It’s going to be my first real vacation in a very long time, and I’m absolutely looking forward to it. A few more weeks and I’m gone!
Of course, I’ve checked the travel sites and the travel books, but - just in case, what sights/experiences/places should I make sure I get to?
Thanks
North or South Island? Do you have a rough itinerary planned?
What sort of things are you interested in? Nature? culture? excitement?
North Island: Have a bit of a look around my burg, Auckland, then head down to Rotorua, Tauranga (for Mount Maunganui and the beaches), the Volcanic Plateau, National Park, the Waitomo Caves. There’s also the Coromandel Peninsula. Up north there’s 90 Mile Beach, Whangarei, the historic sites of Kerikeri and Russell.
South Island: I’m more out of my depth, but there’s Queenstown and the Remarkables range, Nelson and Blenheim for fine food and wine, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
Look up in Google for New Zealand attractions.
I’ve been fortunate to have visited many countries, and many are terrific. But standing head-and-shoulders above any other vacation in my life is the two weeks I spent in New Zealand.
This was about 3 years ago so my memory of names and places is a little foggy. I’ll grab my itinerary from home and come back and post the names of the don’t-miss-it-if-at-all-possible places and activities.
I love New Zealand.
Did I remember to mention that I love New Zealand?
Actually, Algernon is being very restrained. Making specific recommendations is tough, as the whole place is so good. I found the North Island to be great, but the South Island is simply one of the best places in the world – a combination of spectacular and highly varied scenery, amazingly friendly people, and an astonishing shortage of crowds.
One thing to note is that even the “touristy” places such as Rotorua and Queenstown are well worth visiting.
One of the best things I did was to take a long sightseeing flight in a 4-passenger place (a Cessna 180) through the southern Alps, with a landing at Milford Sound (if the weather is decent, it’s a serious understatement to call this a must-see). This was followed by a landing in a remote valley, a 5-mile hike through wilderness, and a jetboat ride back to where we started. It wasn’t cheap, and was easily worth 5 times the price.
If you get to Queenstown (and you should) do ride the cable car and do a jetboat tour. By all means drive up the Shotover River - the road is one of the most amazing you’ll ever be on.
A particular favorite of mine is the Royal Albatross colony at Taiaroa Head, near Dunedin. Something like 20 pairs of these giant birds nest there, the only place in the world where they do so near human habitation. To see a 15-pound bird with an 11’ wingspan come in across the water and land absolutely takes your breath away. About a mile away is a penguin colony, which was well worth an hour’s visit.
Doubtful Sound is spectacular. Ditto the whale-watching along the northeast coast. Ditto the dolphin (totally wild and spontaneous) we got to swim with near Onekaka. Ditto the blue ducks we saw on a hike into a remote valley about an hour from Nelson. Ditto the glaciers on the west coast.
I could go on and on, but you have the idea.
Ooo, New Zealand!
Of course, this depends on what you like - outdoors? nature? culture?
If you’re going to see the Waitomo Caves, I’d recommend skipping the “standard” boat through the cave tour and sign up for blackwater rafting where you inner tube through the cave. Very cool, unless you’re claustrophobic. Plus Blackwater Rafting Co. (if you go through them) feeds you soup and bagels after the experience; after our (cold, so cold) trip, chicken soup and bagels never tasted so good.
Zorb! Do the wet. Dry will just make you dizzy.
Kayak in Abel Tasman.
If you will have a car, take the drive down the west coast of the South Island. It’s quite lovely.
A lot of people skip Wellington, but I simply loved it. If I could live in NZ, I’d live there (well, looking at places where I could probably find gainful employment anyway). The botanical gardens was a great place to relax.
If the ocean cooperates, kayaking with the seals and whalewatching in Kaikoura is also great.
If you want to walk on either one of the glaciers and can swing it, I’d recommend the heli-hike. It’s a bit more expensive, but you spend more time on the glacier than hiking to it. Unless that’s what you want.
You’ve gotta see Queensland if not for the Remarkables alone. Should you be inclined, you can hurl yourself off all sorts of structures. Despite being hirribly afraid of heights, I bungy jumped the Nevis and had a blast.
Most importantly: fish & chips!
I miss NZ now.
I spent 7 weeks there from late-November 03 to mid-January 04 just touring around. I did a lot of climbing (rock and mountaineering) and tramping (hiking). So depending on if you are into that or not, my advice might be brilliant or useless.
Highlights for me were:
South Island:
North Island:
And a bit of a plug for my website. Here are some select photo I took in New Zealand to tempt you even more! Have fun!
If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, you can go visit Hobbiton, including a visit to Bag End. It’s near the town of Matamata (just type ‘Hobbiton’ into the search engine at the site, and you’ll get some contacts), and there’s a list of other locations used in the film here.
I spent nearly all of this past November in New Zealand with my wife – four weeks just on the South Island. It was the best four weeks of our lives, and not just because it was our honeymoon. 
Our favorite activities included:
A two-day horse-riding trip in from Glenorchy, through the breathtaking Rees and Dart river valleys. If you like that sort of thing, get in touch with Dart Stables.
A three-day hike called the Kaikoura Coast Track. Each day is 5-6 hours of leisurely walking, with your luggage tranfered by car to where you sleep that night. Each day you end up at a farmhouse, where you dine with a host family and sleep in a comfy bed. Absolutely gorgeous scenery, and different each day. It helps to be moderately fit, but it’s hardly grueling.
Swimming with the dolphins near Kaikoura. They put us in wetsuits, boated us out, and dumped us in the ocean with dozens upon dozens of playful, curious dolphins. Unbelievably cool.
Milford Sound, as someone has already said, is beautiful.
Mt. Cook National Park gave us great hiking and views, though we were lucky that it wasn’t clouded over. It usually is, we undertsand.
If you can get to a town called Geraldine, go visit a shop called the Giant Jersey. While the Guiness-record-setting huge jersey on the wall is cool, the replica of the Bayeaux Tapestry made of 1.5 million clipped knitting machine teeth has to be seen to be believed. Call ahead though – the guy who spent 20 years making it might be on tour with it in England somewhere.
Abel Tasman National Park up near Nelson is worth the trip. We went on a day-long sea-kayaking trip that was a blast.
Near the town of Dunedin, on the Otago Peninsula, is a place called “Penguin Place” where you can take “Penguin Tours.” Spend a couple of hours dashing through concealed trenches and peeking out through blinds at the rare yellow-eyed penguin in its native beach habitat. They’re so cute!
And in Dunedin itself, there’s Cadbury World. Tour the chocolate factory and get lots of free samples! 
The Milford Track was a tough but rewarding 3+ day hike through the rainiest place on Earth. If you like waterfalls, this is heaven. You have to sign up pretty far in advance, though.
If you want to see pictures of these wonders for yourself, here’s a link to our photos from the trip.
Oh, and the people in new Zealand are friendly, down-to-earth and humble. Plus, their cheese, ice cream and chocolate are all about ten times better than anythng you can get in the U.S. Must be the cows!
I hope you enjoy your trip as much as we did!
-P
Oh, and I forgot: while we didn’t go on any formal Lord of the Rings tours, we did go rafting down the Anduin (On the Kawarau River near Queenstown – you go right through where the statues of the Argonath were.) We also drove to Mt. Potts to see the hill on which Edoras was built. (You can get about a mile away on the gravel road, but the hill is still quite distinct – it’s in album #6 from the link in my previous post.) Oh, and while passing through Twizel we went and gazed upon the Pellenor Fields.
Can you tell I had a really, really good time?
-P
jastu: I do have a rough (very rough) itenerary planned… it was basically designed by thinking “that sounds cool” and then plotting the best route between the cool things so that I could drive from one to the next. I’d like to visit both islands (I know it’s not enough time to fully explore both, but I think that with my personality, I’d prefer a taste of each.) And all of the above - I like nature, but I’m not a hiker (which doesn’t mean I won’t walk to see something, but… it hard to explain what the threshold is.), I’d like to do some of the excitement things, and if there are “must see” historical sights and museums, I’d like to see them.
Ice Wolf, Xerna, InTransit, and tavalla, thank you for the suggestions - there are more things on the list now… Ell and Parthol gorgeous pictures. I now know that I’m not going to miss some of those… and now I want to leave now instead of waiting 4 weeks!
If you ever plan to swing by Auckland, amarinth, drop me an email, we’ll arrange a bit of a gathering for you.
I’ve been offline for a few days, so while this is later than I led people to believe, I hope it might still be useful.
As I mentioned in a post earlier, I spent a wonderful two weeks in New Zealand over Christmas 2001. I love New Zealand. Geologically, New Zealand has it all: Alp-like mountains and glaciers, beaches, lush rain forests, high plains desert, fjords, etc. And the people are terrific. We wanted an adventurous trip so our itinerary was packed with activity. Unfortunately, while relatively small (the size of California), there is still a lot of time spent driving from one place to another. But the country is so beautiful that even the long drives were interesting. Here is a recap of the highlights of our trip…
Aukland. Can’t tell you much about Aukland because about all we did here was see the airport.
Waitomo. Home of the Waitomo Glow Worm caves. I highly recommend the “Tumu Tumu Toobing” trip on the underground river wth an inner-tube. It’s not all on water though, there is some walking involved. We also did the “Lost World” tour where you abseil (rappel) down 330 feet into a huge cave and then go cave hiking for a few hours. The 150 foot climb up the aluminum ladder at the end was tough though. We stayed at the Waitomo Cave Hotel, a beautiful Inn at the top of the hill near the caves. The grounds are covered with flowers. We took a short drive to Marokopa Falls, which is gorgeous.
Rotorura. One of three locations in the world with Yellowstone-like hot springs geology (the third is in Iceland). A nice town with a lake. There were more wonderful mountain lakes in New Zealand than I expected. We did tandem sky-diving here. I also recommend “Off Road NZ”, where you drive a 4 wheel drive mini-SUV around an off-road course through mud, water, log bridges, and some steep hills. We did the tour to the Tamaki Maori Village where Maori put on a a traditional show and you eat dinner. Don’t bother stopping at Huka Falls on the way to Wellington. The falls pale in comparison to Marokopa.
Wellington. Reminded me of San Francisco visually and London emotionally. A cool, hip and diverse city. Spent hours wandering the pedestrian filled streets (closed to motor traffic). Artists and street muscians galore. Took the InterIsland Ferry to the south island. Get your tickets as soon as possible upon arrival in the country. We ended up making the transit relatively late at night which meant driving to Nelson throught the winding roads at night.
Nelson. Rain forest country. Absolutely stunning country. The Cathedral on top of the hill overlooking the town is beautiful. We did sea kayaking at the Abel Tasman National Park. Nelson had a number of terrific restaurants to choose from.
Kaikoura. We intended to take a whale watching tour, but being Christmas day they were closed. Somewhere between Nelson and Christchurch was the Ohau Point Seal Colony which was interesting.
Christchurch. Didn’t see much of Christchurch. It was essentially just an overnight stay on the drive between Nelson and Queenstown. If I had it to do over again I might consider taking a small plane instead of driving, but the down side there is that you’d miss all the sights along the way.
Queenstown. My favorite city of all. Alongside a gorgeous lake in front of the Remarkables mountain range. The city is jammed with shops and restaurants. It reminds me a little of Vale, Colorado. We had a fantastic whitewater raft trip with “Queenstown Rafting”. You take a helicopter ride into the mountains to where you start. The river was so swollen with recent rains that we had to portage a couple of the more difficult rapids. The guides even said they’d never seen it so rough. We submarined the raft through one of the rapids but didn’t lose anyone. We also did 4 wheel ATV off-roading with “Off Road Adventures”. We had planned on parasailing, but the morning we had allocated for that was too windy and cold on the mountain, so the soaring was canceled.
Milford Sound. We took a bus tour from Queenstown. I know this is becoming boring, but again, the scenery was spectacular. We boarded the Milford Mariner yacht and stayed overnight in the sound. The Milford Sound area looks just like the Fjords of Norway.
One final word of advice. Sample the Vegamite at your peril.
Did I mention that I love New Zealand?
FYI, Vegemite, perhaps more common in OZ but also widely seen in NZ, is a yeast-extract spread that has the color and consistency (and, some say, the taste) of road tar. I happen to like it.
I am quite confident that road tar would have a more pleasing taste than Vegemite.
My expression upon tasting it must have been priceless, because my two teen-aged kids were literally laughing 'til they cried. We brought some home to foist upon innocent friends. Alas, none have been crazy enough to fall for our lie that it tastes wonderful. Clearly, Vegemite’s reputation precedes it.
Dunno… it was a bit gnarly and definitely saltier than I’d expected, but I sorda liked Vegemite when I first tasted it.
And Algernon – did we travel together because that’s almost exactly where I went in NZ in just about the same order! Of course, those are your basic tourist spots.
Not much to add, as the excellent suggestions already posted would keep any visitor busy for about a year, not just a few weeks.
For ‘unique’ New Zealand experiences, my pick of the above options would include Waitomo, Rotorua, the Marlborough Sounds* and Queenstown, plus if at all possible, getting across to the West Coast of the South Island to one of the glaciers (either Franz Joseph or Fox) which are truly incredible. I expect you’ve already read up on them, but even if you’re not a hiker, a short, half-day guided glacier walk is well worth doing. If you can afford it, then an aerial sightseeing tour with a landing on the glacier is the kind of experience which will truly deserve as many superlatives as you can think of.
I’ve lived in New Zealand for over seven years and have enjoyed a number of holidays up and down both islands. All of them have been excellent. I’m very confident that whatever you choose will be thoroughly enjoyable. Just try to resist the temptation to do too much, as I believe the essentially relaxed atmosphere of New Zealand lends itself to enjoying things at a more leisurely pace.
Bon voyage, and remember to pack plenty of film/batteries!
I’d like to reinforce this comment. We didn’t do this in New Zealand only because we had just done a glacier trek in Alaska the prior year, and we didn’t have time to squeeze it in again. It was an adventure of a lifetime. We were fully outfitted with crampons and ice axes for the three hour trek on one of the glaciers near Juneau Alaska. If you have the time to do this in New Zealand I’d recommend it without reservation.
Sigh. I can’t wait to return someday.
I’m not going to have time to see both glaciers (though I do have space set aside for a glacier walk - the whole idea seemed too cool not to try it.) Is there one that I should do over the other?
I did the “top half” of the South Island last year:Christchurch to Nelson to Hokitika and back via Arthur’s Pass. Spectacular!
Able Tasman was a highlight, and if you head there, you might consider staying at The Nelson Apartment (http://www.ts.co.nz/~dparr/ )…I had only planned an overnight stay, and wound up spending three days.