New Zealand is the perfect size for backpacking; large enough to offer an apparently limitless array of things to do against a backdrop of mountains, volcanoes and sweeping seascapes; but small enough to navigate easily and blessed with a good transport system.

Fly into Auckland, the City of Sails, then launch yourself into the Bay of Islands or hike the Coromandel Peninsula.

From Hamilton, channel your inner elf on The Hobbit movie set before seeing glowworms in the Waitomo Caves. At Rotorua, you’ll smell the origins of this land in the bubbling sulphur mud pools. The capital Wellington will sell your ferry ticket to the South Island.

After hiking the matchless Abel Tasman National Park, take a chopper onto the Franz Josef glacier; it’s a once in a lifetime so just close your eyes and hand over the credit card.

Queenstown caters for adrenaline junkies, so pack your nerves for a bungee jump as a minimum, then exhale with relief in the incredible Milford Sound; the Fjords here feel so unspoilt, you’ll want to bottle the water and oxygen as an antidote to the fumes of Sliema.

Christchurch is still recovering from the recent earthquakes, but innovative transitional projects here make it a great time to visit. Here’s how to do all that and more in the country the Maori call Aotearoa.

Week one

Before you even arrive in New Zealand, losing a day in the process to the international dateline, you need to decide how you are going to get around as this will influence what accommodation you need. There are five main options: a backpacker bus like www.kiwiexperience.com (a good option for single travellers); a tour like www.flyingkiwi.com (designed for the adventure hungry); intercity buses such as www.nakedbus.com; by renting a campervan from as little as NZ$29 per day with www.mightcampers.co.nz (thus cutting out all accommodation costs); or by buying a car (with a group of four, this is not as barmy as it sounds, especially since cars are well priced and you can sell them again afterwards).

In the winter at Ruapehu, you can ski and snowboard, quite possibly with a plume of volcanic smoke as the backdrop

If you haven’t hired wheels, hop on the airport bus that drops off on Queen Street (NZ$16) or take the shuttle door to door (www.supershuttle.co.nz atNZ29). Try the www.KiwiHotel.co.nz for an incredible central location on Queen Street for the suburban price for around €50 (rooms are very basic but clean).

If you’re expecting a sedate city of museums and galleries, think again. Yes, you can gaze at installations in the Toi o Tamaki art gallery and visit the planetarium. But New Zealand’s biggest city is already desperate to throw you off a high building (it takes you 11 seconds to fall from the Sky Tower at 85km an hour www.skyjump.co.nz), have you horse riding on Muriwai Beach (www.muriwaibeachhorsetreks.co.nz) or taking a whale and dolphin safari (www.explorenz.co.nz) in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

Don’t blow your adventure budget here though as there are plenty of things to do that don’t cost any money. Try climbing Mount Eden, a volcano with wrap-around views of the city or take a free tour of the Auckland Art Gallery. Karekare beach, made famous by the film The Piano is an achingly beautiful must- see spot.

North of Auckland, the Bay of Islands is a good introduction to the misty forests and perfect beaches of this antipodean nation. Base yourself at Paihia and try sailing a catamaran and eating what you can catch on a line. Dolphin sightings are virtually guaranteed if you spend enough time on the water.

From the islands to a peninsula, Coromandel is your next stop. Take a kayak tour to see the coast then dig a hole at Hot Water Beach for an instant volcanic spa experience.

Week two

“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit,” and it’s virtually impossible to avoid him so just get it over with and head to Hobbiton. The set of the movie has been completely rebuilt here so that you too can knock on that distinctive round green door or guzzle an ale in the Green Dragon Inn (adults NZ$75, Youth NZ$38, kids NZ$10, farm stays are also available, www.hobbitontours.com).

Close by are the Waitomo Caves. They’ve got the usual stalactites and what have you, but the bluish lighting down here comes from hundreds and thousands of glowworms. You can combine a visit with black water rafting the caves on an inner tube. Hamilton is a good base for these activities if you don’t want to move accommodation every night.

Bubbling away in the heart of the North Island is Rotorua. Part of the Pacific Rim of Fire, it’s one of the most geothermically active locations in the world and you’ll smell the sulphur before you even see the tendrils of steam curling into the air. The Wai O Tapu Thermal Wonderland is the centerpiece and the location of The Artist’s Palette and Champagne pools, which have technicolour super-heated water. Lady Knox Geyser obligingly erupts here daily.

Many accommodations here will have hot volcanic baths and ovens where you can cook your own food in the ground.

If skirting round the edge of bubbling vats of mud weren’t adventure enough, in the surrounding countryside, the Kiwis have thought up dozens of ways to satiate thrill-seekers. At Agroventures, you can fly unattached on a giant wind column, ride a jet boat, take the Shweeb (a human-powered monorail), roll down a giant hill in a Zorb or else release your own zip cord and plummet down with two friends on the Swoop swing.

Abel Tasman National Park is a magical place whether you’re on foot, swimming in fresh water pools, kayaking with orcas, or skipping between the different bays by water taxi

Continue south to Ruapehu, a volcano that still rumbles on and off, and hike the Tongariro Crossing (eruptions permitting). This 19.4km one-day route will take you over volcanic peaks and past the Soda Springs, Red Crater and Blue Lake. This setting was also home to the Necromancer Lord Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. In the winter, you can ski and snowboard (quite possibly with a plume of volcanic smoke as the backdrop).

The reality is that there’s still a lot to see in the North Island, but unless time and money are no object, you need to press on because missing out the South Island is little short of criminal.

Head to Wellington and make the free Te Papa National Museum your first stop to discover the geological and cultural backdrop to New Zealand.

Nearby, Zealandia is worth a visit; biologists have painstakingly returned 225 hectares of bush to the condition it was in before humans arrived and the native birds are thanking them for it with an orchestra of song. A night tour might afford views of the kiwi. On Wellington’s waterfront, you can walk or cycle to Oriental Bay past cafes, sculptures and markets.

Week three

It’s time to leave now for the peaceful splendor of South Island. Taking the ferry sets the scene, with the three-hour route to Picton touted as one of the most beautiful in the world. Both www.bluebridge.co.nz and www.interislander.co.nz run multiple sailings daily. Passenger fares hover around NZ$51 one-way for a convenient saver sail advance with Bluebridge.

It’s worth heading straight into Marlborough to visit the 40 cellar doors in the region; cycling between tastings is popular. After the Sauvignon Blanc has cleared from your veins, try kayaking through the unspeakably lovely Marlborough Sounds. They were formed when ancient river valleys were flooded by the Pacific and now these tassels of forested land form inlets and bays in which you can lose yourself.

To the west of Picton lies Nelson, gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park. The coastal trail is 51km long and takes three to five days; if you’re not sure whether to go through the bother, just take a glance at images of Onetahuti Beach or Awaroa Inlet.

You can camp or stay in the Department of Conservation huts along the route. This is a magical place whether you’re on foot, swimming in fresh water pools, kayaking with orcas, or skipping between the different bays by water taxi. Fur seals, little blue penguins, whales and dolphins are common sightings. To hike independently, you’ll need a Great Walks Pass (see http://www.doc.govt.nz for details) or you can book your own guided tour in Nelson.

After hiking this ocean trail through temperate forest, it’s time to retreat to the Ice Age. The Franz Josef glacier is a remnant from a colder time, a vast river of ice, slung between two sheer mountain cliffs. Although you can visit alone and view the ice sheet from vantage points, it’s much better to venture onto the glacier itself. To do this, you’ll need a guide and unfortunately, the terminal end face has become unstable (it is retreating alarmingly rapidly), requiring a helicopter ride to reach the ice, which ups the price.

However, the haunting iris blue of the endless frozen water beneath your crampons is unforgettable; it’s really worth splashing out. www.franzjosefglacier.com offer an Ice Explorer trip for NZ$299, which includes a heli trip to the Pinnacles to explore the curling, fluting ice formations as well as entry to the Glacier Hot Pools.

Week four

After all that hiking, Queenstown is the place to take it easy for a couple of days, visiting one of the 120 eateries and taking a guided wine tour. But if you’ve discovered a new taste for adrenaline sports, do not dismay; you can bungee, heli-bike, snowboard, canyon swing and zipline yourself into oblivion too. There’s also the slightly tamer Skyline Gondola for aerial views of the city’s amazing location.

Queenstown is also the departure point for trips to Milford Sound, described by Rudyard Kipling as the 8th Wonder of the World. The Sound is what happens when glaciers melt and the remaining canyons that they carved flood with water. These fjords have cliffs that soar skyward, dwarfing the boat you’ll be viewing from. Waterfalls tumble a full kilometre down and stormy weather only adds to the effect. Jucycruize.co.nz will take you to the Sound by bus and boat from NZ$119. If you’ve got your own wheels, visit the glorious lake of Te Anau and then spend some time hiking Fiordland National Park.

Press on to New Zealand’s most southerly point in Bluff and celebrate with their world famous oysters. Wilderness is everything here, and if you take the short ferry ride from Bluff to Stewart Island, you have a fair chance of seeing Kiwi in the wild.

As you turn north again from Invercargill towards Dunedin, you’ll explore the area known as The Catlins (Waipapa Point to Nugget Point, including Tahakopa and Tautuku Bays). There is gorgeous native coastal forest for hiking and hooker sea lions, fur seals, yellow-eyed penguins and hector dolphins (the smallest in the world) are really easy to spot.

Dunedin might as well be sporting a sporran and a kilt, so Scottish does the Victorian and Edwardian architecture look. The Edinburgh of New Zealand boasts the world’s only mainland breeding colony of royal albatross; you can find them at Taiaroa Head.

From Dunedin to Christchurch is road trip territory; there are just so many fabulous places to stop on the way, so if you haven’t hired a car yet, now could be the time to do it. First stop would be the Orokonui Eco-Sanctuary, which protects some of New Zealand’s native birds and reptiles from the likes of rats and cats, predators introduced by man.

After that, you’ll meander past so many beautiful white beaches that it’s easy to become blasé about them. The Moeraki Boulders will wake you up again. Essentially, they are a bunch of rocks scattered over a beach. But they’re so smooth, so perfectly easy on the eye, so haphazardly placed yet just where they ought to be, that a spirit in the sky with an eye for exterior design seems to be involved. Pull yourself back into the corporeal world with lunch in Oamaru (preferably at the Riverstone Kitchen if your budget will allow) and take a boat out to see the Blue Penguins in the afternoon.

Heading ever northwards, you’ll hit Timaru and the Te Ana Rock Art Centre. The Maori tribe Ngai Tahu calls this area home and the centre is a good place to explore their culture. To find lunch afterwards, visit www.canterburyfoodandwinetrails.co.nz for mouthwatering information on local produce.

Your last stop will be Christchurch. It would perhaps be fitting to start off with an Earthquake tour; the www.redbus.co.nz Rebuild Tour will talk you through the seismic forces that devastated the city in 2010 and again in 2011. You’ll see what is being rebuilt and visit the transitional pop up projects that are literally filling the gaps (such as the Re:Start Mall, Greening the Rubble, Gap Filler and Street Art) and the technology the city is using to try to reduce damage in the future.

The Quake City Exhibition in the Re:Start Mall is also a great way to find out what happened to the city and its inhabitants when the infamous quake struck.

An hour-and-a-half outside the city, the Banks peninsula is a great way to eke out your outdoors lifestyle for as long as possible. It’s a sheltered harbour inside an ancient volcano. The area is dotted with quaint towns and unique shopping.

In the evening, book a show at the www.courttheatre.org.nz, a cultural treasure.

Upcoming productions include the Hound of the Baskervilles and a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then sigh with resignation; your flight home beckons.