Sights in New Zealand
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Te Papa
Te Papa, the ‘Museum of New Zealand’, is an inspiring, interactive repository of historical and cultural artefacts. ‘Te Papa Tongarewa’ loosely translates as ‘treasure box’. The building dominates the Wellington waterfront and has become a national icon – an innovative celebration of the essence of NZ.
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Wellington Botanic Gardens
The expansive, hilltop Wellington Botanic Gardens can be conveniently visited via a cable-car ride (nice bit of planning, eh?). The hilly 25-hectare gardens 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 Tinakori Rd (Karori bus 3).
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Arts Centre
The former Canterbury College site (later Canterbury University), with its enclave of Gothic Revival buildings, is now the excellent Arts Centre, where arts and craft outlets share the premises with cinemas, a live theatre, restaurants and cafes. Visit the workshop and gallery of Te Toi Mana for traditional and contemporary Maori carving and design. Visually Maori also showcases interesting Maori art.
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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
The East Coast Museum of Technology & Transport is an improbable collation of rusty tractors, lawn mowers, engines, spanners, ploughs, ovens, chainsaws, trucks, pumps, harvesters, motorbikes and so on – a shrine to peoples’ inventive capacity or their ability to horde junk?
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Rotorua Museum of Art & History
This impressive museum, better known as the Bath House, is in a grand Tudor-style edifice in the Government Gardens. Originally an elegant spa retreat (it opened in 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!). Also here is a collection of taonga (treasures) of Te Arawa, featuring woodcarving, flax weaving and jade. Other exhibits relate the stori…
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Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World
Housed in old stormwater and sewage holding tanks is this unique aquarium. A transparent tunnel runs along the centre of the tank, through which you travel on a conveyor belt, with the fish, including sharks and stingrays, swimming around you. You can step off at any time to take a closer look.
The big attraction, however, 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 Snow Cat through a frozen environment where a colony of king and gentoo penguins lives at sub-zero temperatures. Displays include an Antarctic scientific base of the future and exhibits on the hi…
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Glow-worm Cave
The 45-minute guided tour of the Glow-worm 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. You can see them in lots of other places in NZ, but the ones in this cave are something special. Conditions for their growth are just about perfect so there are a remarkable number of …
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Auckland Art Gallery
The Auckland Art Gallery spreads over two neighbouring buildings. The Main Gallery, built in French chateau style, houses important works by Pieter Bruegel the Younger and Guido Reni in the European collection, and an extensive collection of NZ art. It’s worth calling in for the intimate 19th-century portraits of tattooed Maori subjects by Charles Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer alone. The New Gallery concentrates on contemporary art and temporary exhibitions (with varying admission charges).
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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
Rugby fans holler about the New Zealand Rugby Museum. This amazing room overflows with rugby paraphernalia, from a 1905 All Blacks jumper to the actual whistle used to start the first game of every Rugby World Cup. After a humiliating exit from the 2007 World Cup in France, NZ is hosting the 2011 event – time to brush up on your haka. The museum is planning to relocate to Te Manawa in time for 2011 – look for it there if it’s not on Cuba St.
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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 amazing 360-degree views. At the summit is the grave of John Logan Campbell, who gifted the land to the city in 1901, requesting 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 a few hours to explore the craters and surrounding Cornwall Park, with its impressive mature trees and historic cottage. The information centre has fascinating interactive displays illustrating what the pa would have looked like when 5000 people liv…
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Blue Baths
Within the Government gardens are the gorgeous Spanish Mission–style Blue Baths, which opened in 1933 (and, amazingly, were closed from 1982 to 1999). Today you can visit a small museum (open 10am to 5pm) 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 awaits. Ask about occasional dinner-and-cabaret shows (per person from $125).
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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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Fyffe House
Kaikoura’s oldest surviving building is Fyffe House. Built by Scotsman George Fyffe, cousin of Kaikoura’s first European settler, Robert Fyffe, it started life as a small cottage in 1842 (with whale vertebrae for foundations) and was completed in 1860. 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. These dour Scots at least had the good sense to eschew frigid Otago, where so many of their kindred settled, for sunnier northern climes. 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 based on their generous size, look to be impossibly well fed. Keep a keen eye out for freshwater eels and the favourite of the kiddies – the scaup (diving ducks), which dive down and swim right past the windows.
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St Faith’s Anglican Church
The historic St Faith’s Anglican Church is intricately decorated with Maori carvings, tukutuku (woven panels), painted scrollwork and stained-glass windows. One window features an image of Christ wearing a Maori cloak as he appears to walk on the waters of Lake Rotorua.
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Goldmine Experience
The Goldmine Experience allows you to walk through a gold-mine tunnel, watch a stamper battery crush rock, learn about the history of the Cornish miners and try your hand at panning for gold ($2 extra).
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Butterfly & Orchid Garden
Kids (little or large) with a fairy complex will adore the Butterfly & Orchid Garden, north of town within the Dickson Holiday Park. It’s an enclosed jungle full of hundreds of exotic flappers.
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Raglan & District Museum
The small, musty Raglan & District Museum explores the stories of local Maori and Pakeha pioneers through artefacts, photos and newspapers.
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Botanic Gardens
The Botanic Gardens comprise 30 riverside hectares planted with 10,000-plus specimens of indigenous and introduced plants. There are conservatories and thematic gardens to explore, lawns to sprawl on, and a cafe at the Botanic Gardens visitors centre. Get the kids active in the playground adjacent to the cafe. Guided walks depart daily from the Canterbury Museum, or you can ride around the gardens in the electric ‘Caterpillar’ train. Hop-on, hop-off tickets are valid for two days and include a commentary.
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Whanganui National Park
Whanganui National Park's main attraction is the Whanganui River, which curls its way 329km (204mi) from its source on the flanks of Mt Tongariro to the Tasman Sea at Wanganui. The fact that the river is the longest navigable river in the country has been shaping its destiny for centuries.
Historically a major transport link between the sea and the interior of the North Island, first for the Maori and then for the Pakeha, the route was eventually superseded by rail and road. Many recreational canoe, kayak and jetboat enthusiasts now use it to reach the isolated interior of Whanganui National Park.
The native bush is thick podocarp-broadleaved forest, with many types of tr…
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