Sights in New Zealand
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Te Papa
Te Papa is the city's 'must-see' attraction, and for reasons well beyond the fact that it's NZ's national museum. It's highly interactive, fun, and full of surprises. Aptly, ‘Te Papa Tongarewa’ loosely translates as ‘treasure box’. The riches inside include an amazing collection of Maori artefacts and the museum’s own colourful marae; natural history and environment exhibitions; Pacific and NZ history galleries; national art collection, and themed hands-on ‘discovery centres’ for children. Exhibitions occupy impressive gallery spaces with a high-tech twist (eg motion-simulator rides and a house shaking through an earthquake). Big-name, temporary exhibitions…
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Wellington Botanic Gardens
The hilly, 25-hectare botanic gardens can be almost effortlessly visited via a cable-car ride (nice bit of planning, eh?). They boast a tract of original native forest along with varied collections including a beaut rose garden and international plant collections. Add in fountains, a cheerful playground, sculptures, duck pond, cafe, magical city views and much more, and you’ve got a grand day out. The gardens are also accessible from the Centennial Entrance on Glenmore St (Karori bus 3).
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Arts Centre
This precinct is currently closed, pending strengthening and repairs estimated to cost $240 million. An enclave of Gothic Revival buildings (built from 1877), it was the original site of Canterbury College, which later became Canterbury University. One graduate of the college was Sir Ernest Rutherford, the NZ-born physicist who first split the atom in 1917. Before the earthquakes, the Arts Centre was a popular cultural precinct comprising artists' studios and galleries, weekend craft markets, restaurants and cinemas. One business still operating from a modern building within the Arts Centre is the excellent Canterbury Cheesemongers.
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Tamaki Maori Village
An established favourite, Tamaki does an excellent twilight tour to a marae (meeting house) and Maori village 15km south of Rotorua. Buses collect from the Hinemaru St booking office and local accommodation. The experience is very hands-on, taking you on an interactive journey through Maori history, arts, traditions and customs from pre-European times to the present day. The concert is followed by an impressive hangi.
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Gondola
At the time of writing, this attraction was closed but was planned to reopen by September 2012. Check the website for the latest information.
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Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers
NZ's two most famous glaciers are major attractions, mighty cascades of ice tumbling down a valley towards the sea. The heavy tourist traffic is catered for in the twin towns of Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. These small tourist villages provide accommodation and facilities at high-ish prices. Franz is busier but Fox has more of an Alpine-village charm.
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Aoraki/Mt Cook
The Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park is spectacular. More than one-third of the park has a blanket of permanent snow and glacial ice. Of the 27 NZ mountains that stretch over 3050m (10065ft) high, 22 are in this park. The mighty Mt Cook, known to Maoris as Aoraki, the 'Cloud Piercer', is the highest peak in Australasia at 3755m (12,391ft).
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East Coast Museum of Technology & Transport
Think analogue, rather than digital; old-age rather than space-age. Located 5km west of the town centre, this improbable medley of farm equipment, fire engines, domestic appliances and an electron microscope has found an appropriate home in a motley old milking barn and surrounding outhouses. Oh, the irony of the welcome sign...
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Hokianga Art Gallery
Sells interesting contemporary art with a local focus.
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Neudorf
Moss-covered barnlike complex; gorgeous pinot noir and some of the country’s finest chardonnay.
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Rotorua Museum
This outstanding museum occupies a grand Tudor-style edifice. It was originally an elegant spa retreat called the Bath House (1908): displays in the former shower rooms give a fascinating insight into some of the eccentric therapies once practised here, including 'electric baths' and the Bergonie Chair.
A gripping 20-minute film on the history of Rotorua, including the Tarawera eruption, runs every 20 minutes from 9am (not for small kids – the seats vibrate and the eruption noises are authentic!). The fabulous new Don Stafford Wing houses eight object-rich galleries dedicated to Rotorua's Te Arawa people, featuring woodcarving, flax weaving, jade, interactive audiovisual…
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Kelly Tarlton's
In the Underwater World, sharks and stingrays swim around and over you as you're shunted on a conveyor belt through transparent tunnels in what were once stormwater and sewage holding tanks. If you want to get even closer, you can enter the tanks in a shark cage ($79; 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 3pm), and if that doesn't sound terrifying enough, you can dive directly into the tanks ($129; 10am).
In a post Happy Feet world, Kelly Tarlton's biggest attraction is the permanent winter wonderland known as Antarctic Encounter. It includes a walk through a replica of Scott’s 1911 Antarctic hut, and a ride aboard a heated snowcat through a frozen environment where a colony of king…
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Glowworm Cave
The guided tour of the Glowworm Cave, which is behind the visitor centre, leads past impressive stalactites and stalagmites into a large cavern known as the Cathedral. The acoustics are so good that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the Vienna Boys Choir have given concerts here. The highlight comes at the tour’s end when you board a boat and swing off onto the river. As your eyes grow accustomed to the dark you’ll see a Milky Way of little lights surrounding you – these are the glowworms. Conditions for their growth are just about perfect here so there are a remarkable number of them. Book your tour at the visitor centre.
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Auckland Art Gallery
Reopened in 2011 after a $121-million refurbishment, Auckland's premier art repository now has a gorgeous glass-and-wood atrium grafted onto its already impressive 1887 French chateau frame. It's a worthy receptacle for important works by the likes of Pieter Bruegel the Younger, Guido Reni, Picasso, Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse. It also showcases the best of NZ art: from the intimate 19th-century portraits of tattooed Maori subjects by Charles Goldie, to the text-scrawled canvasses of Colin McCahon, and beyond.
Free tours depart from the main entrance at 11.30am, 12.30pm and 1.30pm.
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Esplanade Scenic Railway
Victoria Esplanade is a riverbank park. Mooch around the adventure playground, aviary, conservatory, bike trails, walkways, the Esplanade Scenic Railway or just chill out on the lawns. The Dugald MacKenzie Rose Garden, once voted among the world's top five prettiest gardens, brings tears of pride to local eyes, and there's a permanent orienteering course here too. Pick up a map from the park café or i-SITE.
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New Zealand Rugby Museum
Fans of the oval ball holler about the New Zealand Rugby Museum, an amazing new space overflowing with rugby paraphernalia, from a 1905 All Blacks jumper to a scrum machine and the actual whistle used to start the first game of every Rugby World Cup. Of course, NZ hosted the 2011 Rugby World Cup and beat France 7-8 in the final: don't expect anyone here to stop talking about it until 2015...
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One Tree Hill (Maungakiekie)
This volcanic cone was the isthmus’ key pa and the greatest fortress in the country. It’s easy to see why: a drive or walk to the top (182m) offers 360-degree views. At the summit is the grave of John Logan Campbell, who when gifting the land to the city in 1901 requested that a memorial (the imposing obelisk and statue above the grave) be built to the Maori people. Nearby is the stump of the last ‘one tree’.
Allow plenty of time to explore the craters and surrounding Cornwall Park, with its impressive mature trees and Acacia Cottage (1841), Auckland's oldest wooden building. The information centre has fascinating interactive displays illustrating what the pa would…
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Blue Baths
The gorgeous Spanish Mission–style Blue Baths opened in 1933 (and, amazingly, were closed from 1982 to 1999). Today you can visit a small museum recalling the building’s heyday, with recorded anecdotes and displays in the old changing rooms. If it all makes you feel like taking a dip yourself, the heated pool (adult/child/family $11/6/30) awaits. Ask about occasional dinner-and-cabaret shows (from $125 per person).
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Dominion Post Ferry
Trips across the harbour to Days Bay are made on the Dominion Post Ferry, departing from Queens Wharf 11 times daily weekdays and six times daily at weekends. It's a 30-minute trip to Days Bay, where there are beaches, a fine park and a boatshed offering canoes and rowboats for hire. A 30-45 minute walk from Days Bay brings you to the pretty settlement of Eastbourne, with appealing cafes and picnic spots.
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Ancient Kauri Kingdom
It’s tacky and overpriced, but Ancient Kauri Kingdom is still worth a stop. Here 50,000-year-old kauri stumps dragged out of swamps are fashioned into furniture, woodcraft products and a fair bit of tourist tat. The large complex includes a cafe, gift shop and workshop. A huge kauri log has an impressive spiral staircase carved into it that leads to the mezzanine level.
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Fyffe House
Kaikoura’s oldest surviving building is Fyffe House, built upon foundations of whale vertabrae. Built by Scotsman George Fyffe, cousin of Kaikoura’s first European settler, Robert Fyffe, it started life as a small cottage in 1842. There’s plenty to see inside and out, including the original brick oven, historical displays and gardens.
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Beehive
Office workers swarm around the distinctive and well-known modernist Beehive, which is exactly what it looks like, and forms part of NZ's parliamentary complex. It was designed by British architect Sir Basil Spence and built between 1969 and 1980. Controversy surrounded its construction and, love it or loathe it, it's the architectural symbol of the country.
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Waipu Museum
The original 934 British settlers came from Scotland via Nova Scotia (Canada) between 1853 and 1860. Their story comes to life through holograms, a short film and interactive displays at the Waipu Museum.
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Underwater Observatory
Underwater Observatory has six giant windows showcasing life under the lake. Brown trout abound, and look out for freshwater eels and scaup (diving ducks), which cruise right past the windows.
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Taranaki Cathedral
The austere Church of St Mary, built in 1846, is NZ's oldest stone church and its newest cathedral! Its graveyard has the headstones of early settlers and soldiers who died during the Taranaki Land Wars, as well as those of several Maori chiefs. Check out the fabulous vaulted timber ceiling inside.
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