Rotorua smells of sulphur before you see it. The geothermal field steaming through the town, mud pools blooping, the Pohutu geyser going off on its own schedule. The Polynesian Spa's hot pools look out over the lake. It's the Maori cultural heart of the North Island too, and the hangi feast cooked in the ground is the evening's thing.

Milford Sound is a fiord, not a sound, and it rains there most days. Which is the point, because the rain turns the thousand-metre cliffs into a wall of waterfalls straight into the sea. The cruise takes you under Stirling Falls until the bow is soaked. The drive in through the Homer Tunnel is half the experience. Take the rain as a gift.

The Shotover jet boat runs the canyon at eighty kilometres an hour, the driver threading rock walls a metre off each side and spinning the boat through full circles when he raises a finger. Queenstown is the adventure capital. Bungy, luge, gondola. But the jet boat is the one that has you laughing and gripping at once.

The drive from Queenstown to Christchurch runs past Aoraki / Mount Cook, the highest peak in the country, with Lake Pukaki an unreal milky turquoise from the glacial flour in the water. You stop at the lookout and the mountain is just there, snow-capped, reflected. The light on that lake is the photograph everyone takes and none quite captures.