Lonely Planet New Zealand - Softcover

Bain, Carolyn; Dunford, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1741045355 ISBN 13: 9781741045352

Publisher: Lonely Planet, 2006

Synopsis

The sun shows up here first for a reason. Come for bracing light or caverns underground, glacial valleys or black volcanic sand. Tour every landscape on earth, all rolled into one country. Dig for pipis on the beach, or sample oysters on a platter. Savour solitude with a view, or city culture. Things are never just black and white in New Zealand.

Stick Out Your Tongue – taste the freshest seafood, world-class wines, or the best lamb roast there is.

Roll Your Eyes – yet another magnificent view of mystical mountains, braided river plains or calming coastlines.

Slap Your Thighs – a good time’s easy to find, from happening Auckland to waterfront Wellington.

Stand Up Proud – and experience Maori culture firsthand: take part in a powhiri, or fill your puku at a hangi.

Run At It Shouting – bungy jump, sea kayak, surf, trek and hit the white water with the best of them.

About this title

From the Publisher

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At Lonely Planet, we see our job as inspiring and enabling travellers to connect with the world for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world at large.

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What We Believe
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Destination New Zealand

You're winding your way along a valley etched into the earth by an ancient, industrious glacier, continually crisscrossing a broad, pebble-bottomed river that couldn't look fresher if it had just splashed its way out of a cloud, and drinking in views of variegated rock-hills, the knotted greenery of unkempt arboretums, and snow-dipped peaks crowding before an expansive blue backdrop...Such memory-filling vistas are commonplace in New Zealand, but truth be told, overblown descriptions don't do the country justice - this is one of those rare places where superlatives fight a losing battle to match the actual stature of the land, not the other way around.

And it's not just the living landscapes of New Zealand that conquer the expectations of contemporary explorers. Desires are also fulfilled (and fuelled) by restaurant plates decorated with home-grown edibles, glasses spilling over with fine local wines, entrancing Maori stories, and an overwhelming choice of inventive activities ranging from the impossible-made-easy allure of bungy jumping to the panoramic excitement of a river-skimming jetboat ride.

The wild, rough-cut beauty of this faraway country, where travelers tread paths of ice, lava, sand and rimu-sheltered dirt on their way around the pairing of main islands and across pristine satellite islets, has fittingly gained cult status as the celluloid setting for one of the most inspired stories ever told. But unlike Lord of the Rings, New Zealand is real - this is not Middle-earth, so forget the fictional comparisons and confront the country's magnificent geography, as well as its ever-evolving culture, on its own authentic terms.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1741045355
• ISBN 13: 9781741045352
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 772