Australia & New Zealand

Sydney to Auckland | 15 days

Gain a deep understanding of the native and European influences that shape Australia and New Zealand. Learn about Australia’s penal past from a descendant of its first settlers. See the Victorian treasures of Dunedin, the fragrant English gardens of Christchurch and the art deco glories of Napier. Enjoy the sounds of the didgeridoo and watch the captivating dances of the Māori as you immerse yourself in the rich heritage of these southern lands.

Australia, New Zealand & Indonesia

Auckland to Bali (Benoa) | 31 days

Sail from Aotearoa to the Indonesian archipelago on a voyage through diverse cultures. Admire stirring Māori dances and discover Hobart and Sydney’s penal past. See Napier’s art deco glories, Wellington and Christchurch’s scented English gardens, and Dunedin’s Victorian treasures. Immerse in Brisbane’s cosmopolitan flair and the relaxed charms of Darwin. Explore Komodo National Park and Lombock’s artisan villages on this unforgettable journey.

Grand Pacific Explorer

Auckland to Vancouver, British Columbia | 93 days

This 93-day cruise combines Australia & New Zealand, Komodo & the Australian Coast, Bangkok, Bali & Beyond, Southeast Asia & Hong Kong, Far Eastern Horizons and North Pacific Passage. Bridge oceans and continents on our most epic Pacific itinerary yet. Overnight stays in 13 ports help you immerse yourself in a fascinating array of cultures and let you embrace endless opportunities to get to know locals from East to West. It is an enriching journey unlike any other.

Died in the Wool

By Ngaio Marsh

Flossie Rubrick, a highly opinionated and influential Member of the New Zealand Parliament, was last seen heading off to one of the storage sheds on her sheep farm. Three weeks later, she turned up dead and packed in a bale of her own wool. What happened on the night of her disappearance? In the country on counterespionage duty, Inspector Roderick Alleyn is happy to lend a hand.

Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century

By James Belich

This immensely readable book, full of drama and humor as well as scholarship, is a watershed in the writing of New Zealand history. In making many new assertions and challenging many historical myths, it seeks to reinterpret our approach to the past.

Given New Zealand's small population, short history, and great isolation, the history of the archipelago has been saddled with a reputation for mundanity. According to James Belich, however, it is just these characteristics that make New Zealand a historian's paradise: a laboratory whose isolation, size, and recency is an advantage, in which the grand themes of world history are often played out more rapidly, more separately, and therefore more discernably, than elsewhere.

The first of two planned volumes, Making Peoples begins with the Polynesian settlement and its development into the Maori tribes in the eleventh century. It traces the great encounter between independent Maoridom and expanding Europe from 1642 to 1916, including the foundation of the Pakeha, the neo-Europeans of New Zealand, between the 1830s and the 1880s. It describes the forging of a neo-Polynesia and a neo-Britain and the traumatic interaction between them. The author carefully examines the myths and realities that drove the colonialization process and suggests a new living version of one of the most critical and controversial documents in New Zealand's history, the Treaty of Waitangi, frequently descibed as New Zealand's Magna Carta. The construction of peoples, Maori and Pakeha, is a recurring theme: the response of each to the great shift from extractive to sustainable economics; their relationship with their Hawaikis, or ancestors, with each other, and with myth.

Essential reading for anyone interested in New Zealand history and in the history of new societies in general.

Cook: The Extraordinary Sea Voyages of Captain James Cook

Commonly regarded as the greatest sea explorer of all time, James Cook made his three world-changing voyages during the 1770s, at a time when ships were routinely lost around the English coast. He made history by making geography-- sailing through previously unknown southern seas, charting the eastern Australian coast and circumnavigating New Zealand, putting many Pacific islands on the map, and exploring both the Arctic and Antarctic. His men suffered near shipwreck, were ravaged by tropical diseases, and survived frozen oceans; his lieutenants-- including George Vancouver and William Bligh-- became celebrated captains in their own right. Exploits among native peoples combined to make Cook a celebrity and a legend.

Cook is not, however, viewed by all as a heroic figure. Some Hawaiians demonize him as a syphilitic rascist who had a catastrophic effect on local health. Indigenous Australians often see him as the violent dispossessor of their lands. Nicholas Thomas explores Cook's contradictory character as never before, by reconstructing the many sides of encounters that were curious and unusual for Europeans and natives alike. The result of twenty years' research, Thomas's magnificently rich portrait overturns the familiar images of Cook and reveals the fascinating and far more ambiguous figure beneath.

Napier: Portrait of an Art Deco City

The Penguin 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 a full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed the franchise, the movements and the conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. This title 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 colonizing New Zealand were essentially humane; and that Maori, far from being passive victims of a "fatal impact", coped heroically with colonization and survived by selectively accepting and adapting what Western technology and culture had to offer. The latter part of the book reveals how an insulated and dependent British colony transformed itself into an independent nation, open to and competing with technological and cultural influences sweeping the globe.

A Concise History of New Zealand

New Zealand was the last major landmass, other than Antarctica, to be settled by humans. The story of this rugged and dynamic land is beautifully narrated, from its origins in Gondwana some 80 million years ago to the twenty-first century. Philippa Mein Smith highlights the effects of the country's smallness and isolation, from its late settlement by Polynesian voyagers and colonisation by Europeans and the exchanges that made these people Maori and Pakeha to the dramatic struggles over land and recent efforts to manage global forces. A Concise History of New Zealand places New Zealand in its global and regional context. It unravels key moments the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Anzac landing at Gallipoli, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior showing their role as nation-building myths and connecting them with the less dramatic forces, economic and social, that have shaped contemporary New Zealand.

The Patriarch

Lee Tamahori

This film is based on the novel Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies by Witi Ihimaera. Set in the 1960s, with breathtaking views of the east coast of New Zealand, The Patriarch tells the story of two Māori sheepshearing families, the Poatas and the Mahanas—bitter enemies who must find their way through adversity. Originally titled Mahana. Filmed in Auckland.

The Piano

Jane Campion

Ada and her young daughter move to New Zealand for Ada’s arranged marriage. When Ada’s husband sells her beloved piano to their neighbor, George, she is heartbroken. But George offers Ada a chance to earn her piano back by giving him piano lessons. Filmed in Auckland.

Boy

Taika Waititi

This film is about Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his grandmother, his brother and a goat. When Boy’s grandmother goes away for a week, his absent father, whom he had idealized, shows up looking for a bag of money that he buried years earlier. Filmed in New Zealand.

The World’s Fastest Indian

Roger Donaldson

This biographical drama is about Burt Munro (1899–1978), a New Zealand motorcycle racer. Burt has tinkered on his 1920 Indian motorcycle for 25 years with the dream of taking it to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to see how fast it can go. When he is diagnosed with heart disease, he mortgages his home and charms his way to Utah. Filmed in multiple locations including Auckland, New Zealand; Timaru, New Zealand; and the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah.

An Angel at My Table

Jane Campion

This biographical drama tells the story of Nene Janet Paterson Clutha, a New Zealand author who published under the name Janet Frame. The third of five children, Janet endured many hardships as a child, including the drownings of her two adolescent sisters and the epileptic seizures suffered by her brother, George. Confined to a mental institution for several years, she became successful when she started writing stories. Filmed in multiple locations including Auckland, New Zealand; Catalonia, Spain; London, England; and Paris, France.

Whale Rider

Niki Caro

When 11-year-old Pai is certain that she is destined to become the new chief of the Whangara people, a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, she must go up against her grandfather, Koro, who is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Filmed in New Zealand.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Taika Waititi

When young Ricky Baker is sent to live in the country with his Aunt Bella and Uncle Hec because of his defiant behavior, he and Hec clash. So, when Bella unexpectedly passes away, Ricky runs away into the wild New Zealand bush, followed closely behind by Hec. Filmed in multiple locations throughout New Zealand.

When a City Falls

Gerard Smyth

After two earthquakes killed 185 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, the beautiful city and the Canterburians were devastated. This documentary shares the accounts of people who lived through the earthquakes, as well as their inspiring determination to recover and rebuild. Filmed in Christchurch.

Without a Paddle

Steven Brill

When three friends are reunited at the funeral of a childhood friend, they discover a trunk that includes information about $200,000 that went missing along with airplane hijacker D. B. Cooper in 1971. The three friends decide to continue their friend’s quest, but are unaware of the impending dangers they will face. Filmed in various locations throughout New Zealand including Rotorua and Wellington.

Pirates of the Airwaves

Charlie Haskell

This drama is about Radio Hauraki, New Zealand’s “boat that rocked.” Radio Hauraki was a pirate radio station that broadcast in international waters from a boat called Tiri from 1966 through 1970, when the station began to broadcast on land. Filmed in Auckland.

Avatar

James Cameron

Paraplegic Marine Jake Sully offers to take his recently deceased brother’s place on a mission to the distant world of Pandora. Once there, he discovers that the mission is based on greed. As Jake bonds with the native Na’vi people of Pandora, he finds himself falling in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri. Filmed in multiple locations including Wellington, New Zealand.