Things to do in New Zealand
There are a few things to do in New Zealand that most people will have heard of. The blockbusting movie trilogy ‘Lord of the Rings’ was filmed throughout the country and it is easy to get to many of the most well known locations. The national team, the All Blacks, are the top ranked rugby team in the world and grace billboards and news stories every day. There’s also the small matter of spotting the millions upon millions of sheep that the country is famous for.
A highly-active fault line runs right down the middle of the country and this provides some of New Zealand’s most amazing geographic features. The famous ‘rotten-egg’ smell of Rotorua’s bubbling mud pools attracts tens of thousands of annual visitors, for instance, while thousands more hike over a dormant volcano while undertaking the the best one day walk in the country – the Tongariro Crossing. The trout fishing, sailing and boating playground of Lake Taupo, the biggest body of water in the country, only exists because of a supervolcanic eruption. New Zealand is an active place in every sense of the word!
Would you like to throw yourself out of a plane? Hang from a bridge with a rubber band around your ankles? Swim with dolphins, raft turbulent rivers or be thrown around in a high speed jetboat? New Zealand is the place to do it! Adventure tourism is a huge industry throughout the country and although Queenstown is the most well known place for awesome adventures, it is far from the only one.
Does flying down towering sand dunes on a sheet of plastic sound like your thing? Take a trip to Ninety Mile Beach in the far north of the North Island. How about hiking through dense forests around Stewart Island at the bottom of the South Island for a week, spotting the kiwi bird, New Zealand’s national symbol? No matter where you are, you’ll always find something incredible to do.
If spending long lazy days riding through beautiful scenery and sampling some of the best wines in the world sounds like your kind of thing, New Zealand is the place to be. The Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are famous around the globe, and wine tours can be found throughout the country or you can just turn up at many cellar doors. If wine isn’t your thing, the locally produced beer and spirits are also of exceptionally high quality and noticeably different from those found in other countries. Having a quiet sundowner at the end of long summer’s evening is one of New Zealand’s simple delights.
When it comes to natural beauty New Zealand is totally unique. You can stand on top of a snow-capped mountain and gaze out over the native forests to beautiful beaches and white-capped breakers. Glaciers slide slowly towards the sea, whales feed in the rich waters near Kaikoura and thousand-year-old kauri trees tower over the forest floor. From the picture-perfect Mitre Peak in Milford Sound to incredible diving off Poor Knight’s Island, New Zealand provides a vast array of things to see and do for nature lovers.
Looking for more incredible things to do in New Zealand? Check out thingstodoinnewzealand.net for detailed articles on the many great things that New Zealand has in store.. Unique version for reprint here: Things to do in New Zealand.
