Volcanic Plateaus,
Ancient Forests &
Living Culture

Sail Auckland’s stunning Waitemāta Harbour on a genuine America’s Cup racing yacht — and take the helm yourself. This is active sailing, not a booze cruise: you grind the winches, steer the boat, and cross the harbour on the fastest racing yacht in New Zealand waters.

Walk the 1.2-metre-wide ledge encircling the Sky Tower at 192 metres above Auckland — no handrails, no barriers, open sky on all sides. The Sky Tower is Auckland’s defining landmark (328m — the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere when completed in 1997) and the SkyWalk its most visceral experience.

Cruise among 144 islands and swim with wild common and bottlenose dolphins in their natural habitat. The Bay of Islands’ warm subtropical water makes this one of the world’s most reliable year-round dolphin encounters. The catamaran passes through the Hole in the Rock — Piercy Island’s natural sea cave — on the return.

Travel to Te Rerenga Wairua — Cape Reinga — where the Māori believe the spirits of the dead depart for their ancestral homeland of Hawaiki, and where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean collide in a visible line of converging swells. Sand toboggan down 30-metre dunes on Ninety Mile Beach on the return.

Explore Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland — New Zealand’s most colourful geothermal park. The Champagne Pool (a 65-metre-wide, 62°C lake of arsenic-rich water fringed with orange silica sinter), the Artist’s Palette, the Lady Knox Geyser (erupting daily at 10:15am with the help of a soap-powder trigger — a tradition since 1901), and the vivid mineral-stained landscape of sulphur terraces.

Experience a traditional pōwhiri welcome onto the marae, a full kapa haka performance (the combined song, dance, and haka — the most powerful live performance tradition in New Zealand), and a geothermal hangi feast — food slow-cooked for 3–4 hours in baskets buried in the volcanic earth, producing a distinctive smoky sweetness. The Tamaki Māori Village experience in the redwood forest is the most internationally celebrated; the Mitai Māori Village on the Waioheke Stream is the most authentic setting.

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing (19.4km one-way traverse, UNESCO World Heritage) is consistently ranked one of the world’s great one-day walks. The route climbs past the active Te Maari craters (last major eruption 2012), across the red cinder-covered Red Crater (1868m — the highest point of the walk), and descends past the Emerald Lakes (their vivid colour from minerals dissolved in the hydrothermal water) and Blue Lake to the Ketetahi bus pick-up. Best walked October–April; check weather on the morning — the exposure at altitude in poor conditions requires cancellation.

Freefall over Lake Taupo and the active Tongariro volcanoes from up to 15,000 feet — the scenery during the 60-second freefall (200km/h) has been voted the world’s finest skydiving backdrop: a volcanic caldera lake the size of Singapore, three active stratovolcanoes, and on a clear day the Southern Alps visible 200km away. NZONE Skydive at Taupo is the most awarded skydive operator in New Zealand.

Go behind the scenes at the Oscar-winning effects workshop that built Middle-earth for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (6 Academy Awards), Avatar, Planet of the Apes, and over 100 film and television productions. See original props, armour, creature maquettes, and prosthetics in the working studio — and watch the artists currently creating effects for active productions. The “Unleashed” tour includes areas not open in the standard tour, including the creature fabrication workshop.

Paddle through sea caves and natural arches to Cathedral Cove — accessible only by foot (1hr walk from Hahei), boat, or sea kayak. The kayak approach is the most rewarding: the coastal rock arches, the Cathedral Cove arch itself (the whitianga — passageway — in the Māori tradition), and the string of sea caves only visible from the water. The full circuit includes the Stack Rock sea cave and the Cathedral Cove inner cave accessible at low tide.

Cycle the Hawke’s Bay wine trail between award-winning estates (the flat Heretaunga Plains make this one of New Zealand’s most cyclist-friendly wine regions) — visiting three wineries including Te Mata Estate (New Zealand’s oldest winery, established 1895), then explore Napier’s extraordinary Art Deco streetscapes with an architectural historian guide. Napier’s entire city centre was rebuilt between 1932 and 1935 in a single consistent Art Deco style after the 1931 magnitude 7.8 earthquake.

Trek along dramatic coastal cliffs via 4WD tractor trailer to Cape Kidnappers — where over 20,000 Australasian gannets nest in one of the world’s largest and most accessible mainland gannet colonies. The gannets nest September–March, allowing visitors to walk within 2 metres of nesting pairs. The gannet’s 1.8-metre wingspan (the largest wingspan of any seabird in New Zealand) and their spectacular plunge-dive feeding — entering the ocean at 80km/h — is the finest single wildlife spectacle on the North Island.