Canterbury is the largest region on New Zealand's South Island, stretching from the Southern Alps to the Pacific coast. Its capital, Christchurch, is the South Island's biggest city — still rebuilding and reinventing itself after the 2011 earthquake. Beyond the city, the Canterbury Plains are wide and flat, but the western edge rises sharply into the mountains.
The region's highlights include Arthur's Pass National Park, a spectacular alpine crossing between Canterbury and the West Coast, and the TranzAlpine scenic train that makes the crossing daily from Christchurch to Greymouth. To the southwest, Lake Tekapo sits in the Mackenzie Basin with turquoise glacial water under one of the darkest night skies in the Southern Hemisphere, and Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park contains New Zealand's highest peak and its largest glacier. On the east coast, Kaikoura offers year-round sperm whale sightings where the ocean shelf drops sharply offshore. And 85 kilometres from Christchurch, the French-flavoured harbour town of Akaroa on Banks Peninsula makes one of the best day or overnight trips in the region.
