New Zealand Family Adventure

Most people leave the Northern Hemisphere on a Sunday evening, arriving into Auckland early Tuesday morning. You’ll lose a day crossing the dateline – but you get it back on the way home! It’s a short flight from Auckland to Christchurch in the South Island and we’ll meet your family either in central Christchurch or at the airport. We start with a great introduction to the wildlife of a country isolated for over 80 million years! Willowbank Wildlife Reserve is unique in that you can enter a lot of the animal enclosures and even pet some of the more friendly critters! You can see tuatara, the elusive kiwi, wallabies (small kangaroos introduced from Australia), and of course the namesake of our trip – the kea – our cheeky mountain parrot.

After a hearty breakfast and relaxed start to the morning, we have an adventure planned that will knock your socks off – a fun jet boat ride through the winding Rakaia Gorge! Jet boats were originally invented by New Zealander Bill Hamilton to navigate our narrow, shallow rivers. You’ll be jetting down rapids, braided river sections and through shallow water just six inches deep in places. This thrilling, yet safe activity is suitable for the whole family. Then we’ll head to Peel Forest for a hike amongst ancient podocarp trees and many varieties of ferns. Many of New Zealand’s athletes, including our famous rugby team, the All Blacks, wear the fern as a national symbol. After lunch, we’ll travel inland to Aoraki/Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain, and Lake Pukaki – an unreal turquoise-blue coloured glacial lake. Tonight, the wide open spaces, regular clear evenings and lack of artificial light provides us with the perfect opportunity to gaze at the Southern Hemisphere’s constellations, including the southern cross.

We have a few hikes to choose from in this spectacular national park and our favourite is the stunning day hike (weather permitting) to the main ridge above Mueller Glacier. It’s a bit of a hike, though it’s a real achievement for the whole family to share and you’ll remember the view of the Mueller Glacier and the surrounding peaks of the Southern Alps forever! Of course, we always have plenty of options, so there are easier hikes available for you too, such as an impressive hike up the Hooker Valley to a glacial lake (complete with icebergs!) at the base of Hooker Glacier.

Today we’ll head through the mountains to Queenstown. We’ll stop along the way for some of the best ice cream in the whole of New Zealand – you’ll soon find out why! We’ll then continue on through fruit orchards and vineyards before arriving in Queenstown. After lunch we have options including a hike to historic Sam Summers hut or even a game of frisbee golf in the Queenstown Botanical Gardens.

Excitement levels will be high this morning, as we head off for a family rafting trip in Skippers Canyon. Set in a deep, beautiful, rose-lined schist gorge, it’s a spectacular float trip – perfect for the whole family. The ‘Kea’ trip operates year-round, with minor changes during the New Zealand winter. From June to September, rather than rafting we take a lift on the gondola up Bob’s Peak for stunning views over the region and thrilling downhill rides on the luge. After lunch, we’ll explore an old Chinese goldmining settlement in the nearby historic village of Arrowtown. Chinese immigrants travelled to New Zealand during the 1800s and like many New Zealand pioneering stories, theirs is one of adversity and adaptation. You can try your hand at gold panning – in 2006 a man found a gold nugget worth $15,000 in this area, so you never know your luck!

All the comforts of civilization are packed into this tiny resort town: restaurants galore, sidewalk cafés, stylish lounge bars, day spas, and boutiques. There’s plenty of family entertainment here too: luge rides, a gondola, lakeside playgrounds, mini golf and a cinema. There are also some more adventurous optional activities such as horse trekking, kayaking, fishing, winery tours, hang gliding, mountain biking, bungy jumping, jet boating and skydiving as well as some great hiking opportunities. Or you can just soak up the atmosphere and lounge about reading a book. Your guides will happily share their favorite haunts and point you in the right direction for your free day today. A great winter option (June to September) is to spend a couple of days skiing or snowboarding at one of four local ski areas: Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona or Treble Cone. Transport, lift pass and equipment rental is about US$150 a day for an adult, slightly less for children, which we will happily organise for you.

This morning we’ll leave Queenstown and head over the Crown Range to Wanaka – a small alpine village on the shores of Lake Wanaka. After lunch, we head off for our various activities.

This morning, we’ll travel over Haast Pass through spectacular beech forest to the wild West Coast, stopping on a deserted beach to stretch our legs and keep an eye out for friendly dolphins passing by. A little further north takes us to Lake Matheson for a short walk, where you’ll be rewarded with awesome vistas of the Southern Alps. After settling into our accommodation in Franz Josef, we can head out after dark with flashlights for a short night walk to search for the native glowworm while listening to some of New Zealand’s nocturnal birdlife, such as the morepork owl.

• It’s an early start this morning for our kayaking trip on Lake Mapourika, a tranquil ancient lake formed during the last ice age. This is an awesome activity, run by specialist kayak outfitters, and it’s equally suitable for beginners and experts alike. With some 140 glaciers making their way down from the Southern Alps, this area is fittingly known as glacier country. Few sights equal the spectacle of two of these giant frozen rivers (Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers) imperceptibly grinding their way down through temperate rainforest to just 250 metres (820 feet) above sea level. Our hike will take us along the Waiho River bed up the valley right to the terminal face of Franz Josef Glacier.
• After we’ve finished our various activities, we’ll return to Franz Josef for the night.

Today we’ll head further up the coast to experience the West Coast Treetop Walk, an adventure among giants. This walk will take you up above the forest floor, allowing you to pass through an ancient canopy of rimu and kamahi trees. We’ll then continue to Hokitika, where you can check out the local art galleries and pounamu carving workshops (pounamu is Maori for jade). The beach here is a great place for playing games or making sculptures out of driftwood. Then we’ll head back through to Arthur’s Pass, the highest pass over the Southern Alps, to settle in for the night.

Today, after breakfast, we’ll head off to check out the Conservation Centre in Arthur’s Pass and learn about the Kea, the only true alpine parrot in the world! Afterwards, we’re off to the ultimate hide-and-seek spot, Castle Hill. It’s a bit of a climb to the top, but it’s worth every step as we arrive at an eerie limestone landscape where much of the movie ‘Narnia – the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ was filmed. During a visit a few years ago, the Dalai Lama called this natural labyrinth ‘the spiritual centre of the universe’!

• This is the last day of your ‘Kea’ trip, and we’ll head to the small farming community of Springfield to check out a working New Zealand high-country sheep farm. Here we’ll watch highly trained farm dogs rounding up stock and see a sheep shearing demonstration. All the kids (young and old!) will have the chance to join in and give sheep shearing a go. Then it’s on to Christchurch, where we’ll farewell your family and wave you off feeling refreshed, invigorated, and with lasting memories of the adventures, great food, stories, laughs and fun times you’ll have had with us in New Zealand!
• (Breakfast, Lunch)