Hi, i’m off to new Zealand for 4 weeks as the first leg of a six month trip. I’ve got a week on the north island and 3 on the south island. I’ve done a lot of reading but I’m still not sure what to prioritise in that space of time. My thinking is see much of ‘natural’ nz as possible (I can see western cities in Europe). What would the panel recommend?

Cheers,
Jez

I can see western cities in Europe

good job cos there’s not much there! Welcome to the 1960s (actually I don’t think its not as bad as it used to be)

My highlights from being there for a year are:

N.I: Coramandel peninsula is beautiful. Rotorua is touristy, but fascinating. Welly is a far nicer city than Auckland, and you’ll have to go through it on the way south.
S.I. is where the “natural” stuff is. Queen Charlotte Track, Abel Tasman NP, swimming with dolphins at Kaikoura, pretty much all of the Southern Alps, Fox & Franz Josef glaciers.

I’d recommend this:

glow-worm-tastic

Good fun

The glaciers are surreal as you get off them and head into rainforest. Mental!
Rotorua is great!
Then go and do mental stuff in Queenstown. Try river surfing if you do want to do something that feels genuinely stupid and dangerous 🙂

Milford or Doubtful Sound – beautiful. And if weather allows, you can sail into open water – next stop Antarctica.

Here are a few ideas to think about

North Islan
Roturua
Taupo – Stunning town on the edge of a lake, the Tongariro crossing is a spectacular walk from here
Coramandel Coast
Bay of Islands is beautiful but as you only have 1 week you may end up missing it
Wellington if you have time

South Island
Abel Tasman – Stunning coast line, get out ojn a kayak if you can
Fox or Franz Joseph Glacier
Doutful Sound if you have more time, Milford if you have less
Queenstown – Do a bunjy jump and Walk the Ben Lomond track
Wanaka – Beautiful little mountain town
Christcurch
Mount Cook
Kaikoura
Nelson if you have time

And avoid MTBing in Queenstown – soooooo disappointed – I could scare myself more doing my local hacks – and this was after telling the guides I was an experienced rider and pushing them to give me something exciting to ride.

At one point the guy said ‘you need to get off and walk this bit’. So I rode it and he said ‘ahh, right so you CAN ride a bit can’t you’?

Err….

ooh yeah, forgot about the Milford and Doubtful Sounds.
Also, I walked the Kepler Track and had 3 days of glorious sunshine. Unheard of in that part of the world!

mtb in Queenstown (in fact anywhere, get the Kennet Brother’s book) follow the Moke Lake circuit. Brings you out on some lovely singletrack high above the jet-boating hoards and you can feel nice and smug.

some repeated from above..
hire a bike in Queenstown and spend a day getting uplifts on the gondola.
river surfing in Queenstown
Heaphy track is (imo) the best walk in the country.
Visit Napier.
Eat in a good vineyard restaurant.

You can do cycle tours round the vinyards in Marlborough. That was a fun day…

If you dive, the Bay of Islands is superb. Diving also possible in Milford Sound, which is beautiful, but the water is perishing.

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a terrific day walk, and you can climb up “Mount Doom” too.

have a look for the kennet bros book about mtb routes.
Rotorua stinks, but some cool trails.
if you go to mt.cook, take the road on the right & check out the tasman glacier. its a tough climb, but do-able.

My faves…

‘Tramping’ (as the Kiwis call it) the Routeburn & Milford tracks.

Sea kayak safari in the Abel Tasman national park

Paragliding in Queenstown

Flight up onto Mount Cook – ski plane landing on the glacier – snowball fight in mid-summer

spent 9 months living in the South Island, so here you go…

Abel Tasman NP. Spend 3 or so days walking the track there & camping out on isolated beach camping spots. Very cool place. Check the tides, there’s a couple of estuary crossings to take in, we arrived early for one so had to wait an hour. Luckily there was an abundance of cockles to collect and cook whilst we waited for the tide to go out.

Stewart Island. NZ is actually 3 main Islands don’t you know! Stewart is the southern most and is a bit of a wildlife sanctuary. Not many people visit but if you have 3 weeks I’d recommend a few days over there. Could either tramp (NZ equivalent to hike) around the island staying in the huts or just chill out at Halfmoon Bay and do some fishing (best Blue Cod in NZ!) or snorkelling.

Find the better bars in Queenstown! There’s two sides – the backpacker bars and the other bars. The others are much better!! Lots to do around QT – you can probably find out what you need to do yourself. A trip down the road to Glenorchy is worthwhile, and ask the locals about the ‘Little Thailand’ cliff jump into Wakatipu, then see if you have the balls to do it!

Swim with dolphins in Akaroa, not Kaikoura. There’s lots of outfits offering trips, but find the guy who has a dinghy for about 8 people. He knows his stuff and wont go round chasing them, rather lets them come to you. It was an amazing experience when I went with them.

And there’s so much more that I never did. Such an amazing place though!

Things we liked:

Potholing through Waitomo caves (do the Black Water Rafting one: zip lines, tubing, waterfall climbing, abseiling): http://www.waitomo.com/caving-adventure.aspx

Swimming with wild dolphins off Kaikoura: http://www.dolphinencounter.co.nz/

Tandem Freefall Jump at Lake Taupo: http://www.skydivetaupo.co.nz/

Canyon Swing at Queenstown: http://www.canyonswing.co.nz/

Zorbing

Jet boating

White Water Sledging: http://www.frogz.co.nz/

Milford Sound cruise (or kayak if you have time)

Franz Joseph glacier (do the proper climb/hike, not the cheaty helicopter ride to the top)

If you go the Queenstown you MUST have a Fergburger, brilliant, brilliant burgers.
Dux De Lux is a brew pub there that is well worth visiting as well.

I liked the Wee local museums, steam trains, and abandoned mines.

Oh yeah: we jumped out of a plane near the Fox glacier. That was fun!

+1 for the ice walk at Franz Josef.

We went swimming with dolphins near the Bay of Islands – which was fantastic. Try and get a small boat if you can; we went on a catamaran.

All that above plus sand surfing in Opononi – scary as you like and definitely stay in the Hostel half way up the mountain(you cant miss it – ask in town)plus the sunset from the hill down from the hostel is spot on.There is also some allegedly hardcore trails in Whangarei,but you will need a decent bike as the local bike shops were only renting out town bikes – there is a website dedicated to them at – http://www.singletracks.com/mountain-bike/map-list.php?state_id=74

If you go the Queenstown you MUST have a Fergburger, brilliant, brilliant burgers

+1000

i worked here. amazing food. Big Al or a Little Lamby with blue cheese & bacon.

in fact, don’t bother eating anywhere else in QT, just go Ferg every night.

Another vote for Napier. Amazing place. Lovely Art Deco gorgeousness

And zorbing is a right old laugh 🙂

Oh… and eat lots of Steak and Cheese pies. Food of the gods!!!

Have a cheese roll in Dunedin: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/blogs/the-backpacker/the-kiwi-food-that-cant-or-wont-be-improved-20110802-1i8x2.html

I also spent part of a world trip in NZ. My biggest NZ regret is not spending more time on the North island.
My recommendations…
Karahangahake Gorge – North Island
Queenstown plus Fergburger x lots
Abel Tasman National Park
Curling at some tiny place on the south island. totally random.

Pies and cheese rolls? How had I forgotten these delights?!?!

I used to live on cheese rolls when I worked in QT. I also had the best pie I have ever eaten from the cafe at the top of Bobs Peak.

They know how to do real food Kiwi’s do.

South Island:
Kepler Track, book it though, and this time of year it will be above the snowline.
Abel Tasman, Kayak for a couple of days, walk for a couple of days, camp overnight.
Get a Tramping book, trails are normally well marked and spectacular
Just enjoy the wilderness

spent a year in NZ and toured all over the place, ‘generally’ the south island has better bits IMO.

The best bit i found was right in the very south of the south island, from Invercargill head out EAST and you hit an area called Catlins all along that road its amazing.

i stayed in a hostel, cant for the life of me remember the name but it was a house right on the coast and there were seals that came right up tp the house back door ‘literally’ hardly anyone i met had been here.

beware with milford sound, its a sod to get to from queenstwon (a full day there and back) unless you stay in Te Anau (spl?)but there **** all there.

the sounds are ok but i was all ‘scenery’d’ out by that time and it was just another WOOOOHOOOOO.

franz joseph glacier i thought was ok nothing special.

i agree 100% aswell with this..

Swim with dolphins in Akaroa, not Kaikoura. There’s lots of outfits offering trips, but find the guy who has a dinghy for about 8 people. He knows his stuff and wont go round chasing them, rather lets them come to you. It was an amazing experience when I went with them.

wanaka is nice but its a bit boring/quieter than queenstown is way livlier but again it depends what you want.

hire a car and use the local AA b&b guide book, i did a campervan aswell but the car was much better IMO.

Look out for cheap campervan relocation deals: http://www.standbyrelocs.com/

but no dawdling!

i agree 100% aswell with this..
Swim with dolphins in Akaroa, not Kaikoura. There’s lots of outfits offering trips, but find the guy who has a dinghy for about 8 people. He knows his stuff and wont go round chasing them, rather lets them come to you. It was an amazing experience when I went with them.

Has the dolphin stuff got bad around Kaikoura then?

We did it back in 2003 with the Dolphin Encounter folk. Boat was something like this:

I don’t remember there being an issue with too many people then. Probably 10 in the group. It was certainly didn’t feel crowded and the the guy didn’t chase the dolphins. We just parked up, waited for them to show up, then we got in the (chuffing freezing!) water and made some noise so they would come and say hello.

All seemed fairly “respectful” to me at the time – be a shame if it has gone downhill since then.

well the tour operators share the same radio transmissions so sometimes when a pod of dolphins gets spotted they quickly get swamped with tour boats and then the dolphins disappear. a smaller boat being quicker, more manoeuvrable and easy to silence seems to be a better way to experience things IMO. the chap who was driving had access to the same transmissions but waited til he heard that the dolphins had moved location and then tried to pre-empt where they might turn up & just sit there floating and waiting. he could get into smaller, secluded coves & we had lots of encounters with the mammals. the guy certainly knew his stuff and when there were no dolphins he was showing us bits of volcanic leftovers, akaroa being a submerged volcano crater and all that.

not saying that all the more large scale operators are bad, in fact the kiwi’s are generally really good at respecting nature & wildlife. i just remember seeing loads of glass bottom boats hanging around in the middle of the natural harbour as we zipped and bounced to the edge of it clinging to the dingy and thinking that i had definitely made the right choice for me.

this was 07.

Cheers guys!