I've been back home for two weeks now and have had the opportunity to share my trip with friends and kind of debrief on things. So here are my thoughts on the trip overall and what I might have done differently or not.
First of all, if you want to travel the whole of the two islands, I would say you want 6-8 weeks minimum. I was there for 6 weeks and felt that another 1-2 would have given me the opportunity to stay in some places a bit longer, and perhaps seen some of the places I had to bypass because I just didn't have time. If you're only going for 2 or 3 weeks, I would highly recommend just picking an island and staying there. Or at minimum, visit Hobbiton and and then fly down to the South Island if that is your island of choice.
If you want to go hiking, do the South Island. There is hiking on the North Island, but there is so many more options on the South Island. The South Island is more mountainous so they're going to be a different sort of trail than you find on the North Island.
My favorite places (in no particular order):
- Hobbiton (North Island)
- Giant Sand Dunes (North Island)
- Poor Knights Island for Scuba Diving (North Island)
- Picton to Farewell Spit (South Island)
- Area around Wanaka (South Island)
- Area around Queenstown (South Island)
- Mount Cook/Aoraki National Park (South Island)
- The Catlin Region along the south-southeast coast (South Island)
- Oamaru Penguin Colony (South Island)
- Doubtful Sound (South Island)
If you are a Lord of the Rings fan I would pick up a copy of The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook (I bought my at Hobbiton). It was completely worth it. Pictures, maps, details about where to look. If you do want to visit filming locations, I would recommend Hobbiton, Weta Workshop Wellington on the North Island, and the filming locations near Wellington on the North Island. And then on the South Island head to Queenstown and book a tour through Pure Glenorchy and Southern Trails LOTR Trails. Our tour guides were true LOTR nerds who know their books and movies and are giving tours because they are fans themselves. They had photos of the scenes from the films so you could literally look at the scene and look at what was in front of you. And then take a day to head down to Lake Mavora.
Make sure to fit some time into your schedule to rest here and there. That is part of the reason I wish I had had another week. It would have given me time to have a down day here or there. If I could have, I would have taken another 1-2 days at Mount Cook NP. I didn't have a chance to stop at Lake Tekapo. They say it is a fantastic place for stargazing and I never had the opportunity because I didn't have time. I also would have spent another day up in the Bay of Islands area, I think. And I would have totally done another day of diving at Poor Knights Island.
In hindsight I would have skipped out on scuba diving at Kaikoura on the South Island, though the town is worth a visit for its seal colony. I probably would have bypassed Christchurch and the Akaroa peninsula as well. I'm still debating whether the Coromandel Peninsula was worth the trip up there or not. Cathedral Cove was a neat stop and by that point you're most of the way up the peninsula anyway, so I suppose you might as well keep going.
One big recommendation I have is get going early. I can't say if it was because I was up there post-Christmas or if it is always like that, but on the north tip of the North Island it wasn't too crowded at 8am, but by 10am it was starting to get busy, and I was told it was insane by 1pm.
I'm glad I made the decision to rent a car and not a campervan for this trip. Part of that is due to the length of my trip. I don't think I could have made it 6 weeks in a camper van. I liked having room to stretch out at a hotel. But also, the vans in NZ were a lot larger than the ones in Iceland. And in NZ you're dealing with a lot of narrow roads with one lane bridges and twists and turns. Gas was about $2.70NZD/liter, so roughly $6.00/gal. When looking for gas, look for an NPD, Waitomo, or Gull. They are your cheapest gas and usually found at unmanned stations. I ended up driving somewhere around 4500 miles and spent nearly $800 on gas.
Most towns have free public toilets that are actually pretty nice. They're usually stocked and clean. Just look for a blue bathroom sign in on the road through town and it'll point you there.
Your grocery stores are Pak'NSave, Woolworths, and New Market. Warehouse is like a Walmart with just the general merchandise. Look for Chemist Warehouse for everything from shampoo to sunscreen to bug bite cream. Overall the food was good and cheap compared to American food.
New Zealand loves their meat pies. Imagine a 4" little pie filled with steak or chicken. They're filling and cheap and available at pretty much any cafe, bakery, or manned gas station.
The flight there is long; 12-13 hours from LAX to Auckland. I flew on Air New Zealand specifically because they have a Skycouch option, where you can pay to get all three seats together to make a bed. The Skycouch option is available for 1, 2, or 3 people. If you have 3 people you can still make the bed, but you're not going to have much space. But with 1 or 2 people, it makes for an opportunity to lie down.
The hotels along the way are usually quite nice. You don't find much in the way of chains. A lot of the hotels are 10-15 room motels owned by a family that lives there. In most cases I found them nicer than American chain hotels. If you're willing to share a bathroom with others, you can find a lot of cheaper alternatives in the form of hostels (with private rooms or dorms) or what I'd call guesthouses with a private room and shared facility. I think probably 90% of the places I stayed had a place I could cook food, either in a shared kitchen or in my hotel room on a stove. I stayed at 3 AirBNB's along the way in places where hotels were hard to find. I booked most of my stays 0-5 days out. The best hotel I stayed in was Aura Accommodations in Rotorua, but there were many places I stayed that were fantastic!
Sorry this is all really random. It is just my thoughts as I think through the ins and outs of my trip.
Remember, there is a good chance you either won't ever be back again, or it may be a while, so if you see something that looks interesting, visit. I totally splurged on my Tasman Glacier Helicopter-Hike and I'm so glad I did because while I didn't enjoy the helicopter ride, the views from the glacier were amazing.
When you're looking at place names, the WH sound in Maori sounds more like an F, so Whangarei is Fahnguhray. That also means when you're listening to the radio on the South Island around Nelson and you think you hear someone saying Fuck-It-Too, they're actually saying Whakatu.
Overall I felt that the South Island was a bit more laid back and the people nicer than on the North Island, but overall, the people are pleasant and ready to have a conversation. New Zealand was full of wonderful people.
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