Ultimate New Zealand, by ear

Nov 13 · Welcome, Lynne

Hello Lynne, and welcome. My name is Kimmie, and I'll be your guide. The team at Unravel Travel made this just for you. So settle in, get comfortable, and let me take you to New Zealand. Over the next few minutes, we'll travel the whole journey together. Nineteen days, departing the thirteenth of November. You begin in the warm north, in Auckland, and finish far to the south, beneath the Southern Alps. In between, two islands, crossed by land, by sea, and by rail. And here is the best part. You will never rush. Most nights you stay two or three, so you can unpack and settle in. Your bags are carried for you, hotel to hotel. Every meal, every guide, every small detail is already taken care of, by a Tour Director who travels the whole way with you. It is a small group, never more than thirty-six. All you have to do is look out the window, and let the country come to you. Let's begin.

Nov 13–14 · Auckland, the City of Sails

It begins in Auckland, the City of Sails. A city built around a wide blue harbour, with more boats than almost anywhere on earth. Your home for the first two nights is the Grand Millennium, a five-star hotel in the heart of the city, freshly rebuilt from top to bottom. And your very first evening is a welcome dinner, a chance to meet the friends you'll be travelling with. Then you have a full day to enjoy the city your own way. You might sail the harbour on a real racing yacht, the same boats that race for the America's Cup. You might cross the water to Waiheke Island, with its hillside vineyards and quiet little beaches. Or simply wander the waterfront, watch the sails go by, and let yourself arrive. The journey has begun.

Nov 14–15 · Middle-earth and Māori culture

Leaving Auckland, you head south into Middle-earth. The Hobbiton movie set is exactly as it looked on screen. The little round doors set into green hills, the gardens, the inn at the bottom of the lane. And you can step inside one of the holes, sit in the chair, touch the things on the shelves. Then on to Rotorua, where the ground itself is alive. Steam drifts up from the streets. Hot springs bubble, and pools of grey mud turn over slowly. This is the heart of Māori culture. You'll meet the tiny kiwi at the country's most important kiwi hatchery. For a wider view, a floatplane can lift you straight over the volcanic crater of Mount Tarawera. And in the evening, you sit down to a hāngi, a feast cooked slowly in the earth, while song and story fill the room. It is the kind of evening that stays with you.

Nov 16–17 · Lake Taupō, Napier and the art deco coast

Heading on, the land turns volcanic. You stop at Lake Taupō, vast and deep blue, and at Huka Falls, where a whole river is forced through a narrow rock channel and bursts out the far end. You feel it in your chest before you even see it. Then down to the coast, to Napier. A devastating earthquake levelled the town in 1931, and it was rebuilt all at once, in the height of fashion for its day. Today it is one of the finest art deco towns anywhere in the world. You can wander the streets on foot, or see it the proper way, from the seat of a vintage car from that same era. If penguins call to you instead, the aquarium runs a behind-the-scenes visit with its rescued little blues. And that evening, the winemakers themselves pour for you, over dinner at Mission Estate, the oldest winery in the country.

Nov 17–18 · Wellington and Te Papa

At the bottom of the North Island sits Wellington, the capital, a small city wrapped tight around its harbour. On the way in, you stop in Greytown, a perfectly kept Victorian village of boutiques and old wooden shopfronts. In Wellington, your hotel looks straight out over the water at Oriental Bay. And you spend real time inside Te Papa, the national museum, and the finest place anywhere to understand this country. Its land, its people, and the treasures they hold close. Then it is time to cross the water, to the South Island.

Nov 19–20 · Across the Marlborough Sounds

You sail across the Marlborough Sounds, three hours through still green water and quiet hidden inlets, with hills rising on either side. It is one of the great stretches of the whole journey, and you spend it out on deck. You land at Picton, then drive on to Blenheim, in the sunniest corner of the country. This is wine country. The home of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, poured in restaurants all over the world. And here you taste it right where it is born, in the very rows where the grapes grow, with the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. Peter Jackson keeps a collection here too, vintage World War One aircraft at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, just down the road.

Nov 21–22 · Christchurch, and across the Southern Alps

You arrive in Christchurch, a city that reinvented itself after 2011 in ways nobody expected. There is a cathedral made of cardboard, a shopping quarter built from shipping containers, and art installed in the gaps where buildings once stood. You have a full day here to take it in. You can go punting on the Avon, the little river that winds through the centre, or wander the Botanic Gardens. Some head out to Akaroa, a French settlement on a harbour an hour away, to watch for dolphins. Penguin lovers ride the Penguin Express out to the International Antarctic Centre instead. And from here comes one of the great train journeys of the world. You board the TranzAlpine and cross the Southern Alps by rail, in a carriage built almost entirely of windows. There is an open-air car at the back, cold enough that most people last about ten minutes, but nobody wants to miss the gorges. River gorges, golden plains, beech forest, snow on the high peaks, all of it floating past the glass while you sit back with a warm drink in your hand. The train sets you down on the wild West Coast, at Franz Josef, where a glacier carves through the mountains above the edge of the rainforest. A river of ice. And that night, you sleep right in the rainforest, at the Te Waonui Forest Retreat. Five stars, hidden in the trees. Heated floors, soft robes, a pillow chosen just for you. Guests who come here say the dinner is the best meal of the trip.

Nov 23–25 · Queenstown

Leaving the glacier, you follow the wild coast south. Along the way you ride a jet boat up the Haast River, into a valley of rainforest and braided water deep in World Heritage country. Then south to Queenstown, on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, where the mountains rise straight up out of the water. You have three nights here, the longest stay of the whole trip, and that is rather the point. There is time to do everything, or nothing at all. One evening, you board the Earnslaw, a coal-fired steamship launched in 1912, the same year as the Titanic, and cross the lake to a high country farm for dinner. Thrill seekers take the Shotover Jet, skimming inches from the canyon walls at full throttle, or head up the Dart River by jet boat into the valley made famous in Lord of the Rings. You might ride the gondola up the hill for the view back over the town and the lake. Or simply sit by the water with a glass of wine and watch the light move across the peaks. Queenstown gives you three nights and no agenda.

Nov 26 · A night on Milford Sound

From Queenstown you travel deep into the mountains, past Te Anau, all the way to Milford Sound. And here is something very few people ever do. You spend the night on the water, on board the Milford Mariner, anchored inside the fiord itself. By evening, the day boats are long gone. Sheer black cliffs rise straight out of the water. Waterfalls pour down from far above. And if it has rained, there are hundreds of them, silver threads down every rock face. In the morning you can take a kayak out before the mist lifts. The only sound is the falls.

Nov 27–29 · Dunedin, Mount Cook and the southern sky

Turning north, you reach Dunedin, a city of grand Victorian streets, with a railway station so ornate it looks more like a palace than a place to catch a train, and an albatross colony out on the headland of the Otago Peninsula. History buffs detour to Larnach Castle, a baronial mansion built in 1871, or call in at Speight's Brewery for a hearty meal among the brewing vats. You stay two nights, then carry on up the coast. You stop at the Moeraki Boulders, enormous round stones scattered across a beach like a giant's marbles. And then you climb to Aoraki, Mount Cook, the highest mountain in the country. Your home here is the Hermitage. Now, this is not the newest or the grandest hotel. But it is the only one inside the national park, and that is the whole reason to be here. Every window looks straight up at the mountain. In the evening, the peak turns gold. And at night, far from any town or any light, the whole sky fills with more stars than you have ever seen. The whole region is a gold-status dark sky reserve, one of the largest in the world.

Nov 30–Dec 1 · Farewell, and an invitation

On the last morning, you cross the high country, past the little stone Church of the Good Shepherd, alone at the edge of Lake Tekapō, with nothing behind it but mountains. Then back to Christchurch, where it all began. There is a ride on the old tram through the streets, and a final dinner with the friends you have made along the way. Nineteen days. You are home by the first of December, well before Christmas. So, Lynne, if any of this has stirred something in you, come in and let's talk it through.