Train tour inspired by Sir Edmund Hillary

A new South Island train tour is set to take passengers through a Kiwi mountaineering legend’s backyard as part of an ongoing big to boost domestic tourism.

Pounamu Tourism Group have created the 13-day rail journey around the Southern Alps, dubbed ‘‘The Sir Edmund Hillary Explorer’’, which will depart in March 2022.

Passengers will travel the length of Te Waipounamu in heritage trains, staying in Marlborough, Kaiko¯ura, Christchurch, Aoraki/Mount Cook and Dunedin along the way.

From Marlborough to Kaiko¯ura, passengers will be hauled by the historic WW1 memorial steam locomotive Ab608 Passchendaele.

South of Kaiko¯ura, the rail journey will continue with two heritage DA locomotives built in the early 1950s, which will travel in double-header formation all the way to Invercargill.

Upon reaching Invercargill, the tour will travel inland via luxury coach, taking in Te Anau, Milford Sound, Queenstown and Franz Josef.

The inland section of the tour will also feature a return journey on the iconic Kingston Flyer steam train, which is returning to commercial operation for the first time since 2013.

The journey will conclude with the famous TranzAlpine rail journey, crossing the Southern Alps from Greymouth to Christchurch.

Peter Hillary, the son of the famous mountaineer, said many of the tours stops had some sort of significance to his father.

While training with the Royal New Zealand Air Force in Marlborough during World War II,

Sir Ed scaled his first ‘‘decent’’ mountain – Marlborough’s highest peak, Mt Tapuaeo-Uenuku – solo.

In Christchurch, the tour would visit the International

Antarctic Centre to learn about Sir Ed’s expedition to the South Pole, crossing Antarctica using converted farm tractors.

Hillary would join the group at Aoraki/Mt Cook and speak about his father’s many climbs, including his first ascent of the Hillary Ridge, which can be seen from Mt Cook Village.

‘‘The Southern Alps is where the Hillarys have always gone for adventure and mountaineering challenges and this circumnavigation of our great mountain range takes the tour to some of the most spectacular,’’ Hillary said.

Pounamu Tourism Group, which operate the Marlborough Flyer steam train, last year launched a ‘‘Great Southern Steam Train Tour’’ as a way of boosting business, which had been hit by Covid-19 and the lack of cruise ships.

The first train tour departed in April 2021.

Kaiko¯ura mayor Craig Mackle said that tour had been a boon to the town.

’’The last time the great southern train tour came through Kaiko¯ura, the direct spend in town had an immediate positive outcome for our hotels, hospitality providers and our excursion operators like our famous Whale Watch tours,’’ he said.

‘‘The Sir Edmund Hillary Explorer will be a welcome sight to our region, and we hope will visit more regularly’’.

Bookings for the tour are now open, with departures from Wellington, Blenheim and Christchuch.

Tours departing Blenheim cost $6650 per person, while tours departing Wellington and Christchurch cost $6950.