Milford Sound

"The Happy Isles. Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart," was Rudyard Kipling's apt description of New Zealand, a land so isolated it was the last sizeable place to be settled.

The first humans to reach these rugged islands undertook a journey to the ends of the earth as epic as that of the Fellowship of the Ring.

Southern Alps

From Maori teachers we will learn indigenous traditions of sacred land and the wisdom of the animals. As Maori say: 'toitu whenua e' - the land is forever.

Our journey will take us to sparkling beaches, ancient forests, volcanoes and thermal springs, glow worm caves, mountains, glaciers and fjords.

Along the seacoast, we will have encounters with whales, dolphins, seals and penguins, and in the bush we will see the country’s unique birds – even the elusive nocturnal kiwi. Because of New Zealand’s isolation, flora and fauna have survived here from the Jurassic age, most notably giant tree ferns and tuatara, hardy reptiles that look like miniatures of the dinosaurs with whom they once lived.