6 Best Sights in Upper South Island and the West Coast, New Zealand

One of New Zealand's most easily accessible parks is also one of the most visited, thanks to its golden sand beaches, sculptured granite headlands, and forest-lined tidal inlets and islands. Unlike other South Island parks, Abel Tasman has few extremes in weather, and its coastal track, one of the Great Walks, is an ideal place to explore without the need of serious technical equipment or experience. Day and multiday trips, walking, sea-kayaking, sailing, scenic cruises, and combos of all of these are popular ways to explore the area. Keep in mind in the peak summer holiday season (Christmas to late January) this area is very busy, and you will rarely be on that dream beach alone. Any time of the year, however, is perfectly suitable for an Abel Tasman trip. The small settlements of Kaiteriteri and Marahau are the main gateways to the national park, both at the southern end and 20- to 40-minutes' drive from Motueka. Stop first at the Nelson or Motueka isite Visitor Centre for maps and information. If you're planning to stop overnight at any of the Department of Conservation's campsites or huts along the Abel Tasman Coast Track, you need to book ahead. You can do this online or at the Nelson or Motueka isite. It pays to book well ahead, especially in summer. Water taxis service the coastline, and they drop-off or pick-up at many points along the way. At the northern end of the park, a road leads from Golden Bay through the park to Totaranui, where there is a large Department of Conservation campground and long, beautiful beach. This is a popular start/finish point for those walking the Abel Tasman Coast Track.

Jane Hunter is an internationally respected winemaker and a pioneer of wine making in Marlborough. A visit to her wine cellar, a restored old farm house, is a delight. You can also savor wine with an artisan cheese and meat board in the 5-acre garden, an environmental showpiece for the rare native plants it protects. There’s also a regular artist-in-residence. Famous Hunter wines include the Kaho Roa (oak-aged sauvignon blanc), pinot noir, and the Miru Miru (Māori for "bubbles").

Kahurangi is a vast wilderness of marbled karst mountains; glaciated landforms; alpine tablelands; rivers; alpine tarns; and beech, podocarp, and coastal rain forests. Underground are the country’s longest, deepest, and oldest cave systems. Multiday hikes, short walks, caving, extreme rafting, fly-fishing, and hunting are what people like to do here. Kahurangi National Park spans 1.2 million acres, much of it untamed, yet crisscrossed by 570 km (353 miles) of hiking trails of various levels. Most well known is the four- to five-day Heaphy Track, one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. Probably the most popular road access from Nelson is the steep, slightly scary climb to Flora Carpark on Mt. Arthur, and from Golden Bay its into the Cobb Valley. The main West Coast access is through Karamea; this is also the southwestern entry to the Heaphy Track. Helicopters regularly transport fishing fans to secret river spots, though large areas of the park are designated wilderness, where no development or helicopter transport is permitted.

See a superb collection of 150 immaculate vintage cars from over 100 years of motoring, ranging from a 1908 Renault AX to classics of the 1950s—including Vauxhalls, Triumphs, and Cadillacs—through to the exquisite mastery of Ferrari and Jaguar.

War stories are brought to life with actual historic planes placed in settings dramatized by New Zealand's Oscar-winning special-effects teams Weta Digital and Wingnut Films. The planes are from famed director Sir Peter Jackson's collection. World War I–era planes, and the stories of their pilots, are showcased in the Knights of the Sky exhibition. Dangerous Skies focuses on aviation development during World War II. There's also a café and shop.

Here you can see firsthand the Department of Conservation's successful breeding program of the rare kiwi species, the rowi. You can see a few rowi in the Nocturnal House, but by far the best option is to witness the incubation and rearing program in the Kiwi Backstage Tour. If your timing is lucky, perhaps you’ll see a hatching chick. Other displays here include the West Coast storytelling hut, where you can learn from the "old-timers" and undertake a quite lifelike glacial exploration.