About Us

I have had two long holidays in New Zealand and was so impressed that I want to pass on my experience to others via this web site... and I wouldn't hesitate to visit NZ again tomorrow! Keep up to date with this site through my blog or follow me on twitter.

I've just added a facility for you to add your own travel stories and New Zealand pictures to this site. It would be great to hear about and share some of your experiences in New Zealand so I'd love you to take a few minutes of your time to add your own story! It is an easy form to fill in so won't take long... see Your Travel Stories

My first New Zealand tour was for six months and a totally unforgettable experience that was the beginning of a whole new period of my life that I'll tell you about later.

My second trip to NZ was in October with my daughter but unfortunately we could only visit for three weeks this time.

It took us a lot of time over a few months to gather all the information we needed. Most of this time was spent using the web to find out as much as possible before we went. The time and effort put in was well spent as we had the best holiday, everything went smoothly, and we got to see most things on our list of 'must dos' (for this trip anyway).

New Zealand Tour

I've started putting together my travel notes from our holiday and will be adding pages over the next few weeks. Part of the purpose of building this site is to give you an insight into the places we visited and our experiences travelling around New Zealand.

The links below will be to more detail about each travel day, the attractions and locations... so do please follow them as the text on this page only provides a basic outline of our tour. The real detail is on the linked pages.

Friday 17th October

Our first day in NZ! Provides you with an insight into our visit to Auckland Museum, Mount Eden, Out in the Styx accommodation, and the Maungatautari ecological island.
More...

Saturday 18th October

On leaving our accommodation after breakfast, we walked the Southern Enclosure of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust reserve, drove down to the Otorohanga Kiwi House & Native Bird Park for NZ birds & reptiles, and then on to the Waitomo Caves before heading for our accommodation at Whakapapa Village.
More...

Sunday 19th October

Early morning start in the Tongariro National Park looking for snow! We left Whakapapa Village to drive up to the ski fields to take a look at the last of the snow and the views of Tongariro National Park, spring was on it's way! The itinerary of our day took us along part of the Desert Road, to the Tokaanu hot springs, past Lake Taupo with a stop for lunch in the town, a visit to Huka Falls, and finally on to Rotorua. We had booked an evening out at the Mitai Maori Village with a pick up and drop off service included. We were due to be picked up from the Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park at 5.45pm so just enough time to unload our gear at the holiday park first.
More...

Coming soon...

The following notes of places we went that will become pages soon. Keep up to date with this site through my blog to find out when I add new pages, or follow me on twitter.

Monday 20th October

Rotorua thermal City
Te Wairoa Buried Village - http://www.buriedvillage.co.nz/
Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland
Lady K Geyser
Waimangu Thermal Valley
Pohatu Geyser
Hells Gate
Town / Museum
Maori Crafts / Arts Carvers

Tuesday 21st October

Hot Springs Road, Katikati
Easy one hour return walk to magnificent Kauri tree. One of the biggest left in the Kaimai forest, the southern most limit of Kauri trees in New Zealand.
Soak in hot pools on way back
Visit Katikati museum for a guided history of this little area of NZ, where logging the magnificent Kauri and mining for gold have taken their toll on the diversity of the forest.
Refreshment in The Landing, Katikati
Papamoa beach, swim, surf, collect shells

Wednesday 22nd October

Coromandel Peninsula, home of spectacular beaches and dense New Zealand bush.
Gold Mines Museum
Twin Kauri Scenic Reserve
Hot Water Beach to our bach accommodation, Taumata Holiday Home

Thursday 23rd October

Coromandel Peninsula. Walk along Hot Water Beach before breakfast
Cathedral Cove walk
Marine Reserve
Drive round top of Coromandel
Coromandel town for lunch

Hot Water Beach in evening / barbeque

Friday 24th October

Morning drive from Coromandel Peninsula to Auckland via Square Kauri / waterfall walk, visit to the Mineralogical Museum on the way past, then to Miranda. On to Papatoetoe for visit to Maori carver and on to accommodation at Kiwi International Airport Hotel

Saturday 25th October

Fly from Auckland to Christchurch, South Island

Pick up campervan and stock up on food and petrol in Christchurch

Drive down to Olive Grove Lodge and Holiday Park

Sunday 26th October

Moeraki Boulders beach

Cromwell - Creeksyde camp ground

Monday 27th October

Drive on to Queenstown

Creeksyde camp ground

Tuesday 28th October

BBQ Bus pick us up from Creeksyde at 7.30am and took us to Milford Sound, via Te Anau. On the way we stopped the Mirror Lakes, and at a beach forest and the driver cooked up a delicious bbq while we went for a short walk through the forest to look at the lake. The purpose behind having the bbq on the way to Milford Sound was so that the other tourist buses will have already been and gone from Milford Sound and therefore we would not have to queue for lunch, or for the ferry. It was a great plan and as anticipated, we got to Milford Sound for the last ferry trip, there were no other passengers except those on the BBQ Bus, and we didn't need any lunch because we had already eaten! It was a fantastic experience, our hosts on the BBQ Bus were really knowledgeable about the areas on the drive to Milford Sound, and I would fully recommend this as a good way to do this trip in one day from Queenstown or other pick up points along the way. We were then dropped off back at the camp ground in Queenstown around 8.30pm. Visit the BBQ Bus web site for more information.

Wednesday 29th October

Arrowtown

Wanaka

Accommodation - Lake Outlet Holiday Park, Wanaka

Thursday 30th October

Puzzling World

Accommodation - Lake Outlet Holiday Park, Wanaka

Friday 31st October

Haast Pass

Saturday 1st November

Fox Glacier

Accommodation - Hokitika Holiday Park

Sunday 2nd November

I love Hokitika so we decided to stay here and relax for a few days instead of doing more driving.

Visit to Ross and Gold Mining Museum

Accommodation - Hokitika Holiday Park

Monday 3rd November

Hokitika town and relaxing beach day. Looking round the town and shops and visiting jade carvers.

Accommodation - Hokitika Holiday Park

Tuesday 4th November

Our friend Kea from the North Island turned up in the late afternoon to travel with us for a few days.

Accommodation - Hokitika Holiday Park

Visit to an old reconstructed gold mining town

Greymouth

Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki, Paparoa National Park

Accommodation - Punakaki camping ground

Wednesday 5th November

Drive across Lewis Pass in the snow to Hamner Springs

Accommodation at a Hamner Springs camping ground

Thursday 6th November

We wanted to go to the Hamner Springs hot pools but they didn't open until 10am! Rather late we thought so we decided to give it a miss and head off to the coast.

Friday 7th November

Drive down to Christchurch with a few scenic stops on the way before dropping off the campervan before the 5.30pm deadline when the depot shuts. We also had to give the camper van a good clean out to ensure we did not lose on the deposit.

Leave Christchurch 8.30pm to fly to Auckland, then from Auckland back to the UK via Hong Kong.

Saturday 8th November

The worst part of the whole journey! Trying to get from London back to Wales.

1992 - 6 Months Holiday in New Zealand

My first experience of NZ was a six month holiday in 1992 with my partner. The purpose of the trip was partly to visit relatives and friends, but mostly aimed at travelling round the country and seeing the sights. We couldn't plan very well in advance then as we didn't even have a computer... and such freely available access to information on the Internet was in the distant future.

However, we didn't really need to gather a lot of information at the time as we would be staying with friends initially. This meant we had the luxury of being able to make our plans once we got there.

My Travel Stories

To cut this long story short temporarily... both these holidays have inspired me to create this web site and provide you with an insight into what a holiday in New Zealand is really all about.

This is a relatively new web site that I am building using Site Build It!... so more details about us and both our holidays are in the process of being written and will be posted soon. If you want to know more about how I built the web site please visit my dedicated page SBI! New Zealand where I'll tell you all about it.

I will be completing the 2008 trip to New Zealand first as it is more likely to be of interest to you if you are travelling soon. I aim to tell you how we chose and made bookings, how we decided on our itinerary from studying a map of New Zealand and emailing for information, and why we decided on visiting certain locations on our tour.

Of course, as I had already been there before I had some prior knowledge of NZ, had some places I wanted to revisit with my daughter, including some locations that I didn't get around to seeing during my first visit... such as Milford Sound!