New Zealand New Zealand Blog

Lisanne, one of First Light Travel’s interns, travelled down the North Island to visit New Zealand’s capital. Being from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, she loves coffee, craft beer, and great food. In addition to that, she also is a huge the Lord of the Rings fan. As Wellington offers all listed above, it made perfect sense to pay the windy capital a visit.  Because of the limited time I would have in Wellington, I wanted to make most out of it. When looking up the city’s must-do’s, a few things caught my eye which were repeated everywhere.

Travelling New Zealand by rail is a bit more than just an efficient way to get around; in fact, because of our challenging landscape we actually don’t have a vast stretch of rail. But thanks to the amazing feats of engineering achieved by some hardy early pioneers, we’ve got some impressive rail journeys that criss-cross the country. In one just one trip, you can traverse snow-dusted mountain ranges, glide around glistening coastlines and sweep lush farmland dotted with bouncing lambs.  Here’s the low-down on exploring New Zealand by rail.

What do you picture when you think of New Zealand? Crystal-clear rivers twisting and turning through untouched forests, mountains dusted with snow and waterfalls cascading into bright blue pools?

If so, you’ve definitely got Milford in mind. As one of the most famously beautiful places to experience on a NZ South Island Itinerary, “where is Milford Sound?” is a pretty common question that we get asked!