9 Day Southern Sensation - Premier Escorted Motorcoach Tour!

9 Day Southern Sensation

Premier Escorted Motorcoach Tour!

This 9 Day tour of discovery will reveal to you the highlights of New Zealand's South Island in unparalleled style. Admire the majesty of Franz Josef Glacier, traverse the spectacular Southern Alps and enjoy two days to absorb the wonder of Queenstown.
Your 9 Day Southern Sensation sightseeing highlights:

* Enjoy Freedom of Choice Touring in Queenstown, Dunedin and Mt Cook
* Visit World Heritage-listed Westland National Park and Franz Josef Glacier
* See the picturesque lakes of Wanaka and Hawea
* Spend time in delightful Arrowtown
* Discover the alpine resort of Queenstown, on Lake Wakatipu
* Cruise the length of Milford Sound
* Visit Dunedin, the Edinburgh of the South
* Spend some time in breathtaking Mt Cook National Park
* Visit picturesque Lake Tekapo and the tiny Church of the Good Shepherd

Your 9 Day Southern Sensation includes:

* 8 Nights First Class Accommodations
* 15 Meals for Meal Plan, 10 Meals for the B&B Plan
* Services of the same experiences Tour Director throughout

5 Day Cairns, Great Barrier Reef

Spend 5 days exploring the sights of Far North Queensland from the city of Cairns. Highlights include, a full day cruise on the Great Barrier Reef, a Skyrail Cableway tour above the rainforest canopy to Kuranda and a river cruise through the rainforest wilderness of the Daintree.

Your 5 Day Cairns, Great Barrier Reef sightseeing highlights:

* Kuranda Skyrail journey over rainforest
* Pamagirri Aboriginal Dancers performance
* Take a guided Dreamtime Walk
* Stay three nights in tropical Cairns
* Transfers to and from the airport
* Cape Tribulation National Park

Enjoy this amazing 5 day independent vacation from Celtic Tours

Uluru

Rising 1142 ft nearly vertical from the vast and remote Australian Outback, Uluru, aka Ayers Rock, is a living testament to the heart of the Aboriginal culture. Uluru is an inselberg, literally "island mountain", an isolated remnant left after the slow erosion of an original mountain range. It is often referred to as a monolith.

Uluru is one of Australia’s most recognizable natural icons, attracting more than 500,000 visitors per year. Stand in front of Ayers Rock, and you can see why. For many Outback travelers this is the most anticipated moment of their Australia vacation. With many springs, waterholes, rock caves and ancient paintings, Uluru is well worth the visit.

Uluru is notable for appearing to change color as the different light strikes it at different times of the day and year, with sunset a particularly remarkable sight when it briefly glows red. Although rainfall is uncommon in this semiarid area, during wet periods the rock acquires a silvery-grey color, with streaks of black algae forming on the areas that serve as channels for water flow. Uluru is naturally grey, but the iron content of the rock is "rusting" at the surface, resulting in the distinctive red iron oxide coating.

Archaeological findings to the east and west indicate that humans settled in the area more than 10,000 years ago. Uluru has great cultural significance for the Anangu Traditional landowners, who led walking tours to inform visitors about the local flora and fauna, bush foods and the Aboriginal dreamtime stories of the area.

The Aboriginal dreamtime stories refer to a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation. According to the Anangu: “The world was once a featureless place. None of the places we know existed until creator beings, in the forms of people, plants and animals, traveled widely across the land. Then, in a process of creation and destruction, they formed the landscape as we know it today. Anangu land is still inhabited by the spirits of dozens of these ancestral creator beings which are referred to as Tjukuritja or Waparitja.”

When visiting please note that the Anangu request that visitors do not photograph certain sections of Uluru. These areas are the sites of gender-linked rituals, and are forbidden ground for Anangu of the opposite sex of those participating in the rituals in question. The photographic ban is intended to prevent Anangu from inadvertently violating this taboo by encountering photographs of the forbidden sites in the outside world.

If you have never been to the Australian Outback, be prepared for a fantastic adventure. Let Celtic Tours plan your Australian Adventure or choose from one of our many Australian Escorted Tours.

Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island: a place of pristine beauty, amazing wildlife, rich history and gastronomic adventures. When visiting Australia, Kangaroo Island is well worth a visit. Kangaroo Island is Australia’s third largest island after Tasmania and Melville’s Island and is 70 miles southwest of Adelaide at the entrance of Gulf St. Vincent. Kangaroo Island is a touring choice on a number of Celtic Tours South Pacific Vacations including our new 16 Day DownUnder Explorer.

Kangaroo Island was once a part of mainland Australia, but was separated by a rise in sea level over 9,000 years ago. Stone tools found suggest that Aboriginal people occupied Kangaroo Island at least 11,000 years ago, but disappeared in 200 BC.

Kangaroo Island, with its lush, fertile lands, produces some of Australia’s finest gourmet foods. Gastronomic adventurers will be amazed for the likes of freshly caught King George Whiting, sheep’s cheese, marron, an exciting range of varietal wines and a unique variety of honey. In fact, Kangaroo Island is famous for its honey and for being the oldest bee sanctuary in the world. Ligurian honey bees were brought here from Italy. The bees flourished and are the only surviving Ligurian honey bees after disease killed all Ligurian honey bees in Italy.

Native bushland, pristine beaches, dense forest, soaring cliffs and towering sand dunes make up some of the intense natural beauty of Kangaroo Island. The wildlife on Kangaroo Island will astound you: sea lions basking on white beaches, koalas dozing in lofty eucalypts, pelicans soaring over shimmering lagoons.

If all that is not enough, take in the rich history, the thriving arts community or tour its spectacular lighthouses. It is not hard to see why Kangaroo Island is one of South Australia's most popular tourist attractions, with over 140,000 visitors each year.

Visit Kangaroo Island with Celtic Tours. We offer options visits on a number of our South Pacific Vacations, including our new 16 Day DownUnder Explorer escorted motorcoach tour.

Te Puia Cultural Centre Experience

Gushing waters, steaming vents, boiling mud pools, spectacular geysers and traditional Maori culture breathes at the Te Puia Cultural Centre in New Zealand, a place of powerful energies and Maori beauty. The mission at Te Puia is "To be the centre of knowledge and excellence for the preservation, presentation, education and growth of traditional expressions of Māori arts, crafts and culture".The following are just a few of the Te Puia experiences.

Every day in Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley geysers erupt, mud pools bubble and steam hisses. Over 500 pools and 65 geyser vents, each with their own name, are found in the Te Whakarewarewa geothermal valley in Rotorua.

The most famous geyser in the Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley in Rotorua, is the awe-inspiring Pohutu Geyser, meaning big splash or explosion. Pohutu erupts up to 100 foot high and up to 20 times per day.

The Pā, commonly referred to today as ‘marae’, is the centre of Māori tribal society and wellbeing. A marae is the traditional meeting place of a tribe. It is where people come to talk, sing and dance, pray, host guests, wed and weep for their dead.

Maori performance art, kappa haka, is one the most entertaining forms of storytelling. Posture dance, song and rhythmic movements of the poi (a light ball on a string), action songs and traditional chants tell the ancient and recent history and stories of the Maori people.

Thanks to the carving and weaving schools at Te Puia, sacred meeting houses across New Zealand have been restored and woven art has been exhibited overseas. But most of all, the ancient teachings of our ancestors have been preserved and continue to thrive.

Pikirangi Māori village was built at Te Puia as a snapshot into pre-European Māori society. The village includes whare punga (houses made from punga trees), waka maumahara (canoe cenotaphs), pātaka (food storage houses), and an array of food cooking and preparation techniques including the traditional Māori hangi (earth oven) pit and drying racks.

Whether you come to the Te Puia Cultural Centre for the natural beauty of the boiling mud pools and spectacular geysers, to learn about the ancient Maori culture or to be entertained by the kappa haka, you will not be disappointed. Join Celtic Tours on a South Pacific Vacation to learn more about the exciting natural beauty and cultural history of New Zealand on our 24 Day Southern Explorer.