Christchurch and Canterbury road travelling

Comfortable driving distances from the Alps to the ocean allow you the flexibility to pack more into your New Zealand holiday. Take a leisurely road trip (rental vehicles are available, but advance booking is recommended) and experience the true diversity of this amazing region.

Your first stop will be the vibrant city of Christchurch. Drive down tree-lined avenues to the city centre. It’s only 18 minutes from the airport. Immerse yourself in the city’s cultural heart with neo-Gothic buildings and an impressive art gallery.

Discover unique hideaway alleys, home to high-end boutiques and a myriad of cafes and bars. Meander through the botanic gardens, savour the sunset from a hillside vantage point, take in live theatre or enjoy a romantic hot air balloon flight.

Rustic Sight

Banks Peninsula is one of the region’s many unspoilt treasures and is a great day trip, easily accessible from Christchurch. Rugged cliffs and bright blue waters shape the port town of Lyttelton, with steep and narrow streets, historic cottages and an eclectic array of cafes and bars.

On the other side of the peninsula is Akaroa – one of the South Island’s oldest towns. This French and British settlement is nestled in an ancient flooded volcano, with well-preserved buildings and amazing wildlife. It’s a great holiday spot for both locals and visitors. There are activities to suit everyone, be it enjoying the vista from a local waterfront café, swimming with the tiny Hectors Dolphins or exploring the harbour on sea kayak. For a nice treat, pick up some local fish and chips and spend an afternoon at the beach.
Vineyards And More

For a great short drive north of Christchurch, take the Alpine Pacific Triangle touring route, home to the vineyards of Waipara, the natural wonderlands of Kaikoura and the therapeutic waters of Hanmer Springs.

The Waipara Valley boasts many notable vineyards including award-winning Pegasus Bay and Daniel Schuster - the views alone make them well worth a visit.

Kaikoura has a vast array of wildlife, from dusky dolphins to giant sperm whales and playful fur seals. Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa is the perfect place to de-stress and unwind. With its therapeutic waters and state of the art spa facilities – it is a true relaxing experience.
Going South

In the south is the ultimate sports playground districts of Geraldine, Timaru, Methven and Ashburton, a haven for lovers of the outdoors with fly fishing, mountain biking, golf, jet boating, four wheel driving, white water rafting, skiing and much more on offer.

For those who prefer the finer things in life – cafes, gourmet food outlets, five-star luxury lodges and quality arts & crafts combine to make the perfect holiday break!

The highlight of your visit will be New Zealand’s highest peak — Aoraki Mount Cook — standing at 3,754m above the 27 other peaks in the Southern Alps. Experience a guided walk on the 27km Tasman Glacier, or take in the beauty of the glacier from the air and if you’re really lucky, experience a glacier landing. This is not for the faint hearted!

With so many things to see and do in Christchurch and Canterbury, your only worry will be finding the time to fit everything in!

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Holiday Travel -Explore New Zealand on wheels

ONE of the best ways to experience New Zealand is by driving around. It is easy and you get to enjoy breathtaking landscapes at your leisure. You also get to stop and take as many pictures as you like, enjoy a picnic or stay longer at places you wish to explore.

New Zealand’s touring routes are generally of a high standard. All roads, including those in rural locations, are signposted. Just remember to drive on the left side of the road!

Auckland – 30 Minutes To Anywhere. Imagine an urban environment where everyone lives within half an hour of beautiful beaches, hiking trails and a dozen enchanted holiday islands.

Add a sunny climate, a background rhythm of Polynesian culture and a passion for outstanding food, wine and shopping, and you’re beginning to get a picture of how Auckland is like. In just 30 minutes, you can be almost anywhere... sailing to an island, trekking through a rainforest, picnicking on a volcano, sampling wines at a vineyard or wandering on a wild, black sand surf beach.

Auckland is on four touring routes — Twin Coast Discovery, Pacific Coast Highway, Thermal Explorer and the Great New Zealand Touring Route.
Spirit Of The Earth In Rotorua -To get to Rotorua, you can rent a car from Auckland’s international airport (three hours’ drive). Advance vehicle rental booking is strongly suggested. Other transportation alternatives are domestic flights and by bus.

Rotorua is the spiritual home to the Maori of Te Arawa. Here you will experience Earth’s natural forces, bubbling mud pools, spouting geysers and hot water beaches.

Many of the district’s attractions are based around Rotorua’s two greatest assets: geothermal activity and lakes. Just minutes from the city centre, you’ll see geysers of hissing, steaming, scalding water roar from deep within the Earth’s crust and hurl spray 100ft into the air. Pools of bubbling mud pop and belch like pots of porridge.

Rotorua’s awesome natural setting provides thrills and adventure that will take you right to the brink. Here, you can run, slip or slide down the slope of an extinct volcano. Race along huge tracks down a mountainside or take a more scenic route.

Throw yourself from bungy towers, Rotorua style. Hurl yourself down white water rapids by raft or sledge, and try out the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the southern hemisphere.

Must Stops

• Rainbow Springs Nature Park with lush native plants and trees.
• Kiwi Encounter hatchery and nursery. When kiwis are mature enough, they are returned to the wild in the areas they came from.
• The Agrodome sheep and cattle farm offers you the chance to experience farming and get close to sheep, goats and cattle. Don’t miss the world famous Sheep Show.
• The Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland is the most colourful and diverse geothermal experience in New Zealand. Unique features include naturally coloured hot and cold pools, the world-famous Champagne Pool that occupies a wide explosion crater, bubbling mud, steaming ground, expansive vistas, huge volcanic craters and sinter terrace formations. The Lady Knox Geyser erupts daily at 10.15am.
• Hells Gate is Rotorua’s fiercest thermal area and largest active mud volcano. See boiling whirlpool, largest hot waterfalls in southern hemisphere, naturally hot mineral foot pools, water and steam vent geysers, hot spraying pools and more.
• Polynesia Spa is recognised by the prestigious Conde Nast Traveller’s magazine (2004-2007) as one of the top 10 Medical/Thermal Spas in the world. Choose from its 26 mineral bathing pools and an extensive range of spa therapies.

New Zealand has four seasons: autumn 10oC from March to May; winter 9oC from June to August; spring 12oC from September to November; and summer 14oC from December to February.

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Holiday Travel - The Beauty New Zealand's

AKAROA, or Riviera of the Zealand News on the island Of the south, while it is called affectionately, carries a charming mixture of British and French architecture. The left hills mark the beginning of the peninsula of banks, house with the port of Lyttelton, picturesque bay and the French pocket anglo small-striped colonial of Akaroa on the port.

Maoris of the tribe of Ngai Tahu discovered the charm of the peninsula well before the cook of James saw the port of Akaroa in the 1770s. In 1840, the French colonists arrived in Akaroa, which had been just claimed under the Treaty of Waitangi by English. The peninsula of banks is the result of the violent eruptions of three volcanos.

A crater nourishes the port of Akaroa and the compartments surrounding, notching the littoral. The remaining legacy of the fury of the ground. The kilometers of Eighty-five de Christchurch, the city is one hour and a half far on the road rising jusqu with the top of the volcano. The French influence is obvious, with Akaroa maintaining its line of history to the bottom with the names of road. Many streets have the French names like the street Villiard and the street Lavaud, and the line of bus that races of Akaroa with Christchurch is called French connection!

The descendants of the first French families live always here, and some of the original buildings out of wooden going up to 1820 remain, well maintained and always in service. The volcanic crater provides a rich environment for birds and the marine life. The indigenous reservations with the majestic trees of Totara are a recall of the forest of podocarp which cover the sheltered slopes. The breeding of the sheep dominated the local economy until the turning of the century. Now dairy industry and the cattle populations are added to the rural mixture. If you think that exploring a place which shouts the history is a yawn, then will swim with the dolphins of the fanfaron , the smaller world becoming a maximum length of 1.4m and less weighing than 50kg.

The population of the species is estimated only at 3.000. There are also trekking, horsemanship of horse and mountain-to make bicycle in the country, visiting the colony of joint, surfer, snorkelling and water-ski. You could like to go bird observing for gloves of oyster baseball, the stilts black and white, fantails, gulls, carpet with long hairs, pigeons out of wooden and penguins white-flippered, on fast yachts or boats.

Be informed, however, a turn of boat is not for the weak stomachs, which, discovered the hard manner, although you could want to face it while preparing with labels or wrist-bands of movement-disease. Seafood fresh and abundant Is being surrounded by the seafood of NZ of means of fresh and abundant ocean. The succulent fish, crayfish and the crawfish are recommended on the majority of the menus of restaurant and coffee. But much because I appreciated the food delicately seasoned with butter and grasses, I wished ardently for pepper a generous amount of my dish before we arrived in Akaroa our last stop on the island Of the south and could not help to think of the fresh hook in curry of fish of the mom or hot pink shrimp sambal, a feeling divided by a journalist of comrade who had with fish cooked with the vapor paresprit heavy on the ginger.

A visit with Akaroa is not complete without lunching of fish and the pieces with the store to carry famous fish and of piece on the road of beach, on out of wood puts except play under the nuance of the trees striping the port, sharing your food with a band of puffins, looking at outside the yachts in the distance. Oh... and remember that you should dig inside with your fingers to appreciate fish, as became obvious wrinklings of the eyebrows which I drew when I asked a fork and for a knife out of plastic. And if you need always a reason to visit NZ, then for some, this could do it. There is more course of golf of NZ per capita than any other country in the world more than 400 per 3.98 million people!

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