New Zealand travel advice

Finnice

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I just bought flights to NZ for me and my husband. We have 5 weeks, arriving Sep 26. and leaving Oct. 31. We plan to do both islands and are mostly interested in hiking in nature and maybe some nice wineyards.

So far, we only have flights Helsinki-Auckland-Helsinki. We plan to rent a car, and surely will need to have a hotel room for the first nights to even the time difference. But any tips and advices are mostly welcome!

Are there any NZ FSUers?
 
Oooooooooooh, lucky you Finnice! New Zealand is beautiful, and that's right in the middle of spring!

If you have a bit of cash to burn and are into that sort of thing, I recommend heading up to Glacier Country on the South Island. The two main ones are the Franz-Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. When I went, back in 2014, you could do a hike then ice climbing because of where the terminal face was at Fox, but now it's retreated a bit so you can only helicopter on. It's pricey, but it's awesome. And the area is gorgeous. On our last day in the township my friend and I went for a walk around Lake Matheson, which was stunning (though sadly, right as we got to the lookout for the mirror image, the wind picked up, so we didn't get the famous mirror shot).

The area around Queenstown is also picturesque (well really, all of New Zealand is picturesque), and you could go to Milford Sound, too. If you drive down from Picton (where the ferry that connects the islands docks on the South Island), you can choose to go down the west coast (the glaciers are on the west coast) or you can go down to Christchurch and then across the mountains to the glaciers. Google Maps says Picton to Queenstown is only about 12 hours' driving, so if you did it over multiple days that's more than manageable, and you have loads of time to explore.

*is struck with the sudden longing to go back*
 
I believe we have at least one NZ FSUer, although I would be curious if there were more.

It’s now been over eight years since I’ve been there so I am dredging up some memories, but I remember spending a lovely day on Waiheke island visiting wineries. You can take a ferry there from Auckland. We also stopped in Devonport for brunch, which was nice. The only thing is that I would not recommend doing the wineries right before getting on an 11 hour flight :shuffle:

Not sure how far north you are planning on going but if you go up past Whangerei to the Bay of Islands area, you can visit the Treaty House at Waitangi, which I thought was a well done way of bringing together the British and Maori history. We also went swimming with the dolphins in the same area, at Russell. However, this option is only for extremely strong swimmers (which I’m not), as you are out in the open ocean without a life jacket. I mostly stayed on the boat although I still thought it was cool to be that close to the dolphins even on the boat.

I spent several days on the Coromandel peninsula and remember driving out to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. At the time I was there, there was a big controversy that Cathedral Cove was going to have its first ever ice cream stand, so it was not very commercialized. I’m curious if it stuck around or if things became even more commercialized.

The only place I went in the South Island was Queenstown and my favorite part of that trip was seeing Milford Sound, although we had to get up very early to drive the four hours to get out there to catch a boat but it was worth it. It was beautiful. The drive was also really pretty, through the mountains, so it wasn’t that bad to have to do all that driving in a day.

I’m sure there was plenty more but those are the main things that stick out. Also, I was there with someone who was from there so I was spending a lot of time with his family and friends and visiting his old haunts so I sometimes was doing things of less general interest.
 
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I've known a number of people who went from Auckland to Christchurch on the train, and some rented a car to go to the Coromandel Penninsula at the beginning or end of their trip. They rented a car in Christchurch and headed west to the glaciers and did the loop.

The last time I was there was in the late '90's, on group cycling trips, once to the North Island and the next year to the South Island. My only advice is that the no-see-ums along the west coast were vicious, so bring bug repellent and an ammonia stick for the inevitable bites. Ammonia reeks, but it does bring the itching down.

We took a boat ride on Milford Sound, but plenty of people went hiking from hut to hut. We also took a helicopter to the top of one of the mountains near Mt. Cook and had a snowball fight in the middle of summer.
 
I was actually there this time in 2001 -- can't believe it's been 17 years. I 2nd MissKarne's suggestion on a south island glacier visit. One interesting side trip was to the Rotarua area on the North Island. Spent the night at a Maori Marae out in the countryside-- they entertained, educated, fed us and shared some secret hot springs. There are several very touristy sites there too, but we still very interesting. Also spent a couple of days in the Lake Taupo area and hiked in Tongariro National Park. Several of the volcanoes in Tongariro were film sites in the Lord of the Rings triology, it's a fascinating landscape.
 
I spent six months there, oh so many years ago! I loved it.

I took a flight over The Big Ice & Sir Edmund Hillary was on our flight! What a gracious man he was.

Now you can actually land there which was forbidden when I was there. So, if you have the time & extra money, a trip to The Big Ice will be a memory you will never forget! :D
 
My co-worker lived in New Zealand for 10 yrs and recommended to drive along the coastline.
 
Thank you everybody! Mr. Finnice is a (sea) ice research scientist. I wonder if he feels thay glaciers remind him of his work
;):cold:. I will ask.
 

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