Things to do and places to visit in the region

Carved by glaciers over 100,000 years the landscape is one where waterfalls cascade hundreds of metres into deep black fiords; where ancient rainforest clings to mountains and where shimmering lakes and granite peaks look as they did a thousand years ago. Fiordland National Park is a World Heritage Site and includes Milford, Dusky and Doubtful Sounds. Milford Sound was described by Rudyard Kipling as the Eighth Wonder of the World; take a scenic flight over it and you will understand why. Some of the fiords can be explored by kayak but if you’d like to see the less accessible fiords, eco-tours can be arranged. But this really is the place for hiking.

Fiordland National Park has three of New Zealand’s ‘great walks’, the Milford, Kepler and Routeburn Tracks. Milford Track is arguably New Zealand’s most famous walk. Starting in Te Anau, it takes you over 53 kilometres through the most breath-taking scenery: mountains, lakes and enormous valleys right up to the Sutherland Falls, the tallest waterfall in New Zealand.