Visitors

We count ourselves lucky to have lived in places that are fun to explore, as well as for having friends and family willing to visit us in them! If you're considering a visit to New Zealand, here are some past itineraries we've enjoyed as well as some things to consider:

In 2004, we started in Auckland and rode with some excellent tour guides down to Matamata (Hobbiton), Rotorua (volcanic hot springs, lots of spas and adventure tourism like Zorbing, jetboating, bungie jumping, etc.) and Taupo (think Tahoe without the elevation, great fishing). There are no interstates so I imagine it's like touring Ireland - all 2-lane back roads, small towns and gorgeous views. The most frequent delay was waiting for sheep to cross the road. We then flew from Taupo to Wellington (without having to enter the airport, we walked straight from the parking lot onto the plane), spent a few days seeing Wellington then took a ferry to Picton on the South Island. We took a bus from Picton to Nelson (wineries, fruit growing region), then took a helicopter tour from Nelson to the Dimrill Dale LOTR site (after they escape from Moria). We flew from Nelson back to Auckland before departing.

In 2008 we took the ferry to Picton again, but drove ourselves this time. We did a big loop of the South Island with the kids in tow, logging about 4-5 hours of driving each day with lots of stops for pictures. We drove from Picton to Kaikoura (major skiing & whale-watching, snow-capped peaks back right up to the ocean), then on to Christchurch, Lake Tekapo (one of the glacial lakes extending from Mount Cook), Queenstown (biggest tourist spot in the country, snowboarding & skiing in winter and adrenaline junkie stuff in the summer), Fox Glacier (took another helicopter tour here to the top of the glacier), Greymouth and then back to Picton. That was a relative speed-tour given that we had the kids along, those traveling without small children could probably cram more in and still enjoy themselves (for instance Dunedin is still on our list of places to see, there's the Cadbury factory and both the Speights and Emersons breweries). The biggest thing we still hope to do on the South Island is to see Milford Sound and possibly hike the Milford Track. All of New Zealand is pretty epic, and the South Island even more so, but this supposedly takes the cake. Kayak tours are available as well, but the tramp is limited to a certain number of people each year and takes 3-4 days to complete.

In 2009, we drove north from Auckland up to the Coromandel, near where they filmed the opening of the second Narnia film. It's pretty much sub-tropical up there, very warm water and gorgeous. Hot Water Beach is very popular, we didn't try it but you can dig a hole in the sand and it will fill up with spa-temperature water. We also took long weekend trips up to Taupo and Rotorua, once for skiing, once for fishing and another time for Zorbing. We'd like to get back up north of Auckland again this year, to the Bay of Islands.

This year we took the ferry to Picton again but drove to Abel Tasman National Park near Nelson. It's got great beaches and awesome scenery but is not as warm year-round as the Coromandel. The town of Nelson is very nice to visit, shop in, etc. They have a big arts community there, and because of the good weather a lot of Kiwis seem to retire down there. It's a big wine region as well as fruit-growing area.

There are a number of LOTR sites around Wellington, either right in town or a day trip away. Kaitoke Regional Park has a great hike through the native rainforest and was used for the Rivendell set but you can hardly piece it together. Not far away from there is the park where they filmed the Isengard outdoor scenes. On the South Island near Queenstown is the Mount Sunday area that they built the awesome Edoras set at - nothing is left of it but you can take a bus out to see the area, the tour includes some props that you can have your photo taken with. The Hobbiton set in Matamata is still the best site to visit in my opinion, I loved it there.

The food here is heavily-influenced by the English, so fish-n-chips, meat pies and bland sausages are the standard fare. We've never done it but a lot of tourists take in a hangi, sort of a traditional Maori Dutch oven dinner. Rugby or cricket are also recommended. A lot of people enjoy the glow-worm caves in Waitomo, which involves a 100-foot rappel down into an underground river (which I believe has eels in it but I've never heard of anyone being bothered by them) and some pretty amazing views of the worms. You definitely have to take in the national museum Te Papa downtown, it's really incredible and a great overview of the country. The nightlife in Wellington is surprising, at 11pm it's fairly quiet but at 3am it's shoulder-to-shoulder. I don't quite get it, but it can make for a very late evening!