On the east coast, the beaches exist between straggling peninsulas and headlands, offering calm bays that are safe for swimming. Perhaps the most famous area is the Bay of Islands, intricately sculpted and renowned for excellent diving, boating/sailing and game fishing. The west coast offers enormous dune-backed black-sand beaches that are lashed almost constantly by Tasman breakers, rip tides and biting winds (there is no safe swimming here).

The views are fantastic and, just inland, the forests of the Northland Forest Park, contain some of the world’s oldest trees, including the famous kauri, many of which date back centuries. Cape Karikari, overlooking Doubtless Bay was one of the locations for films such as From Here to Eternity and The Piano, and offers access to wide, rugged, moody beaches surrounded by steep hills and cliffs, while Cape Reinga overlooks the spectacular meeting of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea and the narrow extension of Ninety-mile Beach down the west coast back toward Auckland.

The city offers excellent shopping, galleries and museums; it has a university and provides a multicultural environment characterized by a blend of European, Asian and Polynesian cultures, particularly on the busy and atmospheric Karangahape Road. There is also the distinctive Sky Tower, a casino with a glorious circular, glass viewing gallery at its bulbous summit.

The views of the city, its beaches and the mountains, the coast and sea beyond are stunning. It is also possible for the particularly brave tourist to abseil down the side of the building to the street, a drop of over 100m (328ft). An exploration of at least one of the stunning golden-sand islands of the Hauraki Gulf, accessible by ferries from Waitamata Harbour and also visible from the Sky Tower, is highly recommended. Most of the city center is walkable but the outlying suburbs of Devonport, Herne Bay, Parnell and Ponsonby (with their attractive eateries and well-reputed fashion industry) are brought within easy reach by a reliable public bus network and taxi system.

The volcanic hills of the Coromandel Peninsula retain much of their original rainforest and the Coromandel Forest Park Reserve contains large numbers of giant kauri trees which are famous for their tall straight trunks.
A popular holiday destination in the Bay of Plenty is Tauranga, with all the amenities of a major tourist city including all levels of accommodation and some wonderful restaurants.

The climate here is essentially benign and the sandy beaches attract many visitors while inland there is an abundance of orchards, particularly citrus and kiwi fruit. In Poverty Bay lies the city of Gisborne, which sits adjacent to Hawke’s Bay, a wine growing region of international renown. Around 70 wineries (ranging from large commercial estates to small boutiques) are open for free wine tasting. This area is best known for its red wines, particularly Pinot Noir. The reason for the wonderful wine is the high annual sunshine hours which benefit the grapes and visiting tourists to both Hastings and Napier.

Napier was razed by an earthquake in 1931 and subsequently rebuilt in the art deco style of the time. Today it boasts one of the world’s finest collections of lovingly preserved art deco buildings. Inland, between Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty, is the UNESCO-listed Te Urewera National Park, the largest native forest on the North Island and home of the lovely Lake Waikaremoana, 585m (1919ft) above sea level, with its strenuous but rewarding (three to four day) circular trail.

Unlike Edinburgh, Dunedin also has the Otago Peninsula, a glorious natural thumb poking out into the Pacific, where it is possible to see rare yellow-eyed penguins (Maori name hoihoi, meaning noise maker), enormous yet graceful royal albatross, and basking on the rocks around the peninsula - fur seals.

Invercargill’s Sub-Antarctic Audio Visual and Gallery is a wonderful museum containing, among other interesting exhibits, a number of live tuatara, New Zealand’s very rare and prehistoric lizard, while nearby is Bluff, home of the famous ‘Bluff oysters’, a delicacy that should not be missed. Between Invercargill and Dunedin is the Catlins Forest Park, with its wild beaches, pods of Hector’s Dolphins and the only mainland colony of Hooker sea lions.

There are also several world-class walking tracks running out from Glenorchy just along the lake shore, including the Caples, Greenstone Tracks and Routeburn (all four to five days). Only 100km (60 miles) or so away is Te Anau, on the shores of the gorgeous Lake Manapouri, where many more walking trails (from one to six days) wind into the bush, over the saddles and around the fjords, mountains and forests including the famous Milford Walking Track (four to five days).

From Te Anau traveling north, a beautiful scenic road leads to Milford Sound (wrongly named a sound when in fact it is a fjord). Tourist boats carry people out to the sea along the narrow, high-walled, glacially-scooped fjord where Fiordland crested penguins, seals and sometimes whales and dolphins take advantage of the abundance of fish due to the unusual conditions. In the fjord, a layer of freshwater, from the mountains, lays on top of the salt water from the ocean refracting light and creating a mini ecosystem teeming with marine life. For those interested in an even more deserted wilderness experience, there are kayak and boat trips into the adjoining Doubtful Sound.

It is possible to take guided ‘ice walks’ on the glaciers or enjoy the myriad wilderness walking tracks that snake in and out of the forests, round the river valleys and gorges, and into the foothills of the Alps. It is also worth visiting the small communities of Greymouth and Hokitika where you can purchase carved greenstone, called pounamu by the Maori, who use it for decoration and to make weapons. This beautiful, green, hard nephrite jade carved in a traditional shape (each shape carries its own meaning and story) provides the perfect souvenir of a trip to the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’.

The Alps themselves, which can be accessed by five main roads from the east coast, are the spine of the South Island pushed up by plate movement in the earth’s crust. They are larger than the similarly named mountain range in Europe and the spectacular scenery of snowy peaks and glaciers contains unique flora and fauna. The area is dominated by the mighty sagging-tent peak of Mount Cook (3754m/12,313ft), also known by the Maori name Aoraki (cloud piercer).

Mount Cook National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage area and contains more than 20 peaks over 3000m (9840ft). Sliding down from one side of Mount Cook is the spectacular Tasman Glacier, one of the longest outside the Himalayas. All types of skiing and snowboarding are available along the Alps with many uncrowded ski fields, including heli-skiing, while around Mount Cook there are a number of stunning lone and guided walking and climbing trips of one to five days.

The central square of the city is occupied by a cathedral which provides a useful landmark for tourists either on foot or using the charming historic trams. About 500m (1640ft) from the square is the vast expanse of Hagley Park, on the borders of which are the Old Canterbury University/Arts Center, the Canterbury Museum, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, the botanical gardens and Christ’s College. Just a short walk along the river is St Michael and All Angels Church; an unusually beautiful wooden Neo-Gothic building combining French and English styles and containing a mixture of Maori and Catholic elements.

For excursions from Christchurch, the nearby Banks Peninsula provides a hilly alternative to the flat city, with a cable car, beaches, boat trips, pods of Hector’s dolphins (unique to New Zealand) and a number of accessible walking tracks. Another alternative is to take a hot air balloon ride and from that vantage point look west across the broad flat plains to the Southern Alps, north to the Kaikoura Ranges and Cook Strait and south down the east coast as far as the historic white-stone city of Oamaru.

Nearby, Nelson is a sunny and busy small city on the coast, where visitors will find pretty gardens, spectacular beaches and a growing arts community. Besides being an interesting place for art and culture lovers, the city is a good starting point for excursions to the three national parks in the vicinity. The UNESCO-listed Abel Tasman National Park has a rocky coastline, long golden, crescent-shaped beaches, crystal clear water, a seal colony, an abundance of bird life and a fine coastal track - the Abel Tasman Track (three to four days). Nelson Lakes National Park, also on the UNESCO World Heritage list, offers skiing and snowboarding during winter and fishing or sub-alpine walking tracks during the summer.

The Kahurangi National Park, another UNESCO World Heritage area, has a selection of walking tracks that offer an extraordinary range of scenery from mountains and karst tablelands to dramatic black-sand beaches on the west coast. The most famous of these is the tough Heaphy Track (four days). The Kaikoura coast, further south, is a world-famous conservation area, sitting opposite a deep water trench full of marine life, and is renowned for boat rides at close quarters with various species of whale and the chance to swim with dolphins.

Shopping facilities are excellent and hotels offer splendid views of the bay. Every two years, Wellington hosts the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, the country’s main cultural event including street theater, comedy, music and film festivals, all going under the same umbrella.

The spectacular Te Papa Museum of New Zealand, on the city’s pretty waterfront, combines cultural and historical exhibitions with education, entertainment and leisure activities, including a virtual bungy jump. Wellington is also the departure point for ferries across Cook Strait to the South Island.