Spending Spree

We're getting really close, only a month away from leaving! Really have to get in gear to get some day trips booked. Planning on a bus/boat trip to Milford Sound, some kayaking in Tasman Bay and Bay of Islands, and possibly a trip up 90 mile beach. Might even look at swimming with the dolphins or some snorkelling at Bay of Islands.

The last few weeks I've been on a spending spree, updating some of our travel things that are too small for a longer trip, or just worn out. New hiking shoes, luggage, day pack, some clothing, and last but not least, a new camera.

I've been looking at new cameras for at least a year now, but nothing really looked worthy of replacing my 10 year old Panasonic FZ-20. This was a fantastic camera, especially for outdoors, as it had a big 35-420 zoom, capable of f2.8 through the entire range. While it was only 5 megapixels, and a small sensor, the picture quality was great, and we were able to blow up a few photos fairly big with no issues. The downside, of course, was that it was big and heavy. I spent too many trips lugging a film camera and lenses around, and really wanted to go smaller this time. With occasional kayak trips, and snorkelling in Hawaii, I was also hoping to get something waterproof. Unfortunately, the ideal camera just doesn't exist yet. That would be small, light, big sensor, decent zoom, and waterproof. The closest I've seen is the Nikon 1 AW1, but that is now well over a year old, and the reviews on picture quality are so-so, it's not really that small, and you pay a big premium for the ruggedness.

Typical of my purchasing practices, I stewed over this one for a while. I had to give up on the waterproof, but I think I've satisfied the other criteria with a Sony a6000. This is a mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera with a huge sensor (as big as their DSLR) and 24 megapixels. It's really the sensor size, rather than the megapixels, that provides for picture quality. The kit lens is pretty good, at a 35mm equivalent of 24mm-77mm, and f3.5. I'd prefer at least one more f stop, but the sensor is really good at higher ISO, so not too big an issue for low light. Might have to look at the f1.8 prime lens at some point, for better depth of field control. The bonus with this camera is that it has a viewfinder, and it's a much nicer viewfinder than the old camera. Wasn't looking forward to giving that feature up. The really sad news is what the old camera was worth. I decided there was no point keeping it, so I traded it in for all of $15, the used camera store wouldn't give me anything for it!

 

Route Map

Not a lot to update. We've booked our final night in Auckland at what looks to be a very nice boutique hotel, Hotel DeBrett, recommended by a Kiwi friend.  Still need to look at booking some excursions, but there's still 7 weeks left to get to that!

In case anybody is reading, and is interested in our route, here's a snapshot from Google Maps. In total, it's 2740km and about 36 hours in the 9 days that we'll be travelling. I just hope I haven't over estimated how far we can go in a day! The longest drives are a bit over 5 hours, but we'll plan on the whole day to do that with some sightseeing and lunch.

Booking

Since booking our tickets to NZ a month ago, things have been a bit hectic.

We've had our Trip to Hawaii, and my sister and her husband have been in the final stages of their permanent move to their boat Mowzer in the Caribbean. This has been a huge undertaking over the last few years, with selling their house, moving into our Mother's house, selling the contents of several houses, and then selling our Mother's house and packing for their move. They are in the final stretch of this, with less than two weeks to go. Last weekend was a final two day house contents sale, and this week is packing the remaining items for donation or move to storage. Being involved in this really makes us look around our house to get rid of those things that we just don't use!

While things have been a bit busy, I've still managed to plug away at getting the rest of our NZ vacation booked. The car booking was simple, although we had to decide when we were moving from South Island to North Island, as you don't take a rental car with you. I guess if everyone took a rental car on the ferry, they'd all end up in Auckland. They have it all made simple, though, as you drop the car at the ferry terminal, and pick up at the other one, all part of a single booking. So, we did a bit of preliminary planning and booked our ferry before just about everything else, and what we ended up with was 15 nights on South Island and 14 nights on North Island. I now have all of our accommodation booked, except for our one last night in Auckland, but that will be at a downtown hotel, so nothing too complicated. With most of our travel over the years, we've tried to spend more time to explore a single location, rather than move every day or two. We also like to be able to cook where we're staying, partly for cost, but also to keep things feeling a bit more like home away from home. So far, I've found NZ fairly easy for this as there are a few good web sites for booking holiday rental homes and apartments, and motels in NZ tend to be more like self catering units. We also tend to avoid cities, spending more time in smaller towns. This trip is no exception, spending only a few days in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland as stops along the way to break up some really long drives.

I'm sure I'll hear some feedback about where we're staying, but if anybody has ideas on things to do in the areas we're staying, I'd be more than happy to hear them. We will be doing quite a bit of hiking, but will also try to get in some kayaking, and possibly a couple of horseback riding excursions as well. After Hawaii, I might even throw in a bit of snorkeling!

Here is our basic itinerary. Some of this was arranged around our two highlight points, being our anniversary and Beth's birthday, as we didn't want to have either of these fall on a travel day. Ends up we'll spend our anniversary in Wanaka, and Beth's birthday in Hamilton, which happens to coincide with Waitangi Day (New Zealand Day)!

Dunedin - 2 nights
Te Anu - 2 nights
Wanaka - 4 nights
Christchurch - 2 nights
Nelson - 5 nights
Wellington - 2 nights
New Plymouth - 4 nights
Hamilton - 3 nights
Paihia - 4 nights
Auckland - 1 night

While 4 weeks seems like a lot of time, I feel like we're seeing very little of the Islands. We won't see much of the west side of South Island, or any of the east side of North Island. Guess we'll have to save those for another trip!

Next on the agenda is figuring out what the big things are to do in each area where we stay.

It All Starts Here!

This all started sometime last winter, while it was really cold, and thoughts of warmer climates were abundant. I realized that early in 2015 we would be reaching a milestone wedding anniversary, and Beth a milestone birthday. My parents visited New Zealand without my sister and I in 1976, and since then I've always wanted to visit. I proposed a trip to Beth, and was happy to receive a positive response. When we married in 1995 I was a poor student, and we never got around to a honeymoon. In the 21+ years we've been together, traveling in North America and Europe, we have never been on vacation where we didn't visit or travel with friends or family. It's about time, but we find ourselves travelling halfway around the world to accomplish it!

Yesterday we committed to the trip, booking our plane tickets for 4 weeks in NZ this coming winter (or should we start thinking of it as extra summer?). Now the real work begins with booking car rentals, ferry, and accommodation. We will be vacationing as we normally do, off the main tourist track, renting houses for 3-4 days at a time before moving on to the next area. We might not see everything, but we get to really enjoy the things we do see, feel a bit more at home while doing it, and get to meet the real people of the country. What we do know right now is that we are starting in Dunedin, and ending in Auckland.

We will have to visit Cape Reinga to see how this has changed since 1976!