Alps and Glaciers — Eight Nights from Christchurch to the West Coast

You are met at Christchurch Airport and transferred to your hotel. Christchurch is the South Island's largest city, laid out flat around the Avon River and still visibly rebuilding after the earthquakes. The rest of the day is free to recover from the flight.

No touring is scheduled today. Christchurch is flat, walkable and compact, and the Botanic Gardens and the river run right through the centre. The day is yours, and anything you arrange is at your own cost.

You leave the city and cross the Canterbury Plains into a landscape of glacial blue lakes and tussock-covered hills. Mount Cook is reached in the middle of the day, with optional scenic flights available at your own cost, before you continue south to Queenstown.

No touring is scheduled today. Queenstown is New Zealand's adventure capital and sits on a lake ringed by mountains, so the day is easy to fill or easy to do nothing with. Anything you choose to arrange is at your own cost and is not part of this package.

An early start along the shore of Lake Wakatipu and through Te Anau into Fiordland. The road runs through beech forest beneath steep mountains and finally through the Homer Tunnel, cut straight through rock, to reach the water. You board a catamaran and cruise Milford Sound past Mitre Peak before returning to Queenstown.

You travel through the Kawarau Gorge past Lake Dunstan towards Wanaka, stopping at Makarora before crossing the Southern Alps through the Haast Pass. At Knights Point the road opens onto the Tasman coast, and you continue past Lakes Moeraki and Paringa into the glacier country.

No touring is scheduled today. Franz Josef is a small township beneath a glacier that descends into temperate rainforest, which is an unusual combination anywhere in the world. Optional activities can be arranged locally at your own cost and are not included in this package.

You continue up the West Coast through Hokitika to Greymouth, where you board the TranzAlpine train. The line climbs from the coast through river gorges and valleys and across the farmland plains of Canterbury before reaching Christchurch — widely held to be one of the world's great rail journeys.

Breakfast at the hotel, then check out and a transfer to Christchurch Airport for your onward flight. Christchurch is the South Island's main gateway. Your onward flight is not part of this package, so allow the check-in time your airline requires. If your flight leaves later, ask the hotel about storing luggage.