Dunedin

A short residential street climbing straight uphill, which Guinness records name the world's steepest. A Welsh street took the title in 2019, and a new survey won it back a year later. The walk up leaves everyone puffing, and most pause once on the way.

A 1906 station built in alternating dark basalt and pale limestone, its floor a mosaic of several hundred thousand porcelain tiles. Regular passenger trains have almost gone and only occasional tourist services leave, but you can walk in at any time.

Every Saturday morning it sets up in the car park beside the railway station. Otago growers bring their own vegetables, meat and cheese, and students and residents after breakfast queue long at the coffee stalls.

An 1870s mansion that the banker Larnach raised on an Otago Peninsula ridge, promoted as New Zealand's only castle. Its tower surveys the harbour to one flank and the open Pacific to the other, and a separate garden-only ticket exists.

Taiaroa Head, the peninsula's outermost point, is the only place in the world where royal albatrosses nest on an inhabited mainland. Nests are watched through the observatory glass, and the birds, with wingspans reaching 3m, fly best on windy afternoons.

A hand-cut stairway tunnel drops through sandstone cliffs to a small sandy cove. Local lore credits an 1870s politician who had it dug so his family could reach the sea. Coming back, the steep ascent eats more time than planned.

A reserve on a farm protecting the endangered yellow-eyed penguin. Walk bent over along trenches and hides cut through the paddocks, and the penguins sit on nests a few steps away. No one goes in alone; entry is only with a guided tour.

A museum of the region's story from Maori settlement through Scottish migration to the gold rush, and entry costs nothing. One room covers a whole wall with portraits of thousands of settlers, and an old steam locomotive stands indoors.

Slide down the dunes on the outer peninsula and sea lions lie on the sand. They run surprisingly fast, so signs ask you to keep more than 10m away, and towards evening people wait in the hide above for yellow-eyed penguins to come ashore.

Dating from 1863, no botanic garden in New Zealand is older, and getting in costs nothing. The aviary up the hill holds native parrots such as kea and kaka, and in spring the rhododendron dell covers the slope in red.

Next to the university campus, this museum's galleries hold skeletons of the extinct giant moa, southern sea life and Maori taonga. In a third-floor tropical forest hundreds of butterflies land on shoulders. It is hot and humid there, so check your coat.

A mansion built in 1906 for the merchant Theomin family, its furniture, paintings and china untouched since. Visitors go round only with a guide. Groups are small and the few daily slots fill fast, so reserve a time.

A surf beach where Dunedin meets the ocean to the south, cafes lining the esplanade. On the rocks at the end sits an outdoor pool of heated seawater, so you swim warm in an Antarctic wind. It opens in summer only; in winter walk the promenade.

An hour's drive north, round boulders as wide as a person is tall sit on the sand of Koekohe Beach. They formed over ages in seabed mud and are exposed as the cliff erodes. Go at low tide to walk among them.

Hilltop forest just 20 minutes by car beyond Dunedin's northern suburbs, ringed by a fence that rats and stoats cannot cross. Kaka parrots fly overhead and tuatara bask in the sun. A guided walk points out birds you would pass alone.

A walled garden built in 2008 by artisans from sister city Shanghai, who shipped over its stones and tiles. Pavilions and bridges circle a pond, and the teahouse pours Chinese tea. A small room tells of the Chinese miners of Otago's gold rush.

A harbour town 90 minutes north whose Victorian warehouses and banks of white limestone crowd one quarter. Old stores hold steampunk displays, bookshops and studios. At dusk little blue penguins come ashore at the harbour colony, so stay into the evening.

An 1870 lighthouse crowning a slender headland on the Catlins coast to the south. Rock islets shaped like gold nuggets line up in the sea below, giving the place its name. Fur seals rest below the cliffs along the path; look down from the rail.