Explore stunning New Zealand with an exclusive Stuff Travel guided holidays offer
Cruising around Europe may be off the menu currently, but there’s no need to miss out on being effortlessly, and comfortably, transported through spectacular scenery to iconic locations. Add in quality accommodation and dining, small groups of like-minded travellers, and enthusiastic guides with all the inside knowledge, and the result is the same kind of experience, but without the need for a passport.
Stuff Travel, in combination with Kirra Group’s more than 50 years’ experience, is offering a selection of landcruising experiences around New Zealand, enabling easy bucket-list ticking as well as reacquaintance with places visited long ago. The four itineraries include 7 days departing from Auckland and 5 and 9 days from Christchurch, but king of the list is the 13-day Southern Expedition, hitting all the high spots of the South Island as well as slipping in some hidden treasures.
This tour starts in Christchurch as it means to continue, with the glory that is the Coastal Pacific train, gliding between mountains and sea up to Picton. Next comes a water taxi to fabulous Lochmara Lodge, tucked away in the Marlborough Sounds. After night in Blenheim, the highlight next day is Peter Jackson’s pet project, the dramatic display of his vintage aircraft collection at Omaka Museum.
Out of Nelson, there is a cruise from Kaiteriteri’s golden beach along the gorgeous coastline of Abel Tasman National Park, past the Instagram-famous Split Apple Rock, and the beach at Awaroa, famously bought by public subscription. Then it’s a dramatic change in scenery, heading through the Buller Gorge and over the longest swing bridge in the country, to the West Coast’s rocks and rainforest. How many people can say they’ve visited
Karamea? Or stayed at the literal Last Resort? This is the first taste of real Coaster hospitality, with more to come.
Punakaiki’s Pancake Rocks are always spectacular, especially if the blowhole is performing, and then in Hokitika there is driftwood art on the beach plus glamorous man-made art in the glass-blowing and greenstonecarving studios. Further south, nature rules again at Franz Josef Glacier; and then there’s another tick, at Jackson Bay, the end-point of the Coast road, where it’s only right to celebrate this visit with a whitebait fritter or crayfish lunch at the historic Craypot caravan.
Crossing through Haast Pass, next comes the unmissable tourist trio of Wanaka, Queenstown and Arrowtown, deservedly famous for their wonderful scenery and varied attractions and activities. Not so many people though have been to the next destination: via Lake Manapouri to Deep Cove, in Doubtful Sound. On a cruise here, one of the highlights is cutting the engines to appreciate total silence, broken only by birdsong.
Winding down to Tuatapere — it was a teacher here who sent the Carpenters the words that became their hit ‘Top of the World’ — the next stop is historic little Riverton, with its excellent museum. Then comes yet another tick: the famous signpost and chain sculpture at Stirling Point, Bluff, marking the bottom of the South Island.
Invercargill has a trio of museums with unexpected delights: tuatara, motorbikes and vintage cars. For an extra tick, however, it’s hard to beat the opportunity at Dig This to operate a 5-tonne digger, delicately picking up basketballs or, alternatively, smashing a car to smithereens.
Another rarely-visited location comes next: the Catlins. Here there are equally rare creatures: Hector’s dolphins, often seen in Porpoise Bay, and 2019 Bird of the Year, the hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin. Tide and time of day allowing, these can be seen crossing an ancient fossilised forest nearby at Curio Bay. Nugget Point is another Instagram star, the little lighthouse perched on its cliff above a scattering of rocks where more penguins may be spotted, along with seals and seabirds. The little town of Owaka has a good museum, with a particularly disturbing hand-carved doll in a possum-fur fright wig amongst its more conventional artefacts.
Dunedin’s attractions cater to a wide range of interests, from breweries to birds, castle to Chinese garden, museum to murals. Whether exploring the city, or venturing further out to spot albatross on the Otago Peninsula or the hidden treasure of Tunnel Beach, it’s all worth it.
The last day of the Southern Expedition Bucket List Experience takes in the natural marvel that is Moeraki Boulders: a scattering of big, perfectly spherical rocks on the beach, some poised to fall from the cliff above. Nearby Oamaru has equally photogenic rock, in its beautiful whitestone heritage buildings, elegant and grand. From here, it’s a clear run back to Christchurch, and journey’s end.