Haere Mai (Maori Welcome) to my tryst with New Zealand. The isolated island country, which in my opinion is a blend of the most scenic countries I have been to including Germany, Switzerland and Scotland.

While planning my trip to New Zealand, I wasn’t sure of what this country was going to be like, but landing at this scenic airstrip surrounded by the water on three sides at the Auckland Airport, did away with my suspicion.

We (my mom, dad and me) had gone to New Zealand for a two week long break and still felt that it was less. This country has got so much to offer to tourists, that even a month won’t be enough to explore it through and through.

We landed in Auckland and spent a week there in the Manukau region with my masi. We did all that we could in Auckland, other than Bungee Jumping (of course). We visited an underground aquarium where I got the chance to see Penguins and giant sting rays. We also explored the downtown area, and the Burger King there is simply superb. I suggest you try out their local fizzy drink, LP. We later visited Rotorua which is a small town, but houses something really great; Hot Geysers and Mud Pools. Here we went to a local park called Te Puia which had in a very rustic way preserved and exhibited these geysers and mud pools. Hot geysers are actually caused due to geothermal activity and can shoot water up to a height of 20m. This was indeed a very long day, as Rotorua is a good 4 hour drive from Auckland. The next day we got the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit a dormant volcano island called Rangitoto. This small island is only 600 years old and has no soil as it takes soil some 1000 years to get formed. But, quite surprisingly it had dense vegetation almost similar to a Rain Forest.[gallery]

After spending a memorable week in Auckland we flew down to Queenstown to unravel the mysteries of the South Island of New Zealand. The Queenstown airport is one of the most scenic airports you can come across. It shares one boundary with a golf course, the other with a grazing ground and another with the Remarkables Mountain Range. Queenstown is rated as one of the most scenic places on earth. From here we went to Glenorchy, where many famous motion pictures like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and 10000 BC have been shot. The drive to Glenorchy is rated as one of the most scenic drives in the world. Here the clouds had virtually come down to the ground level and we had fantastic views of snow caped peaks. We went to a small town called Arrowstown which was famous for Gold Mining and had a population of only three thousand residents. On the last leg of our trip we visited Milford Sound which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This place had fjords and in the ice age was known to have about three thousand feet of snow.

Having talked about my journey to New Zealand, I am sure you would have realized the exclusivity and uniqueness about this lovely island.

I would seriously recommend to all passionate travelers a visit to New Zealand to get enchanted and experience nature untouched by humans.

Raghav Mittal

www.raghav1995@gmail.com