Canterbury, New Zealand

Canterbury is the largest region in the country by area and it runs from the Pacific coast to the highest mountains in Australasia. Christchurch is the rebuilt city at the coast, the Canterbury Plains stretch a hundred and fifty kilometres inland as genuinely flat farmland, and then the Southern Alps rise up with Aoraki/Mount Cook as the highest peak and the Mackenzie Country between them holding Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki with the turquoise glacial water and the darkest night sky in the country. Timaru is the smaller port city to the south and Akaroa on the peninsula is the French-settled bay with the dolphins.

The region's character is farming-scale and genuinely outgoing — the nor'wester wind that comes over the mountains is a real local personality, the ski fields are within two hours of the city, and the population is used to enormous distances between small settlements. The observatory at Tekapo is a genuinely dark-sky reserve.

Expect real mountain and lake content, genuine stargazing talk, and a region where the sky at night is a protected resource.

Nearby: Christchurch Otago Queenstown Dunedin