From Australia’s Gold Coast to New Zealand’s South Island

You’ll meet your Program Instructors in Brisbane for orientation, then take the ferry to Stradbroke Island and camp at Minjerribah. A culture tour with Nyanda is followed by a First Nations tour: four-wheel driving to paint a boomerang to take home, bush tracks and morning tea at a billabong, then an afternoon of sandboarding. After the Hells Gate walk in Noosa we cross to K’gari, the world’s largest sand island, staying at a beachfront eco retreat. We swim in freshwater lakes, walk inland tracks through towering forest and end the days with campfires and stargazing.

• Orientation
• Culture
• Sandboarding

A day at Australia Zoo includes the Wildlife Warriors croc show, and a surf awareness session with Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving prepares us for the beaches ahead. From Binna Burra Campground we choose from several hikes in Lamington National Park. In Byron Bay we camp at Broken Head and kayak with Cape Byron Kayaks from Clarks Beach out to the Cape, looking for dolphins at Wategos Beach. Then we drive to Crescent Head and start our service with Maratus, planting trees on a property that holds 25% of the region’s remaining original rainforest.

• Wildlife
• Hiking
• Kayaking

Our service with Maratus continues. We may meet a landowner in Kempsey and help remove invasive weeds, and meet Aboriginal community members who teach weaving with lomandra grass, clay sculpture and sand art with natural materials. Then come three days of surf lessons with Crescent Surf, with two two-hour lessons each day. We drive to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a full day of canyoning: after learning abseiling skills, we hike, scramble, swim and abseil through an introductory canyon.

• Conservation
• Surfing
• Canyoning

We hike in the Blue Mountains straight from our hostel, where the trails range from short cliff-top walks to full-day outings. Then we head down the coast to The Crossing in Bermagui, our base for the next few days. Here we spend a permaculture design experience day, a Landcare day, and a bushfire prevention and wildlife tour at Potoroo Palace. A forest regeneration day and an overnight hike wrap up our time in Bermagui before we drive north to Sydney and settle into Pacific House.

• Hiking
• Permaculture
• Conservation

After a day exploring Sydney we fly to Auckland and spend the night at Ōrewa. In Paihia a two-and-a-half-hour educational tour of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds looks at the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its significance in New Zealand today. The next day is choose your own adventure: kayaking, biking or snorkeling, with a budget to pick your activities. Then we head to Tawharanui Regional Park, where we camp and begin conservation work with Auckland City Council, such as invasive species trapping, with optional kiwi spotting in the evenings.

• History
• Adventure
• Conservation

Two more days of conservation at Tawharanui, then we travel to Rotorua to stay at Paruaharanui Marae, with an introduction to Māori culture and the marae. We raft with Rotorua Rafting on the Kaituna River, over Tutea Falls, at 7 metres the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world, and ride self-guided mountain bike trails with Planet Bike. Then the student-led section begins: as a group you look at the budget and time available and decide how to spend your days.

• Culture
• Rafting
• Student-led

The student-led section ends in Wellington with a night tour of Zealandia, an urban conservation project restoring native ecosystems and wildlife in a predator-free valley. The next day we walk from Te Papa along the waterfront to Parliament. An early ferry takes us to the South Island and Nelson, and our four-day backpacking expedition in Kahurangi begins at Cobb Reservoir. Over the next days we scramble under a waterfall, work as a team to climb up into a cave, cross a limestone plateau to a rock overhang campsite, and tramp to Balloon Hut in the dark for some stargazing.

• City
• Tramping
• Teamwork

Our final expedition day crosses the tops from Balloon Hut past Lake Peel to Trilobite Hut and out to the road end, then we drive back to Nelson for a recovery day. At Lake Rotoiti we spend three days on conservation projects with the Tasman Environmental Trust, helping protect native wildlife in the Nelson Tasman region. After a day exploring Nelson we start down the West Coast to Punakaiki, with hikes and beaches along the way.

• Tramping
• Conservation
• Exploration

We continue down the coast to Franz Josef for a day to explore, then travel to Queenstown, camping at Lake Moke, for another day of exploration. In Wanaka we spend two days on outdoor rock climbing lessons, learning climbing technique, belaying and rappelling. Then we set off on our second tramping trip, a two-night hiking expedition, often to Mount Aspiring Hut. The weather can be unsettled, so it sometimes becomes a one-night trip.

• Exploration
• Climbing
• Tramping

We hike out from the expedition and travel to Snowdon Station, a high-country sheep and beef station near Lake Coleridge, staying in the Shearer’s Quarters. Here we meet the dogs, watch a herding demonstration and see other parts of the working farm. We hold our program wrap at the station. On the way to Christchurch we stop for short walks at Arthur’s Pass, then share a last dinner before the program ends at Christchurch Airport.

• Farm life
• Hiking
• Program wrap