New Zealand Travel and Holiday Guides.
Visiting and touring around New Zealand's Beautiful North and South Islands.
We went on holiday New Zealand to co-incide with the start of New Zealand's summer - the idea being to be able to travel around with
hopefully good weather but without things being too busy i.e. before the Kiwi's started their summer holidays.
So our holiday commenced mid November 2007 at Auckland on North Island - we then headed south
(with stops at Thames and Taupo) to Wellington to cross over to the South Island after
around 2 weeks. Our holiday continued as we headed South travelling down the West Coast via Motueka, Arthurs
Pass, Franz Josef, Queenstown, Te Anau, Dunedin and ended up at Christchurch.
Prior to leaving we had heard lot's of things about the possible violent weather
that New Zealand can offer at any time of the year so we took lots of warm
clothing as well as waterproof gear for walks - in fact the only time it rained
was nearly at the end of our holiday when we stayed at Dunedin. Our five weeks
were mostly of lovely sunny days and often temperatures around 23 to 30 degrees.
Whilst in New Zealand we managed to take 100s of photographs during our days
out sightseeing and going around the myriad of attractions on offer on the two islands - including
quite a few on our helicopter ride up into the mountains to view Mount Cook
and get real close ups of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers - where we landed
on the top of Fox Glacier - a fabulous and unforgettable trip. We also did several walks on the
Abel Tasman Trail which is amazingly picturesque and brilliant to walk along -
plus we took the two famous New Zealand trips out onto Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound.
There is therefore lots of information and tons of photos all about our New Zealand Travels and
Holidays - links to these topics can be found towards the bottom of this page.
Travelling to and from New Zealand.
New Zealand is just about as far away from England
as you can get so it's obviously a really long time to be stuck in an aircraft - it was certainly one
of the things about our holiday plans which we were not looking forward too.
On checking the various airlines which offer flights to New Zealand it is soon apparent that there is quite a variation in
how much room (particularly leg-room) you get. We ended up chosing to fly with
Air New Zealand - plenty of legroom even on the standard seating and their prices were competitive as well. The
flight time from Heathrow to Auckland is around 26 hours with one refuel stop in
Hong Kong - however having not been to Hong Kong we decided to have a stopover
there (you may be interested in our
Hong Kong Travel Guides topics).
Flying times were London Heathrow to Hong Kong - 12 hours and Hong Kong to Auckland around 10.5 hours.
You can go round the world with Air
New Zealand which means returning across the Pacific via the USA - flying time
Auckland to Los Angeles is around 12 hours and Los Angeles to London another
10.5 hours. The added bonus of going right round is you get a much greater
baggage allowance by the way. We did not take a stopover in the USA on our
return and this was probably not a good decision - for us anyway 10 or 11 hours
flight with a few days in between on stopovers is much much better than doing a
25 or 26 hour trip in one hit.
The only really poor thing about the entire flight was the refuel stop on the way back to England
when we stopped in Los Angeles. You have to queue up in a tatty corridor in
order to have your private information and so on scanned and
recorded presumably on the CIA's computers for eternity and then have to wait in
a scruffy and dismal waiting area with extremely poor quality seating - there is a
tiny duty free kiosk with a very limited goods selection which just about opens.
The whole area made Gatwick look 5 star which takes some doing.
However
Auckland's airport is quite small, clean and easy to get through - what a change
from the massive terminal buildings at Hong Kong's excellent airport. We ended up down in Christchurch on our
holidays and took a domestic flight back to Auckland to pickup our
jumbo for our trip home - again we went with Air New Zealand for this having
booked all our flights in the U.K. before leaving. It all worked very nicely.
Driving in New Zealand. Driving is on the left as with England and basically the rules are pretty similar
except when making a right hand turn across traffic flow - see
this link for a clear item on this.
The general speed limit on main roads etc is 100 kph - as you
approach towns and villages the limit is reduced to quite often 50kph - also on
any bends their are guidance speed limits. If you are travelling around the
mountainous areas and you see a 25 or 30kph warning it's definitely worth believing it.
Although we did not see any speed cameras whilst driving on New Zealand's roads
there certainly are plenty of police around watching for and stopping speeding
motorists - they also use unmarked cars for this.
You need to be aware of the trucks and in particular the ones carrying logs and timber -
they tend not to stop for anything and really hammer along even on bendy roads.
Many of the trucks we saw in New Zealand were often towing long trailers as well.
The roads do have to go over railway crossings from time to time and these
crossings generally have stop-lights etc. - we did notice that coaches actually
stop before crossing over and the driver physically looks both ways for trains.
Road surfaces we found to be best on the North Island but in any case the roads
are in a far better condition than the pot-holed mess that ours tend to be in England.
Another frequent "hazard" are single lane bridges - you do get a lot of
these in New Zealand - as you approach such a bridge their is a priority arrow
showing who has right of way but it's not worth pushing your luck too much if a
truck is the other side of the bridge even if right of way is in your favour...
Petrol stations can be really in-frequent and we always filled up before any
longish trip out especially into the hills. Certainly if you plan on making the
excellent and really scenic drive down to Milford Sound you should have at least
3/4 of a tank full of fuel before leaving Te Anau as there is none available after that.
As mentioned the road surfaces are in generally good condition - however their is also quite an extensive set of dirt roads - you often find these when visiting various bays and beaches or when going into the many DOC conservation areas. It's worth noting that driving on these dirt roads creates a huge amount of dust (unless there has been recent rain to dampen the surfaces down) and a good practice when driving on dirt roads and tracks is to have your dipped headlights on.
Favourite parts of New Zealand which we travelled through:
The best has to be the drive into Milford Sound - amazing mountain scenery, however
the best also has to be the part of the drive between Haast and Queenstown - Haast Pass
followed by the beautiful Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea (so we have two "bests").
Walking and Tramping. Unlike the hiking possibilities we
have in England we found it quite difficult to find circular 15 to 20km walks whilst in New Zealand.
The trails, paths and tracks in the country are mostly long distance one way affairs - in other words you start at one end of the trail
and maybe camp or stay in huts for 4 or 5 days or more whilst walking sections of the entire trail.
We were able to walk three sections of the Abel Tasman trail since you can be taken to and picked up from different locations along it's route by using
taxi-boats. On other trails though we had to be content with just walking a section and then returning the same way.
Sightseeing in New Zealand. The really
bad thing about New Zealand and touring around
the country was that the beauty of the countryside, lakes, rivers and streams, mountains and hills just kept coming.
So trying to get anywhere in a reasonable time was often quite difficult because
you end up stopping all the time to look at the views. Another true delight was
when you are out walking along the largely deserted beaches you might easily come across seals and penguins.
Although we have seen many of these animals at various zoos there really is nothing like wandering along a beach and then
spotting perhaps 4 or 5 seals either basking on rocks or doing a bit of surfing
- because they are in their natural environment. We were on one isolated beach
and a few 100 yards ahead of us a single penguin crossed the beach and into the sea - it was brilliant to see.
Eating Out. This can be quite difficult if you don't want to
eat fast food stuff - finding a proper food restaurant in many of the towns we
visited proved to be quite difficult and there also was the added problem that
many of the food outlets closed at around 2000hrs or so. Admittedly we were in
New Zealand in early summer so perhaps things alter somewhat as the real holiday
season starts after Christmas. Of course in the larger locations such as Queenstown, Dunedin and Christchurch the proper restaurants stayed
open as late as 2200hrs or occasionally even later... but places like Thames were like ghost towns after around 1900hrs or so.
Quite often the various D.O.C. areas had visitor centres and also a cafe available
but even these facilities closed at around 1600hrs.
Hazards to think about. Apart from trying to avoid the
logging lorries when driving on New Zealand's roads the two things to watch out for that spring to mind are:
Sand Flies - especially on
South Island and on it's west coast beaches and forests these are a real
nuisance. As you come across one of the many gorgeous beaches along the coast
and think about maybe a crash-out on the sand for a while these sand flies
descend on you en mass. The sand fly bites are surprisingly painful too - the answer is
to ensure you have a repellent spray and cover all exposed parts with it.
The Sun. Apparently the atmosphere is really thin now and the Sun's UV rays are even more dangerous
than in Australia - you really do need to have a descent hat on whilst out and
about on a sunny day - quite often whilst out we wore sleeved shirts/t-shirts
and also wore trousers rather than shorts for instance. (This also of course helps keep the sand flies off.)
Accommodations in New Zealand. Whilst travelling through New Zealand we passed many wonderful places to stay. As we found with proper restaurants, the more luxurious resorts were clustered within popular holiday locations such as Queenstown and Christchurch, though we were surprised to see several resorts where you could rent and buy timeshare in smaller northern towns like Paihia. The hostels in New Zealand are also of a particularly high quality, and consequently we encountered many younger travellers during the course of our holiday.
The following are our area topics about New Zealand.
New Zealand is just about as far from England as you can get however we have travelled to many other countires not quite so far away which might be of interest.
Cyprus holiday and travel
topics.
India - touring the Golden Triangle + guide to holidays in Goa
Greek Islands Holidays + Athens Touring Guides
Hong Kong, Bali, Singapore,
Bangkok and Cambodia (Siem Reap,
Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom etc as well as Phnom Penh) - holiday and travel guides Hong Kong or Singapore are of course a good stopover option if
travelling out to New Zealand. If you have the time then how about a divert to
Cambodia?
Touring Egypt - holidays in Sharm el
Sheikh; Karnak and Giza Pyramids - Luxor, Cairo and Aswan.
Visiting England England's wildflowers,
old Norman churches, miles of rivers and canals, plus many walks to enjoy if visiting England.
Holiday Guide for The Canary Isles Holiday
Guide for The Canary Islands of Fuerteventura (beachlovers paradise), Lanzarote and Gran Canaria.
Travel and Holiday guide
for The Algarve in Portugal.
Touring, Holidays and Travel in Vietnam.
Vietnam Touring and Holiday Guides
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