Wow. What a trip.
55 days, including 5400 miles in a 53 day car rental! We did a rough figure 8 on both the North and South Islands, hitting m/l the southernmost and northernmost points. Route and stops shown here: Our route between lodgings
Wine tastings? Oh yeah! We tasted a bit more than 300 wines. We actually don’t really like the Marlborough sauvignon blancs for which the country is renowned, but there is so much more! The wines we enjoyed the most were from wine regions that are under the USA radar—to the extent we didn’t even know that some of them existed prior to planning this trip (Nelson, North Canterbury, and especially Martinborough.) Luckily, many of the small wineries have banded together to form a wine collective that jointly handles the legal and logistics hurdles involved in shipping to our door in the USA.
PBJ lunches? To the point of (figurative) nausea—but that offset the cost of the wine tastings (hah!).
DW planned and plotted it out. In addition to the week in Fiji before, and another after, she reserved 22 AirBnBs, 1 youth hostel, and a wilderness lodge. From talking to other travelers, the advance reservations made a big difference, particularly in the first few weeks, which were still close to the high tourism season.
The day hiking is quite good, although not quite up to the standards/challenges of Patagonia (we did not do any of the renowned multiday hikes, which are another thing entirely).
The restaurants/food were better than we expected, particularly in the small towns that we focused upon. Probably the best meal of the trip was in Nelson, of all places—at a place, Le Plonc, that has refused to be reviewed by the primary NZ restaurant reviewers and actually asked us how in the world we heard of them!
DW did 20 posts on her ad-free photography/travel personal blog (beginning at First NZ post) on this trip, so it is hard to summarize in a single post. But, strolling through impressive 170 year old redwoods(!) that were planted to advance the timber industry, as well as the massive, 1000+ year-old native Kauri trees (second only to the Redwoods in size), hiking in Mt. Cook National Park, experiencing the rainy forests and bays of Milford Sound, seeing endemic penguins and other birds up close and personal, and driving/hiking through Northland are great experiences.
Then, at the end of the trip, we spent 2 days in the CBD of Auckland, which is another world entirely. (Think, Northland and Western South Island ~ East Tennessee/UP of Michigan, while Auckland is a combination of NYC and SFO.)
The flora and fauna are quite distinct from North America (despite the imported trees, deer, and wild turkeys!), driving is easy (albeit on the other side of the road than the USA, and with traffic circles in lieu of stop signs/lights), the language is a close version of our English, the people are very personable, and the grocery stores are amazingly similar to our own.
An eye-opening trip that is also comfortable to experience. We’d recommend it to almost everyone. (55 days was almost enough time—but we wish we’d have allotted a few more days so that we could have worked around weather related cancellations. In particular, we missed the sperm whales at Kaikoura due to high winds off-shore.)
Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer. Again, we’ll be recommending this type of a NZ trip to our friends. Moreover, although we didn't do it this way, if you can sleep well in an RV/Campervan, or are into long motorcycle or bicycle trips, this would be a destination right up your alley.
55 days, including 5400 miles in a 53 day car rental! We did a rough figure 8 on both the North and South Islands, hitting m/l the southernmost and northernmost points. Route and stops shown here: Our route between lodgings
Wine tastings? Oh yeah! We tasted a bit more than 300 wines. We actually don’t really like the Marlborough sauvignon blancs for which the country is renowned, but there is so much more! The wines we enjoyed the most were from wine regions that are under the USA radar—to the extent we didn’t even know that some of them existed prior to planning this trip (Nelson, North Canterbury, and especially Martinborough.) Luckily, many of the small wineries have banded together to form a wine collective that jointly handles the legal and logistics hurdles involved in shipping to our door in the USA.
PBJ lunches? To the point of (figurative) nausea—but that offset the cost of the wine tastings (hah!).
DW planned and plotted it out. In addition to the week in Fiji before, and another after, she reserved 22 AirBnBs, 1 youth hostel, and a wilderness lodge. From talking to other travelers, the advance reservations made a big difference, particularly in the first few weeks, which were still close to the high tourism season.
The day hiking is quite good, although not quite up to the standards/challenges of Patagonia (we did not do any of the renowned multiday hikes, which are another thing entirely).
The restaurants/food were better than we expected, particularly in the small towns that we focused upon. Probably the best meal of the trip was in Nelson, of all places—at a place, Le Plonc, that has refused to be reviewed by the primary NZ restaurant reviewers and actually asked us how in the world we heard of them!
DW did 20 posts on her ad-free photography/travel personal blog (beginning at First NZ post) on this trip, so it is hard to summarize in a single post. But, strolling through impressive 170 year old redwoods(!) that were planted to advance the timber industry, as well as the massive, 1000+ year-old native Kauri trees (second only to the Redwoods in size), hiking in Mt. Cook National Park, experiencing the rainy forests and bays of Milford Sound, seeing endemic penguins and other birds up close and personal, and driving/hiking through Northland are great experiences.
Then, at the end of the trip, we spent 2 days in the CBD of Auckland, which is another world entirely. (Think, Northland and Western South Island ~ East Tennessee/UP of Michigan, while Auckland is a combination of NYC and SFO.)
The flora and fauna are quite distinct from North America (despite the imported trees, deer, and wild turkeys!), driving is easy (albeit on the other side of the road than the USA, and with traffic circles in lieu of stop signs/lights), the language is a close version of our English, the people are very personable, and the grocery stores are amazingly similar to our own.
An eye-opening trip that is also comfortable to experience. We’d recommend it to almost everyone. (55 days was almost enough time—but we wish we’d have allotted a few more days so that we could have worked around weather related cancellations. In particular, we missed the sperm whales at Kaikoura due to high winds off-shore.)
Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer. Again, we’ll be recommending this type of a NZ trip to our friends. Moreover, although we didn't do it this way, if you can sleep well in an RV/Campervan, or are into long motorcycle or bicycle trips, this would be a destination right up your alley.
Last edited:
