Welcome to Christchurch, New Zealand's Garden City. Flights can arrive any time prior to 4.00pm and you will be transferred from the airport to your Christchurch hotel. Take some time to relax or explore independently. You may like to step back in time to a grand era of transport and relax on the Christchurch Tram as it takes you around the 'must-see' central attractions.

The tram drivers provide a live commentary throughout the loop, identifying points of interest, historic architecture and the changes the city is under-going since the 2011 earthquake (optional experience - own expense). This evening, meet your fellow travelling companions and your AAT Kings Travel Director for a welcome reception at your hotel. Stay: Novotel Christchurch

This morning enjoy a Christchurch city sights tour, see how Christchurch is rebuilding after the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, and pop into the Transitional Cathedral in Latimer Square, the temporary home of the ChristChurch Cathedral. It is the world's only cathedral made substantially of cardboard! Next, travel over the patchwork countryside of the Canterbury Plains to soak up some spectacular sightseeing. Visit Morelea, the home of Angie and Stan Taylor, for a be my guest afternoon tea and hear about a lifetime spent farming in New Zealand.

Later, view the little stone-hewn Church of the Good Shepherd, and the bronze statue of a collie dog, the touching tribute to the sheepdogs which helped develop the Mackenzie Country. Your day finishes in the heart of the Mackenzie Country in Twizel. Tonight, enjoy dinner at your hotel. (B/D) Stay: MacKenzie Country Hotel

Your day starts with a journey along the Waitaki River, which marks the boundary between the regions of Canterbury and Otago, and with its large catchment it is an ideal source of hydro-electric power. The Benmore Dam holds back New Zealand's largest artificial lake, and when the Benmore Power Station was opened in 1965 it was the largest power station in New Zealand. Even today, it is still the second largest, and generates enough electricity each year for about 298,000 average New Zealand homes. From the Waitaki Valley you will then travel through to the township of Oamaru, with its stately tree-lined streets and its famous white limestone buildings. As well as shipping limestone to the bigger cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin for construction of their Town Halls and various churches, Oamaru locals made sure that their own town represented the best in limestone building the mid-late 1800's had to offer.

This afternoon you will make your way down to the Southernmost New Zealand city, Dunedin. With the rest of your free afternoon you may wish to see more of the region with an Optional Experience. Perhaps take a Wildlife Cruise out to Otago Peninsula, visit the Speights Brewery - a New Zealand institution or ride the historic Taieri Gorge Railway. Tonight, enjoy dinner at your hotel. (B/D) Stay: Scenic Hotel Southern Cross

This moning, travel through lush green pastures, crossing sheep-filled farming land. New Zealand is internationally known for its sheep farming, and these are sights many visitors to this country recognise as typically ‘New Zealand’. You are sure to find the perfect sheep photo here! As your journey continues, the rolling, grassy hills once again turn back into heavily forested, rugged mountains, and you meander your way up into the Fiordland National Park to the South Island’s biggest lake and the town of Te Anau.

This afternoon, you will hear and learn about the conservation efforts of the Pomona Island Charitable Trust which aims to restore the largest inland island in New Zealand to its natural state. Get up close to the islands on a boat ride on Lake Manapouri. Stop in some quiet and tranquil spots, to soak up the amazing surrounds, spot a few trout, and learn about the unique environment and fascinating history. This evening you have the opportunity to head out across the lake to the Glow Worm Caves for a tour (optional – at own expense). Tonight, enjoy dinner at your hotel. (B/D) Stay: Distinction Luxmore Te Anau

Today is one of those days where you will want to have your camera battery charged, and ready to go! After leaving Te Anau, you will journey through the Fiordland National Park and out to Milford Sound on one of the most scenic roads you could hope for. Travel through native rainforests, beech forests, alluvial flats and meadows. You will stop at Mirror Lakes where, as the name suggests, you can see the stunning mountain scenery perfectly reflected in the waters of the lakes.

Then on to the Homer Tunnel, man's attempt to master the sheer rocky ranges, still left rough-hewn around the edges. As you emerge out the other side of the tunnel, you are presented with one of the world's most dramatic alpine drives, down through the Cleddau Valley. You will have a stop at the Chasm, where the roaring Cleddau River has carved its way through solid rock, and then it's on to Milford Sound, where you will cruise the waters of this natural wonder.

Your cruise meanders down the sound, taking in the Bowen and Stirling Falls as they plummet from glacial hanging valleys sharply into the sea, and the sheer pinnacle of Mitre Peak, rising from the deep waters of the fiord. From the spectacular scenes of Milford Sound, you will travel on to the beautiful sights of Queenstown. An orientation tour skirting around the shores of Lake Wakatipu, takes you into the city centre. (B) Stay: Millennium Hotel, Queenstown (2 nights)

Explore Queenstown your way, choose from a range of optional sightseeing experiences. You could choose to ride the Shotover Jet, take a gondola to Bob's Peak. Perhaps take a minibus tour through spectacular Skippers Canyon or immerse yourself among the boutique vineyards and spectacular scenery of Central Otago on a Boutique Wine tour. After a day of activity, enjoy a peaceful evening cruise across Lake Wakatipu aboard the TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak High Country Farm for a gourmet barbecue highlight dinner at the Colonel's Homestead. Then enjoy an entertaining after-dinner farm show providing a glimpse into high-country farm life. On the cruise back to Queenstown, join a sing-along or a dance across the polished wooden floors of the Earnslaw. (B/D)

This morning you will leave the alpine wonderland of Queenstown behind, and begin the passage through Central Otago and out to Westland. On the way out of the Queenstown region, you will stop and visit the faithfully restored gold mining settlement of Arrowtown. As you amble down the beautiful tree-lined avenues, past the 19th century wooden buildings, you will feel like you have stepped into a movie set.

From here you will travel over to Cromwell, situated next to the sparkling pristine waters of Lake Dunstan, where you will stop in at a local orchard for a taste of some of the town's delicious stone fruit. It is a day of gorgeous lakes, as after Dunstan, you will travel further into Central Otago and view the vivid blue waters of Lake Hawea, followed by Lake Wanaka, where the shoreline is charmingly lined by poplars and willows. Following an ancient greenstone trail, you will travel over Haast Pass, marking a change from the alpine scenery of the Southern Lakes, to the rainforest marvel of the wild West Coast.

View the sheer drop of Thunder Creek Falls and the grand sight of Mt Hooker, flanked on three sides by extensive glaciers. Our final destination for today is the extraordinary rivers of ice that make up Franz Josef Glacier. You may want to get up close and personal with the glaciers on a helicopter flight. Your flight will hover over the snow face and may land high up in the valley 42 so that you can walk across the ice fall - subject to weather conditions (Optional Experience, own expense). Tonight, enjoy dinner with wine at your hotel. (B/D) Stay: Scenic Hotel Franz Josef Glacier (Douglas Wing)

If weather conditions are unfavourable on Day 12, you will get another chance to fly up to the glaciers this morning or you might want to take a stroll through the small but lively Franz Josef village. Then it's time for an exhilarating adventure among temperate rainforest giants on the West Coast Treetop Walkway, followed by a visit to Hokitika, home of the native greenstone (jade) for a factory visit and jewellery demonstration.

Later, travel to Punakaiki to view the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. You'll spend the night in an eco-friendly resort, right on the waterfront. This evening enjoy dinner with wine at your hotel, while watching the surf thundering at your doorstep! (B/D) Stay: The Ocean View Retreat - Punakaiki

Enjoy a leisurely start this morning before you travel to Greymouth, here you will join a brewery experience at Monteith’s Brewery where you will be guided through the traditions and heritage of this national icon. You will get to experience and taste ever changing and innovative brews before enjoying a pub style lunch. This evening join your AAT Kings Travel Director and Driver, and your new-found friends for a farewell dinner with wine. (B/L/D) Stay: Novotel Christchurch

Your AAT Kings New Zealand holiday concludes this morning after breakfast. Your flights can depart any time today, and you will be transferred by private car to Christchurch Airport. (B)

At once forward-thinking and fun, Christchurch is the kind of city you could lose yourself in for a week - or more. You have this afternoon, so make the most of it. We recommend tooting about on the vintage Christchurch Tram, a narrated hop-on, hop-off experience that loops around town, your energetic host pointing out historic architecture and new developments that have popped up since the 2010/2011 earthquakes. Freshen up because it's time to meet your fellow adventure-seekers over a couple of wines at a Welcome Reception. Stay: Distinction Christchurch Hotel

If you didn't get your bearings yesterday, you certainly will on today's Christchurch tour, taking in the city's record-breaking Transitional Cathedral - who knew you could build a church from cardboard and not much else? - as well as past the gilded library, gleaming like an architectural beacon. The buildings of the city fade into a patchwork of farms as you ease across the Canterbury Plains toward Morelea.

Here, Angie and Stan Taylor welcome you to their home with a slap-up Be My Guest afternoon tea and tales about life on the land. And this land is truly dramatic, backdropped by powdery mountains and cut with turquoise lakes, none quite as pretty as Lake Tekapo, on its banks the stone-hewn Church of the Good Shepherd. It's like someone has taken the glasses off your nose and cleaned them for the first time. (B/D) Stay: MacKenzie Country Hotel

More water awaits on day three, your journey following the Waitaki River to mighty Benmore Dam; it powers 300,000 New Zealand homes. You're en route to the city of Dunedin, replete with rolling green meadows and grand stone castles. It kind of feels like you've been transported to Scotland - small wonder it's known as the ‘Edinburgh of the South'.

With this afternoon at your leisure, we recommend a cruise to spot penguins and fur seals along the Otago Peninsula, or perhaps a visit to Speight's Brewery - a New Zealand institution that makes everything from a fragrant Old Dark to a crisp Apple Cider. And pretty much everything in between. There's always that castle to explore… Larnach may not have the history of Scotland's grand estates, but it's just as pretty in our humble opinion. A NZ holiday must. (B/D) Stay: Scenic Hotel Southern Cross

Leave Dunedin's bucolic sheep-farming countryside behind as you venture into World Heritage listed Fiordland National Park, a place of yawning gorges and gem-like glaciers, and azure lakes so large they have their own islands. Case in point Pomona Island, where a charitable trust of passionate volunteers works to restore flora and fauna. With your help. Your cruise across Lake Manapouri is remote and ravishing during the day - it's even prettier at night, when glowworms fill caves. Can we tempt you? (B/D) Stay: Distinction Te Anau Hotel and Villas

Nature rules again today, from the moment you depart Te Anau and begin your journey deep into the heart of Fiordland National Park. Think native rainforests, beech forests, alluvial flats and meadows; Mirror Lakes perfectly reflecting mountain scenery; and precipitous lookouts holding guard over alpine rivers.

And this is just the entrée. The main course is your Milford Sound/Piopiotahi tour, where you cruise in the company of dolphins that frolic under the torrent of mighty Bowen and Stirling Falls, and gaze at misty escarpments so sheer they appear to cleave off the edge of the Earth. You're in the company of a naturalist who knows every nook and cranny of this mighty cavern and will point out flora and fauna you would have never spotted on your own. (B) Stay: Millennium Hotel, Queenstown (2 Nights)

Take today at your own pace. Like things fast and furious? Feel the wind in your hair on the high-octane Shotover Jet, perhaps. Prefer wine to get your heart started? See why Central Otago makes some of the world's most raved about cool-climate pinots on a cellar door tour. Wherever your Queenstown New Zealand tour wanderings take you, reunite with your companions come dusk to glide across Lake Wakatipu aboard the historic TSS Earnslaw, your barbecue Highlight Dinner served on the grounds of Walter Peak High Country Farm. Trips to New Zealand don't get much tastier than this. (B/D)

In the shadow of the Remarkables, Queenstown is pretty spectacular. But it has some stiff good-looks competition from neighbouring Arrowtown, with its movie-set tree-lined avenues and 19th-centtury buildings that once housed gold-rush fortune-seekers. Things grow well in this verdant countryside, from cherries to pinot grapes and all manner of stone fruit. Have you ever eaten a freshly-plucked peach handed to you by a farmer? Prepare for a flavour explosion.

The next explosion is a visual one as you arrive at Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Get some perspective of this immense ice fall on an optional helicopter flight - you may even get to land on it. (B/D) Stay: Scenic Hotel Franz Josef Glacier (Douglas Wing)

As if yesterday's Franz Josef/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere tour high wasn't spectacular enough, enjoy new heights on the West Coast Treetop Walkway for a bird's-eye view of the South Island's rainforest. The emerald hues of the canopy are reflected in the greenstone (jade) mined in Hokitika, where artisans show you just how talented they are at carving jewellery and mementos. Just try and keep your purse closed here. Nature carved Punakaiki's Pancake Rocks and blowholes, where waves thunder through cracks in the Earth. This is the soundtrack that lulls you to sleep at tonight's eco-resort. (B/D) Stay: Ocean View Retreat Punakaiki

Wine may steal the scene across much of New Zealand, but at legendary Monteith's Brewery, beer rules. Sip your way through a tasting paddle of XPA, IPA, lager and pale ale because you're not driving to the station where your TranzAlpine for your train trip across New Zealand's South Island. This is one of those NZ holiday experiences where the journey matters just as much as the destination, as you sweep through tunnels and over viaducts with panoramic views of snow-capped peaks, icy rivers, beech forests, gorges and river valleys. What a way to end a day. (B/L/D) Stay: Distinction Christchurch Hotel

The last 10 days of your NZ holiday flew by. Return home with new friends, a full SD card on your camera - and even more memories. (B)