Of mangroves and mountains

And if you ever want to get an idea how small the world is, get on a flight for New Zealand, and emerge jet-lagged into a country where the TV is full of repeats of old BBC sitcoms, the Queen's head is on the coins, Atomic Kitten are in the charts and even the road signs look the same.

But one look at the cloudless blue sky and the volcanic hills as we landed in the sprawling city of Auckland quickly brought home the uniqueness of the place.

The thing with New Zealand is that it manages to pack a kind of edited highlights of all the good bits of the rest of the world into its two compact islands.

Alps, fjords, snow-capped volcanoes, geysers, glaciers, sub-tropical islands, cloud-veiled rainforest that wouldn't look out of place in Darkest Africa, enough untamed wilderness to impress even Australians and Americans - never mind Brits averse to the sight of open space - no wonder they don't have room for many people. And no wonder also that the inhabitants like the outdoor life.

An isolated island nation, NZ is home to any amount of unique plant and bird life - not to mention 48 million sheep - hence their paranoia about agricultural diseases getting in. Forget drugs, at Auckland airport the sniffer dogs are more worried about illegal fruit lurking in backpacks.

Even though our summer is their winter, winter felt more like a mild British autumn, with clear, cool sunny days massively outnumbering the rainy ones during our August visit - although apparently that was out of the ordinary. In fact, the lack of rain was causing power cuts on the South Island, whose main source of energy is hydroelectric reservoirs.

It's a surprise that the variety of the landscape hasn't sent more film producers heading down under in search of location shots. Instead, it's a homegrown director, Peter Jackson, who will be making a star of the NZ scenery as the backdrop to his blockbuster production of fantasy epic The Lord Of The Rings, due out later this year.

As so much of NZ is devoid of people, it's a case of seeing it from the road, and if time is tight, as it is for most people with limited holidays and limited local knowledge, a lot of people opt for coach tours as the best way to get a good taste of the place. We'd booked with Contiki, who operate budget coach tours of up to two weeks, aimed at young independent travellers aged up to 35, and despite fears of it being a nightmarish hybrid of Saga and Club 18-30, it proved to be good fun and good value. The schedule was pretty relentless, with a lot of hard driving, but you got to see an awful lot of New Zealand, and the deal included discount packages on plenty of activities, from skiing to glacier walking to white-water rafting, to chucking yourself off bridges on the end of a big rubber band (yes, this is the country that invented the bungee jump and countless other ways to try and kill yourself). A lot of people travelling independently used the tour to get a taste of the place, before heading off at leisure to explore further or spend time skiing or hiking, activities to which NZ lends itself.

Our first port of call was the far North and the lovely Bay of Islands, first charted, like much of NZ, by that adventurous Yorkshireman Captain Cook.

The steep-sided volcanic rock of the bay's myriad tiny islands, some the holiday retreats of the wealthy, others owned by the nation, and the inland mangrove swamps and vegetation like something out of the age of the dinosaurs, make it a unique place and the obvious destination for anyone seeking a beach-side break in the summer. Frequent boat cruises run around the bay and through the famous Hole In The Rock.

Heading back southwards, Auckland may be NZ's only real metropolis, but once you've enjoyed the view from the Sky Tower of its famous harbour, and visited the America's Cup village, it didn't seem that inspiring a city, really, though the Polynesian and Asian communities give it a Pacific feel you don't find elsewhere in the islands. I much preferred the smaller but more vibrant capital Wellington, spread around a harbour on the southern tip of the North Island.

The most striking features of the North Island are around its volcanic heart, the evil-smelling geysers and hot springs of Rotorua, sacred to the Maori people, the glassy expanse of Lake Taupo, which was once a mountain, until it blew itself apart a few thousand years ago (and the volcano is still ticking over, down in the freezing depths). And most memorably, the epic drive through the Tongariro National Park along the Desert Road, a vast arid plain dominated by two giant solitary mountains, the snow-capped volcanoes of Mount Ruapehu and the perfectly conical Mount Ngaurohoe.

Reaching the larger, more spectacular and less populated South Island by ferry, the country takes on a more dramatic, mountainous aspect, heavily scarred by glaciers and rising to snow-covered peaks, looking at times almost like the Highlands of Scotland - if someone had dropped the Alps on it. The distinctive intertwining shallow rivers in the wide, flat valley floors led to the invention of another Kiwi way of threatening life and limb, the jet boat, which can operate at high speed in only a few inches of water.

Speaking of adrenaline, Queenstown, a compact and lively resort town set among stunning Alpine scenery, offers easy access to skiing, snowboarding, white-water rafting, skydiving, hang gliding, bungee jumping and possibly not jam making or knitting. Even on a tight budget, we spent a day falling over on the nursery slopes on Coronet Peak, and another braving the icy rapids of the Shotover River on a raft, both of which were great experiences.

Elsewhere, the terrain flattens off for the English-flavoured city of Christchurch, and the Canterbury Plains, which do look amazingly like the British countryside, in fact, the Vale of York.

The Fjordland National Park illustrates why New Zealand's Maori name, Aotearoa, translates as The Land Of The Long White Cloud, with its sheer, rainforest-covered, waterfall-streaked mountain walls permanently veiled in cloud. From Milford Sound, the most famous of the fjords, you get some idea of how Cook's crew might have felt as they sailed between the brooding walls of the inlet, into an unknown land.

Fact file:

Tourism New Zealand official website: http://www.purenz.com includes comprehensive links for accommodation, coach tours, car hire, buses, trains etc

New Zealand government website: http://www.govt.nz

Contiki coach tours http://www.contiki.com (New Zealand Grand Explorer tour, 15 nights including coach travel, accommodation and some meals, from £485. Shorter tours are available)

Backpacker hostel information: http://www.backpack.co.nz

Recommended guidebook: Lonely Planet New Zealand www.lonelyplanet.com

Getting there: Check out http://www.cheapflights.com https://www.booking.airtickets.co.uk for good deals