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Educational Travel Tours - High School and Middle School Trips for Teachers and Students |
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Espiritour
Best of New Zealand With Sydney Extension
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Recent Tour Diaries:
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Day 1 Start tour
Day 2 International Date Line
Lose day as you cross the International Date Line
Day 3 Auckland Landmarks
Meet your Tour Director and check into hotel
Auckland guided sightseeing tour
Join a licensed guide for a tour of New Zealand's most progressive city, Auckland, full of cosmopolitan bustle and beautiful harbor views. First, soak in a little history at the War Memorial Museum. Then plunge into Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. Here you can observe live penguins and learn about the unique features of their home, the frozen continent of Antarctica. Travel deep beneath the ocean on the moving walkway of the underwater tunnel. You get a scuba diver's view of hundreds of colorful fish, lurking sharks and giant stingrays 'up close' and in their own environment.
, War Memorial Museum visit, Tarlton’s Underwater World visit
Dinner
Day 4 Auckland--Rotorua
Travel to Rotorua
Before you see Rotorua, you'll definitely smell it: Sulfur. Consider it an introduction to a place that is completely unique. Rotorua offers a fascinating view into the earth's volcanic center. Clouds of steam seem to magically appear throughout the city from the city's four major thermal centers. One geyser erupts about 20 times a day and can spout up to 100 feet. Visit the Agrodome Leisure Park, where championship rams and sheep are judged for their meat and wool. Try your hand at milking a cow, or be a New Zealand 'cocky' (farmer) for a day by buying sheep in an auction and bottle-feeding lambs. The finale is a demonstration of the famed New Zealand sheep dogs.
Agrodome visit
Maori Hangi feast
Taste native Maori culture, literally, at a traditional Hangi feast. The Maori use the geo-thermal region as a natural, steam cooker. They wrap vegetables and meat in fresh green leaves and cook it over the steam escaping through the rocks. It's health food, the old-fashioned way.
Day 5 Rotorua Landmarks
Rotorua guided sightseeing tour
See the Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve, the closest thermal area to the city. Unlike the other thermal centers, "Whaka" as it is called, is still a living village with ancient roots, founded before Europeans arrived. Here you might see residents using steam boxes to cook sweet corn. At the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, learn the Maori traditional carving and weaving methods. The day ends with a skyline gondola ride on Mt. Ngongotaha.
, Maori Cultural Centre visit, Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve visit
Skyline gondola ride on Mt. Ngongotaha
Dinner
Day 6 Rotorua--Queenstown
Fly to Queenstown
Day 7 Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings Excursion
New Zealand’s remote and rocky terrain provided a spectacular backdrop for director Peter Jackson’s filming of Tolkien’s celebrated trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Queenstown in particular, with its steep dramatic peaks and shimmering Lake Wakatipu offered a wonderfully dramatic setting. Today you’ll get a firsthand look at some of the areas featured in the hugely successful films. Be sure to let your camera capture the sweeping panoramas.
Gondola ride
Enjoy the perfect bird’s-eye view of Queenstown’s rugged hills and valleys as you ride high inside the cabin of your gondola.
Day 8 Fjordland
Fjordland excursion
Visit Milford Sound Observatory
Day 9 Queenstown to Christchurch
Travel to Christchurch
Christchurch city walk
Day 10 Christchurch
Optional Optional Excursion to Akaroa for Lake Cruise $65
Day 11 Start Extension to Sydney
Fly to Sydney
Dinner
Day 12 Sydney Landmarks
Sydney guided sightseeing tour
See Sydney, Australia's beautiful waterfront city. A licensed, local guide will take you to Darling Harbor, a bustling entertainment and shopping center. At "The Rocks" see historical and contemporary Australia stand side-by-side. On this stubby peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove, modern Australian history started with the landing of the first ships in 1788. From here, Sydney evolved from convict outpost to the most beautiful metropolis on the Pacific Rim. Next, visit one of the city's most well-known symbols, the Sydney Opera House, majestically poised between the Harbour Bridge and the Royal Botanic Garden. Then travel to the top of the Sydney Tower, a 1000 ft. golden minaret-topped spike. From the observation deck you can see all 600 square miles of Sydney.
, Darling Harbour, The Gap, Mrs. Macquarie's Point, Featherdale Wildlife Park, The Rocks, Opera House visit, Bondi Beach visit
Day 13 Sydney Cruise
Sydney harbor cruise
Day 14 Flight Home from Sydney