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Absorb the beauty of “the land of the long white cloud,” as Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand, is commonly translated. Delve into the story of this island nation’s Indigenous Maori people. Examine the natural environments of both the North and South Islands: descend into a pristine volcanic valley, stand alongside bubbling mudpools and meet New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi. Sail the beautiful waters of Lake Wakatipu, enjoy stunning vistas of Queenstown and much more.

Activity Level

Keep the Pace

Walking up to three miles at a time at a normal public walking pace over varied terrain. Standing at least three hours daily; climbing stairs (at times without handrails), getting on/off buses and boats, carrying own luggage. If you believe you require wheelchair assistance to get through an airport you are not fit enough to participate in this program. Elevations up to 3,100 feet.

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Learn from experts about New Zealand’s settlement by Maori and Europeans.
Witness bubbling mudpools in a volcanic park.
Experience the majestic Piopiotahi/Milford Sound.

General Notes

For a similar program with greater opportunity for independent exploration (including free days in both Auckland and Queenstown), please view program 22090.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Hamish Campbell

Hamish Campbell earned a Ph.D. in paleontology from Cambridge University, and went on to serve as a senior scientist at GNS Science — the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences — in Wellington, New Zealand, and as geologist at the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Hamish channeled his expertise to write several popular books on New Zealand geology. His passion for New Zealand, geology and learning have made him an exceptional long-time instructor for Road Scholar.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Hamish Campbell View biography

Peter Ackroyd View biography

Peter Ackroyd graduated from the University of Canterbury with a master’s degree in engineering geology. Over the course of his professional career, Peter has done geological assessments for land use investigations, managed a range of natural resource usage projects and helped shape policy and resource management for commercial fishing. Peter and his wife Cathrine have three adult children and, as per New Zealand tradition, one lives overseas.

Margaret Copland View biography

Margaret Copland is a graduate of the University of Canterbury and the Christchurch College of Education. As a historian, she has enjoyed researching the stories of the early Canterbury immigrants, which she will share with us in her capacity as the Te Puna Ora storyteller. Margaret is an experienced history teacher and she has been a heritage storyteller and local historian for 20 years. Her original stories have been researched and developed to create 13 characters who bring New Zealand history to life.

Heather Valetta Robertson View biography

Heather Robertson grew up in Auckland, then spent a year in upstate New York as a Rotary Exchange student before moving to New Zealand’s South Island. Recently retired after a 40-year career in mental health, Heather now enjoys leading Road Scholars in New Zealand. She also volunteers at her local Community Garden, and has an allotment growing her own organic vegetables. Other interests include reading, research, and international travel, her favorite places being Scotland and Italy.

Ian Smith View biography

Ian Smith is a full-time livestock farmer with his wife Heather. They own and farm 1000 acres running 1,000 sheep, 480 dairy cows and 200 supporting dairy stock. Ian bought his first land in 1971 and farmed in a three-generation partnership before going on to farm with Heather. Parallel to running a successful farming business, Ian has always had interests beyond the farm gate whether it is advocacy for fellow farmers through to the national level or taking an active interest in research and training.

Fiona Barker View biography

Fiona Barker is a senior lecturer in comparative politics at Victoria University of Wellington. Born and raised in New Zealand, she earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University and had research stays in Italy, Canada, Belgium, and France before returning to Wellington to teach and research the politics of immigration, nationalism, representation, and electoral politics. Her recent research examines topics including immigrants’ political participation and representation in New Zealand and Europe, and the role of the ethnic media in democratic politics in New Zealand.

Kate McMillan View biography

Kate McMillan is an associate professor in comparative politics and head of the political science and international relations program at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research and teaching focuses on immigration politics, media politics and citizenship politics, with a particular focus on New Zealand and its region. Kate grew up in Christchurch but has spent much of her adult life in Wellington, with stints also living and working in Melbourne, London, San Diego and Lund.

Hazel Petrie View biography

Hazel Petrie is an Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Auckland Department of History. She has a and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Maori Studies, a Master of Arts in History, and a Ph.D. in Maori Studies, all from the University of Auckland. Her published books include “Chiefs of Industry: Maori Tribal Enterprise in Early Colonial New Zealand” that was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards, and “Outcasts of the Gods?: The Struggle Over Slavery in Maori New Zealand.”

Sue Chamberlain View biography

Sue Chamberlain grew up on a farm in Canterbury, but has been a proud Wellingtonian since 1987. Sue has a B.A. in history and an M.B.A. She has worked as a teacher/trainer, an international development delegate for the Red Cross, and in communications and fundraising. Sue also set up Walk Wellington, which provides expert-led walking expeditions. Sue loves the arts and is a member of three choirs and a singing duo.

Julian Thomson View biography

Julian Thomson has a background in geology and an interest in the outdoors. For about 15 years, he was a secondary school science teacher in Lower Hutt near Wellington, before taking up a position as the educational outreach facilitator at GNS Science in 2008. In 2020, he started his own geoscience communication and education consultancy.

Jacqué Mandeno View biography

Jacqué Mandeno lives in Auckland’s Torbay, enjoying the surrounding ocean and bush and the diversity of flora and fauna there. She has lived in many different parts of beautiful Aotearoa – from the Catlins in the deep south, to the Tutukaka Coast in the far north, where she is currently developing a small permaculture block. With degrees in history, English literature, and communication, Jacqué teaches public speaking and drama to children and adults. Her interests include the performing arts, history, conservation, and ocean swimming.

Suggested Reading List (13 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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A New Zealand Odyssey: Indigenous Culture & Natural Beauty

Program Number: 22753

New Zealand Wildlife

by Julian Fitter

Julian Fitter's splendid introduction to the nature and wildlife of New Zealand features succinct chapters on geography and geology, history, habitats and wildlife, along with hundreds of color photographs. Fitter (Wildlife of the Galapagos) and Tui de Roy, who contributed many of the photographs, also collaborated on Albatross, Their World, Their Ways.

The Bone People

by Keri Hulme

Set in modern-day South Island, this lyrical novel brings together three troubled individuals who represent New Zealand’s varied Maori and European traditions. Winner of the 1985 Booker Prize.

Mauri Ora: Wisdom from the Maori World

by Peter Alsop & Te Rau Kupenga

Pearls of wisdom - whakatauki - have been gifted from generation to generation as an intrinsic part of the Maori world. Mauri Ora links whakatauki to key personal virtues identified across cultures and generations.

The Penguin History of New Zealand

by Michael King

This bestselling book is arguably the definitive contemporary reference to the history of New Zealand. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed the franchise, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. The Penguin History of New Zealand tells that story in all its colour and drama. The narrative that emerges is an inclusive one about men and women, Maori and Pakeha. It shows that British motives in colonising New Zealand were essentially humane; and that Maori, far from being passive victims of a 'fatal impact', coped heroically with colonisation and survived by selectively accepting and adapting what Western technology and culture had to offer.

Purakau: Maori Myths retold by Maori Writers

by Witi Ihimaera & Whiti Hereaka (editors)

A lively retelling of Purakau - Maori Myths - by contemporary Maori Writers.

Zealandia: The Valley That Changed A Nation

by Jim Lynch

In 1990 James Lynch QSM conceived the idea of urban conservation through a plan to `Bring the Birds back to Wellington'. Two years later he came up with the daring concept of community conservation. His visionary 1992 proposal for the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary (now Zealandia) imagined a predator-fenced, community-driven eco-sanctuary, populated with endangered species and located 2 km from the Wellington CBD. 30 years later Zealandia is a resounding success and Wellington has been transformed into an international showcase of urban conservation. Inspired by Zealandia, eco-sanctuaries proliferated around the nation. This is Jim's account of how Zealandia became a reality and changed a city and a nation. An uplifting account of daring innovation, and of the determination of an ever-expanding community that built a jewel that will be treasured by generations yet to be born.

The Meaning of Trees

by Robert Vennell

Robert Vennel is the manager of Auckland Museum's natural science collection. In this book, sub-titled "The History & Usage of New Zealand's Native Pants", he tells the story of plants and people in Aotearoa New Zealand. In addition to outlining indigenous bush kai (food), Vennell also investigates New Zealand's native plants in terms of their value for suitability for carving, weaving and rongoa (medicinal uses). He looks at traditional Maori usage of the forest and how it put sustainability above all else as well as how European settlers had to change their way of thinking when confronted with vastly different vegetation.

The Book Of Fame

by Lloyd Jones

In August 1905 a party of young men set sail for England. Among them were ordinary farmers and bootmakers, a miner and a bank clerk. Together they made up the All Blacks, an unknown rugby team from New Zealand. And they had come to show the world what they could do. What they didn't know was that they were bound for fame. In this melding of true history and imagination, Lloyd Jones has recreated an unforgettable journey from innocence to celebrity.

Whale Rider

by Witi Ihimaera

A magical, mythical novella about a young Maori girl and her relationship with a whale, that ultimately saves her village. Based loosely on Ihimaera’s youth in a Maori village.

New Zealand: A Natural History

by Tui De Roy & Mark Jones

The authors, both naturalists and photographers, present the wildlife, habitats and splendour of their adopted homeland in this pictorial celebration.

Stories

by Katherine Mansfield

This collection includes three marvelous, long pieces which together constitute the beginnings of an unfinished novel based on Mansfield's childhood in Wellington, New Zealand in the 1890s.

The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky. The Luminaries, an extraordinary work of fiction, was the Man Booker prize winner in 2013.

A Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand

by Julian Fitter

Comprehensive and compact, this Princeton Pocket Guide by longtime resident Julian Fitter and Don Merton at New Zealand's Department of Conservation features 600 color photographs. With range maps, descriptions and excellent introductory chapters on conservation efforts and key national parks for bird watching

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At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

General Notes

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