So the school holidays are over and next time you would like to do something different. Something away from the milling, madding mall crowd.

Or a change from regional resort retreats. Fresh and green New Zealand appeals, and there are some good deals around for the end-of-year holidays.

GO WITH THE GRAIN: Barrels of Wilsons whisky awaits in a former grain warehouse in Oamaru's historic district.

But hang on, isn't it a place for adventure junkies? And you don't have the stomach for extreme sports like bungee jumping, snowboarding or white-water rafting.

Well, you can still enjoy thrills without the spills and take in some rugged, raw soul-cleansing scenery at the same time.

Just venture away from the well-known South Island tourist destinations like Central Otago's Queenstown to the unheralded North Otago region.

You may not have heard of it, but you may have seen it. Its landscapes and eccentric local people have been in movies like Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) and the Chronicles Of Narnia series. Some parts of the BBC's TV series Kidnapped were filmed there. And one of the region's seafood restaurants - Fleurs, located in the tiny village of Moeraki - has appeared on cable TV here.

Fly to the main South Island city of Christchurch, rent a car and take the road south, aiming for the eastern coastal route south between the town of Oamaru and the city of Dunedin.

On one side of the road is the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. There is nothing between you and South America. On the other side are rolling green hills. There is nothing between you and the interior's snowy alps but cows and sheep.

TUXEDO SAM (above): Watch the penguins waddle their way home from a day at sea, and oh yes, watch out for them as well and don't run them over.

In fact, vehicle traffic is so infrequent that many of the bridges across rivers have only one lane. Road signs indicate the etiquette of who gives way to whom, should - horrors - a car appear on the other side. However, in some places, sighting another car is such a rare event that you catch yourself waving to the strangers inside them, such is your relief at glimpsing a fellow human.

You may even find yourself waving at strangers whose mode of transport is not a car, but a penny- farthing bicycle.

No, the place is not so backward that the combustion engine is still a novelty. But in the 19th century, the town of Oamaru - population now 12,000 - enjoyed a fleeting moment in the spotlight as the base for gold-rush fortune seekers, and this has inspired a group of locals to hark back to that era.

They ride penny-farthings and wear Victorian attire. It's not a gimmick for tourists - men swish about in capes and itchy, tweedy "trewsers" while the women don bonnets and crinolines as part of their daily life.

It's a bizarre sight to see a middle-aged man in a tweed suit and a deerstalker hat astride a penny- farthing wobbling home along a lonely stretch of tarseal, as cud-chewing cows watch his progress with interest.

Oamaru is an ideal place as a base from which to explore North Otago, and enjoy activities such as cheese-tasting, wine-sampling and whisky-tippling - or for those more actively inclined, penguin- viewing, seal-watching and horse-riding, or even trying out a penny-farthing.

They may not give you the adrenaline-pump of a bungy jump, but those bikes don't have brakes.

And it is a long way down from the perch that passes as a seat above a big wheel which turns into a miniature Singapore Flyer when it builds up speed. It is particularly adrenaline-inducing if your brain is befuddled after sampling some of New Zealand's finest malts at Oamaru's Historic Precinct's whisky centre.

Spins on big wheels, glasses of whisky or an ale from a Victorian-era hostelry and encounters with oddly-clothed locals may be all very well, but what you really hanker for is a touch of genuine nature in the wild.

Happily, just a few hundred metres from the Historic Precinct is a visitors' centre where, for a small fee, you can watch penguins come ashore.

Oamaru is home to colonies of both yellow- eyed and blue-eyed penguins. The sight of them arriving at dusk from their foraging at sea is unforgettable.

Animal instinct

Quite why Oamaru is Penguin Central is anyone's guess.

But the creatures love the place. Some have been known to set up nests in hedges and under people's houses. This is not the delightful experience for humans that it might seem at first, as penguins are very smelly creatures reeking of rotten fish.

Want to see bigger wildlife? You can see seals and sea lions basking at Shag Point (named after a variety of bird), about 50km away. Drive along State Highway 1 where it hugs the coast, and Shag Point is a turn-off on your left.

Follow the narrow peninsula about 3km and at the end are tiny islands of sea-splashed rocks on which fur seals - and sometimes huge, lumbering sea lions - love to soak up the sun. Just venture forth from your car and photograph the blubbery beasts.

Or you take a ride on the wild side, astride a horse.

For the non-experienced, there are beachside treks along the rugged coast of Moeraki (famous for its strange-shaped boulders like a giant?s marbles) 10km before Shag Point.

But if you are no stranger to sitting atop 13 hands or more (a hand is an ancient way of measuring a horse) trot along to Springbank Farm, a small riding school just south of Shag Point, near the blink-and-you-miss-it village of Palmerston.

A ride along the back roads of the farm is a step back to a time. Clip-clop past fields of sheep.

Relax as instructor Shirley Streat shares some of the area's folklore, pointing to an ancient volcanic cone.

It's believed by the local native Maori tribe to be a sacred spot. Or she may teach you a special warning sound that sheep make to warn of danger.

Watch as the green hills then become transformed into a white blanket of hundreds of stampeding sheep.

It's a little bit crazy, a little bit wild - just like the region itself.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Mar 18, 2008.