Otago is one of New Zealand's most backpacker-friendly regions.It's capital,
Dunedin, is a lively student city with a great live music scene.
Otago is often called the golden country due to its gold mining associations,
vivid autumn colours and apricot orchards. The Central Otago region is the only
one to experience a continental climate, having the hottest summers and coldest
winters in New Zealand.
Fiordland National Park, which takes its name from its glacier-carved coast,
is a wilderness of mountains, ice and beech forests. The scenic climax of
Fiordland is undoubtedly Milford Sound where cruise ships bob toy-like beneath
the shadows of towering mountains and waterfalls. There are classic alpine
walks, including the Routeburn Track, the
Hollyford Track and the Milford Track.
Otago Peninsula is a significant wildlife area with woodland gardens,
albatross, penguin and seal colonies, plus aquariums, museums and historic
sites.
There is a series of huge lakes in the area, including Hawea and nearby
Wanaka in Otago, and Lake Te Anau in Southland. Te Anau, gouged out by a huge
glacier, is New Zealand's second-largest lake and features caves full of glow
worms, and waterfalls and whirlpools. The Catlins, the largest remaining area of
native forest on the east coast of the South Island, is between Invercargill and
Dunedin. It has reserves of rarefied plants and trees, plus fauna such as fur
seals, sea lions, penguins and ducks.
Veterans of goldfields in California and Australia, plus many other fortune-seekers from Europe, North
America and China poured into the then Province of Otago, swamping its Scottish
Presbyterian character.
Further gold discoveries at Clyde and on the Arrow River
round Arrowtown led to a boom, and Otago became for a period the cultural and
economic centre of New Zealand, if not of Australasia.
Air Tickets Online -
