Renowned for its otherworldly vistas—featured in The Lord of the Rings trilogy—New Zealand is comprised of two main landmasses, the North Island and the South Island, and more than 700 smaller islands. The South Pacific nation's inhabitants, referred to as "Kiwis," are known to offer visitors a friendly welcome. On its shores, past and present seamlessly intertwine, with treasures from the original Māori settlers dotting the landscape, alongside beautiful colonial-era buildings like Christchurch Cathedral and the stunning art deco architecture of the seaport city of Napier.
Find a Cruise to New Zealand
Viking.TV episodes featuring New Zealand (3)
Discover our Australia & New Zealand itinerary with Kim Vaughan
Join Kim Vaughan, Commercial Manager for Australia at Viking, for an insightful overview of our Australia & New Zealand ocean itinerary. Bookended by Syd...
At home in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty with guide Graeme Crossman
Enjoy a local perspective of life in New Zealand with Graeme Crossman, a knowledgeable Viking guide. In this enriching tour, Graeme shows us around the beaut...
Wine Wednesday (New Zealand) with Amanda Johnson of Spy Valley Wines
In this week's episode of Wine Wednesdays, Bartholomew Broadbent is joined by Amanda Johnson, the managing director of Spy Valley Wines, for an enlightening...
Viking Journeys that include New Zealand (6)
Sydney - Auckland
Australia & New Zealand Holiday
Australia, New Zealand & Indonesia
Auckland - Bali
Grand Pacific Explorer
Auckland - Vancouver
Viking World Journeys
Los Angeles - London
Viking World Cruise
Ft. Lauderdale - London
Filmography (11)
Explore Australia and New Zealand with Viking
Hosted by Kim Vaughan
Join Kim Vaughan, Commercial Manager for Australia at Viking, for an insightful overview of our Australia & New Zealand ocean itinerary. Bookended by Sydney and Auckland, this 15-day journey lets you experience the vibrant cultures of the "Land Down Under" while exploring remarkable cities and breathtaking natural wonders. Viewers' questions will be answered by Kim, but should you have any additional questions following this presentation, we welcome you to reach out to us at vikingfamily@viking.com.
Explore New Zealand with Viking
Hosted by Graeme Crossman
Enjoy a local perspective of life in New Zealand with Graeme Crossman, a knowledgeable Viking guide. In this enriching tour, Graeme shows us around the beautiful Matakana Island, the Bay of Plenty and beyond, offering insights into Māori culture and traditions while also introducing us to some of his favorite views.
See Featured Wines Explore New Zealand with Viking
Hosted by Bartholomew Broadbent
In this week's episode of Wine Wednesdays, Bartholomew Broadbent is joined by Amanda Johnson, the managing director of Spy Valley Wines, for an enlightening conversation on the history of winemaking in New Zealand. Watch as these two wine aficionados discuss Spy Valley's beginnings, core values and tradition of excellence. Following the conversation, Bartholomew and Amanda sample some of Spy Valley's wines and answer viewers' questions during the livestream.
Sydney - Auckland | 15 days
Gain deep insight into the native and European cultures of Australia and New Zealand. Hear about Sydney's and Hobart's penal past from a descendant of Australia's first settlers. Admire the Victorian treasures of Dunedin, the fragrant English gardens of Christchurch and Wellington and the art deco glories of Napier. Enjoy the earthy sounds of the didgeridoo and the thrilling dances of the Māori. Only Viking brings you this close to the "Land Down Under."
Spend your holidays delving deeply into the cultures of Australia and New Zealand. Hear about Sydney's and Hobart's penal past from a descendant of Australia's first settlers. Admire the Victorian treasures of Dunedin, the fragrant English gardens of Christchurch and Wellington and the art deco glories of Napier. Enjoy the earthy sounds of the didgeridoo and the thrilling dances of the Māori, and admire the countries' festive traditions and yuletide charm.
Auckland - Bali | 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.
Auckland - Vancouver | 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.
Los Angeles - London | 121 days
Join us for a grand voyage of discovery as you cruise from Los Angeles to England's majestic capital. Explore the picturesque isles of French Polynesia and cross the South Pacific to New Zealand and Australia. Immerse yourself in Asia's cultural treasures and sail the Arabian Sea to behold ancient antiquities of the Middle East. Overnights in 11 destinations allow you to fully experience local life in some of the world's most inspiring cities.
Ft. Lauderdale - London | 138 days
Set sail on board Viking Neptune as she traverses the globe. Explore the world's majestic cities and immerse yourself in local cultures during overnight stays in 11 ports. Discover the idyllic isles and the faraway lands of the South Pacific and the colonial treasures of Asia. From the Arabian Peninsula to the Red Sea, witness several millennia of history and revel in the romance of Paris before arriving in London, England's iconic capital.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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