Ultimate South Island Adventure
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Overview
Highlights
- Enjoy the fascinating Hikes
- Experience hike part of the Routeburn Track for unsurpassed views of the Hollyford Valley
- Hike on the famous Kepler Track, one of New Zealand’s Great Walks - we follow the track through mountain beech forest Punakaiki
- Explore Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park
- West Coast beaches and rainforests
- Franz Josef Glacier (with heli-hike option)
- To a fur seal colony in Kaikoura
- Visit Cromwell Old Town, journey over Lindis Pass
- Hike Aoraki Mt Cook National Park
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Details
Travel Themes
Destinations
Attractions
Activities
Trip includes
- All guiding services:Two experienced guides per trip. In New Zealand you'll have a lead guide and a co guide.
- All accommodations: A range of hotels, lodges, chalets, inns, sheep stations and backcountry huts, depending on which trip you choose.
- All meals: Breakfast, lunch and dinner on all days, except where indicated on the itinerary (usually 1 day per trip is a free day, allowing you to choose your own dining location).
- All activities: Hiking, kayaking, biking, rafting, scenic flights, jet boating and more!
- All transport: Airport transfers.
- When you're not travelling under your own steam, they'll be comfortable air-conditioned vans to stretch your legs.
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Itinerary
Meals: Lunch and Dinner
Kaikoura Lodgings, Kaikoura
Most people leave the Northern Hemisphere on a Saturday evening, arriving in Auckland early Monday morning. You’ll lose a day crossing the dateline – but you get it back on the way home! It’s a short fl...
From Kaikoura, we’ll travel along spectacular coastline for a couple of hours to Blenheim, a town in the Marlborough wine region. We’ll visit Forrest Estate Winery to sample some of their fantastic wines and have a picnic lunch before we head off for our various activities.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Option A, Hiking, Nelson Lakes National Park: The Angelus Circuit
Our hike begins in the charming village of Saint Arnaud, on the edge of Nelson Lakes National Park. This is serious wilderness country, with incredible views and marvellous solitude. The park straddles the upper Southern Alps, an area composed of beech forests, big la...
Today is an unforgettable day – the scenery gets better with each step! We follow the Travers River through beech forest, before heading up the Hukere Stream towards the ridgeline. This is a challenging hike, with an elevation gain of 1000 metres (3280 feet), but it’s...
Wake up on top of the world! After breakfast, we’ll hike out along the barren Robert Ridge with dramatic views of Tasman Bay and the mountainous Kahurangi National Park in the distance. We’ll descend below the treeline again into native beech forest completing our hik...
After lunch, you’ll head to Ngakuta Bay in the Marlborough Sounds to begin three days of paddling in style. The waters are sheltered, meaning they are generally calm. The surrounding lush forest and rocky coastline are truly stunning. You’ll be kitted out comfortably ...
Today we’ll kayak around the secluded bays of the Kenepuru Sound. You can paddle at your own pace and we’ll make sure you get as much or as little ‘paddle time’ as you like! We’ll check out the beaches, birdlife and native forest that characterise the area and enjoy b...
This morning we’ll have another chance to spot wildlife as we paddle along the northern coastline from Anakiwa, in the Queen Charlotte Sound. We’ll then cross over the Sound and finish back in Ngakuta Bay, which will complete the round trip of the Grove Arm. This is w...
The third option to personalise your trip is to bike a portion of the Queen Charlotte Track, rated one of the best mountain biking tracks in New Zealand. After lunch, you’ll head to Anakiwa on the edge of Queen Charlotte Sound, where you’ll be fitted with a Specialize...
Awaking to native birdsong, we’ll head out to Torea Saddle, where we will bike towards the Bay of Many Coves. This part of the track is known as ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ with stunning views of both Sounds. The area is also well known for its native beech forests, secl...
We’ll spend the morning biking on the Waikawa Mountain Bike Park near Picton. Later we’ll enjoy our lunch at the Picton Harbour before heading to Saint Arnaud to rejoin the hikers and carry on to the West Coast.
After regrouping in Saint Arnaud, we’ll head across the Southern Alps to the West Coast – a dramatic and rugged coastline stretching 600 kilometres (372 miles), with a population of only 40,000 people. We’ll mingle with the ‘coasters’ tonight in the seaside village of...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
We’ll spend the morning hiking the Inland Pack Track through temperate rainforest and limestone canyons, following in the footsteps of gold miners who established this trail over a century ago. While we’re in Punakaiki, we’ll ...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
This morning we’ll take a short journey over to Okarito, a little-known beach community on the coast. We’ll take to the water in sea kayaks and glide along a picturesque lagoon, set against a stunning backdrop of snow-capped p...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
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) impercepti...
An outrageously scenic alternative to today’s hike is to heli-hike on Franz Josef Glacier itself. After being fitted with crampons, ice axes and so on, you’ll board a turbine helicopter and fly towards the highest peaks of the Southern Alps, landing on the glacier at ...
Meals: Breakfast and Lunch
Accommodation: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Queenstown
The landscape this morning changes rapidly from dense beech forest to semi-arid mountainous terrain. Arriving at Lake Hawea, we’ll take a scenic ride along the Hawea River Trail. Th...
Accommodation: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Queenstown
Queenstown is the adventure capital of New Zealand (if not the world!) and all the comforts of civilisation are packed into this tiny resort town: restaurants galore, sidewalk cafés, stylish lounge bars, day spas an...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Milford Lodge Chalets, Milford Sound
This morning, we set off for our largest and perhaps most spectacular national park, Fiordland. We’ll hike part of the Routeburn Track for unsurpassed views of the Hollyford Valley, ...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Most people see Milford Sound from the deck of a ship, but we’ve got a more active way – gliding along in sea kayaks, causing very little disruption for the best chance of getting up close and personal with the friendly fur se...
Meals: Breakfast and Dinner
Carefully relocated or lovingly reconstructed, the buildings of Cromwell Old Town represent the character of Cromwell’s gold-mining history. We’ll explore the intriguing buildings and eat lunch here together. Afterwards we’ll drive t...
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Mt Cook, named Aoraki or ‘cloud piercer’ by South Island Maori, is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Directly opposite the mountain, we have a stunning day hike to the main ridge above Mueller Glacier. It’s a challenging hi...
Meals: Breakfast and Lunch
After breakfast we’ll head to Christchurch, arriving in time for afternoon flights. This is the end of your ‘Rimu’ trip and we’ll leave you refreshed and invigorated from the good food, exercise, rest, and great times you’ll have had ...
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Dates & Availability
Check Current Availability, prices, specials with Active Adventures New Zealand.
The total tour cost includes the tour price (regular or promotional) and the compulsory local payment. The promotional price is subject to change. Check directly with the operator for the latest price offer. The tour operator requires you to pay only the tour price to purchase your travel. The compulsory local payment will be paid when you join the trip. All prices are based on double, twin or triple share occupancy. Solo passengers will be accommodated in a double, twin or triple room according to availability with a passenger(s) of the same gender. Single supplement only needs to be paid if the passenger does not want to share and requests their own room. Discounts can only be applied at the time of booking and cannot be added at a later date, regardless of any changes made to the original booking.
Prices may vary due to local taxes and trip seasonality. Click "Request Info" to inquire directly with the tour operator for the final trip price.
Active Adventures New Zealand Reviews & Ratings
Other Active Adventures New Zealand Reviews
A Magical Land
New Zealand is one of the more remarkable locations I have had the opportunity to visit. It is truly a magical kind of place for me and seems to have had all the lan...
Each trip has been a learning experience for us
This is our third Active Adventures trip and we have never been disappointed. Each trip has been a learning experience for us. The beautiful sights and people we hav...
Wow!!!!
This adventure was action packed from the get go. Food was amazing! Hikes, bike, and kayak excursions were beautiful and the people we traveled with were the best. G...
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Tour Operator
We challenge you to find a country that packs more untouched, dramatic and diverse scenery into a smaller space than New Zealand. The light here is different somehow, making the fiords, glaciers, rainforest, volcanoes, beech forests and rugged coastlines crisper, brighter and a bit more intense than you'd ever expect.
You'll find yourself surrounded by some of the best scenery on the planet with few signs of civilisation and no one else around. As an independent nation that lies across the Tasman Sea from Australia, New Zealand is home to only four and a half million people. About a third of them reside in Auckland city and the rest are spread out around two main islands, which together are about half the size of California, leaving vast tracts nearly uninhabited. It's no wonder a lot of visitors find it hard to leave!
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Logistics
In the event you need to cancel your trip, the following cancellation charges will apply:
Cancellation made over 60-days prior to departure date – your deposit and any pre-paid trip expenses (flights, permits etc.)
Cancellation between 60 and 30-days of departure date – 50% of your invoice total on all trips apart from the ‘Manuka’
Cancellation of the ‘Manuka’ trip between 100 and 30-days of departure date – 50% of invoice total
Cancellation of any trip 30-days or less prior to departure date – 100% of your invoice total
A cancellation will be effective from when Active Adventures receive written notification of the cancellation. This cancellation policy includes voluntary or involuntary early departure from a trip. No refunds will be given for missed or unused services such as accommodation, activities or meals. You are strongly advised to take out cancellation insurance that will cover cancellation fees at the time of booking.
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