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.
