New Zealand cuisine features fresh Pacific seafood, lamb, and dairy products with strong Maori and Pacific influences. Green-lipped mussels, Bluff oysters, crayfish, and blue cod are regional specialities. The hangi, a traditional Maori earth oven feast, is a cultural dining experience. The craft beer and wine scene is world-class, with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Central Otago Pinot Noir among the finest globally. Farm-to-table dining and artisan food producers are abundant throughout both islands.

Fiordland Lodge Te Anau

Distinction Te Anau Hotel

South Sea Hotel Stewart Island

The Rees Queenstown

Fiordland and Stewart Island represent the pinnacle of New Zealand's unique diving, offering an underwater experience found nowhere else on Earth. The fiords of Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound, and Dusky Sound feature a remarkable phenomenon where a layer of dark, tannin-stained freshwater sits atop the saltwater, creating low-light conditions that allow deep-water species to thrive at extraordinarily shallow depths. Black coral trees, normally found below 100 metres, grow at just 10 to 30 metres in the fiords, making this the world's shallowest black coral forest. Red rock lobsters, blue cod, spiny sea dragons, and colourful nudibranchs populate the fiord walls in a surreal underwater landscape. Stewart Island, New Zealand's third-largest island, delivers pristine kelp forests at Ulva Island Marine Reserve with huge blue cod, wrasse, pipefish, weedy seadragons, and yellow-eyed penguins swimming underwater. The subantarctic Snares Islands, accessible only by expedition, offer massive kelp, fur seals, sea lions, and penguins in waters of extraordinary clarity. This is diving at its most wild and unique, combining geological phenomena, rare species, and pristine wilderness in a landscape of dramatic fiords and remote islands.

Fiordland & Stewart Island

Drive from Queenstown approximately 4 hours to Milford Sound or ferry from Bluff to Stewart Island

Dive Sites in Fiordland & Stewart Island