A private guide collects you at 8am for the drive along the Milford Road into Fiordland, with stops along the way. At Milford Sound, a two-hour cruise runs out to the Tasman Sea and back, taking in the fiord’s waterfalls and rainforest-lined cliffs. On the return drive, you walk part of the Routeburn Track up to Key Summit, an 8km return walk with 400m of ascent, taking two and a half to three hours, climbing through forest into alpine herbfield with views over the Hollyford, Eglinton and Greenstone valleys. Picnic lunch included.

After a 1 hour 40 minute drive into Fiordland, the walk follows the Hollyford River through rainforest to Hidden Falls and on to Lake Alabaster, with views of Mt Tutoko and Mt Madeline, Fiordland’s highest peaks. It’s a 20km walk, mostly flat, taking five to six hours, on a wilderness trail rather than a formed Great Walk, with stream crossings and swing bridges. A helicopter collects you at Lake Alabaster for the flight back to Te Anau; if the weather rules out flying, the walk is shortened to Hidden Falls and back, or swapped for another track.

A water taxi crosses Lake Te Anau to Brod Bay, then a 6km walk follows the lakeshore to the Control Gates on a gentle, well-formed section of the Kepler Track, taking around two hours. The guide covers the beech forest ecology and the conservation work underway on the Kepler and surrounding tracks. Shorter options from an hour are available, and the walk suits most fitness levels.

Approximately 5 hours by road, through Lindis Pass or via Queenstown and the Lindis Valley.

A helicopter lands at 1,200m on the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand’s longest, for a two-hour guided walk across fluted ice, runnels and moulins beneath Aoraki/Mt Cook and the rest of the Southern Alps. All ice gear, including boots, crampons and wet-weather layers, is supplied.

A 55-minute ski-plane flight crosses the Main Divide to the West Coast, taking in the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers before recrossing the Southern Alps over the Grand Plateau and Hochstetter Icefall, passing beneath Aoraki/Mt Cook’s east face and over the Tasman Glacier’s terminal lake.

Around an hour’s drive from Mt Cook Village to Lake Tekapo. That evening, the tour departs Tekapo at 10pm for the summit of Mt John, home to the Southern Hemisphere’s most southerly permanent optical observatory. An astronomy guide uses green laser pointers and telescopes up to 16 inches to navigate the night sky, including a look inside the observatory itself, not normally open to the public.

Around 6 hours by road via Christchurch.

A private guide leads a day combining brunch at a cliffside or beachside spot with a walk through bush-filled gullies to views of the Seaward Kaikōura Ranges rising straight out of the Pacific.

A pedal-powered, silent kayak covers the Kaikōura Peninsula coastline in the morning, getting close to New Zealand fur seals (kekeno) both on land and in the water without disturbing them, with the guide covering the area’s history through both Māori and post-colonial whaling and sealing. In the afternoon, a helicopter flight covers the Kaikōura Canyon, where upwelling currents support a year-round population of sperm whales and seasonal humpback, southern right and blue whales, tracking the coastline before an alpine landing in the Seaward Kaikōura Ranges, 1,600m above the sea.

Around 6 to 7 hours by road via Nelson, or by charter flight.

Buffer day, or an optional walk or boat trip into Abel Tasman National Park.

A helicopter flight over Kahurangi National Park, New Zealand’s second largest, lands on the Heaphy Track, an ancient Māori trail linking the mountains to the coast. The walk covers 8km through beech forest, rātā and nīkau palm, flat underfoot, taking two to three hours, with flexible start and end points. The helicopter then continues to Wharariki Beach before a picnic at Boulder Lake, returning over Golden Bay and Abel Tasman National Park.