today accessed from Queenstown via the same road that leads to Coronet Peak skifield, Skippers Canyon houses the Shotover River, one of New Zealand's richest gold bearing rivers which was named by William Gilbert Rees. Rees, his wife Fr...

Kapiti Island is a small but conspicuous island about 5 km (3 mi) off the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand. The island is the site of Kapiti Island Nature Reserve and adjoins the Kapiti Marine Reserve. The island is home to a number of native birds (mostly reintroduced), including takahe, kokako, brown teal, stitchbirds, and tieke (saddleback), miro...