While we were in Africa, not looking forward to that 16 hour return flight. And we knew we had another long flight to Australia. Well what the heck, let's do New Zealand at the same time. So when we got back to the US, I changed our return flight from Sydney to Auckland. And I setup a 3 day stay in Auckland and a car rental (with Scotties was the cheapest part of the trip). And that was the extent of the planning.
So we flew into Auckland to start and took Uber into our hotel in the CBD. Our driver recommended dining in Devonport, and a visit to Waiheke. The first day we wandered around Auckland, and caught the ferry to Devonport for dinner, which while it is popular, Devonport was a bit of a disappointment. BUT the next day we hopped the ferry to Waiheke and the hop-on-hop-off bus. Now that was definitely worth being on your visit list. It has great views, beaches, good restaurants and wineries.
Looking back at Auckland from Waiheke.
Next we took a cab back to the airport to pick up a rental car and drove down to Rotorua (seems to be a stop for all tours). There you can see the largest geyser in the southern hemisphere.
We happened to be there on a misty day which was perfect for viewing the geysers and bubbling mud.
Around the geysers are 2 Maori villages and they do some demonstrations of their haka. If you only have time to visit one village, we recommend the Whakarewarewa, but the view of the geysers is better in Te Puia.
Another day in Rotorua we visited a redwood forest, that was planted there as an experiment over 100 years ago
Hiking among the redwoods and tree ferns.
We tried to limit our drives to 3-4 hours per day, and next we headed down to Hawkes Bay wine country. We stayed in Hastings, though Napier a cute beach town would have been better. We did stop in Napier for lunch, and passed by the biggest timber port I have ever seen. No picture, but envision the largest container port and substitute stacks of logs. Too bad we were there at the beginning of the week and most all cellar doors were closed. We did find some good Indian food.
Our goal was to get over to the south island, and next we stayed in Wellington for the night with the idea that if we liked it we would spend more time there on the way back. While I am sure if you knew your way around Wellington it would be good, but we found the Cuba Street a bit underwhelming. In Wellington you catch the ferry to the south island, the voyage is about 3 hours with some great views, even saw a couple dolphins.
Our first stop on the south island was Nelson. While it was a bit out of our way, it was a cute beach town which would be a great place for a week or so. While there we visited one of New Zealand's wildlife refuges, like Australia are a park surrounded by an anti-predator fence. New Zealand had no native mammals other than bats and seals. So many birds both flying and flightless.
Next onto Blenheim in the Marlborough wine country. One missed opportunity was we passed through Havelock a tiny town on the sound. Havelock is a very small town but we noticed lots of cars parked along the short main street. Well Havelock is where much of the green lipped muscles come from and there is at least one small diner there famous for serving them. Oh well, time on the return did not allow us to try that, but we did have muscles elsewhere.
In Blenheim we joined a small group winery tour and sampled many of their Sauvignon Blanc and other wines. Marlborough is a large valley where grapes are replacing much of the sheep and dairy farming.
Next onto Christchurch. A very scenic road running parallel to the rail line along the seacoast.
While we knew they had an earthquake some 14 years ago, we did not know how extensive it was. 80% of the buildings were destroyed or unsafe and later demolished. The city has rebuilt a lot and is a wonderful city to walk around and eat. It has a set of trams that have been restored that circle the downtown.
Some great food, we found excellent Chinese and Mexican restaurants. Still haven't found either here in Florida yet.
From Christchurch we took the New Zealand trans Alpine train. Great views, high trestles, gravel bed rivers and lots of Lupins.
Lupins are an invasive species in New Zealand having escaped from a garden about 80 years ago. Though they covered over half of the south island, so that seems like they were spread by more than one garden.
Our next destination was Queenstown, which was our longest drive, more than 5 hours. Queenstown is a small town on the edge of fjord land of New Zealand. It sits on a large lake scooped out by glaciers, which has a large ship disassembled and rebuilt for the lake 1000' above sea level to service the gold rush.
Queenstown is one of the gateways to the Milford Sound, which has to be on your todo list. We booked a bus tour and sail on the sound. That day started off with heavy rains, that cleared up by noon. That was perfect as the waterfalls and cascades (intermittent waterfall) were really flowing when we got there.
While we could have taken the bus back (3 hours), we chose to take a "scenic" flight back. Maybe as a pilot, I thought it was underwhelming, but it did save a lot of time.
Queenstown was our southern most stop. We could have gone onto Dunedin, but you can never see it all.
To break up the trip back north we booked a stay at Lake Tekapo. On that way we drove by a salmon farm in Twizel, maybe should have done a quick visit. Lake Tekapo is a very small town in the middle of the "dark sky" country, but it was quite cloudly that day which was not so good for star gazing, but what a sunset with a front moving through.
Speaking of salmon, we had a terrific meal there in Lake Tekapo with salmon from that Twizel farm.
Back on the road we spent a couple nights in Akaroa on the recommendation of a couple kiwis. Akaroa was a French settlement about the same time as the first English settlements. A quaint little beach town at the end of a very windy road. Had some of the best venison ever at one of the restaurants. Deer were brought in for sport sometime in their history, and became nuisance followed by becoming quite a cash crop such that now red deer are raised along with the sheep and cattle.
Heading north we went through Blenheim, this time stopping at a marvelous air museum. It was closed when we passed by it on the way south before.
We stayed in Picton to catch the ferry the next day. That evening we stopped at a Finnish tapas restaurant, quite good. Below is the smaller of the 2 ferries that ply the route between the north and south islands.
Back in north Wellington we had a choice of routes. We could have gone back up the center and stopped at Lake Taupo, which apparently is a very scenic place to visit. But we chose to head up the west coast of the North Island. Part of the reason was to see Mt Taranaki, a volcanic cone that actually "played" Mt Fuji in Tom Cruises "The Last Samurai". Too bad the peak was in the clouds most of the time we were there. Below is a stock picture.
We stayed in New Plymouth on the coast. While sitting in the bar the fire alarm rang out, and we were all ushered out into the parking lot. We struck up a conversation with a local while waiting to see if there really was a fire or not. He told us not many Americans visit there and he would be happy to show us around his town, which he did next day driving us around explaining the sites and having lunch with us.
From there we headed north towards Auckland breaking up the trip staying in Otorohanga. There we visited another native animal refuge. Lots of birds and a couple kiwis, that were in a darkened area. Kiwis are nocturnal flightless birds that poke around for insects and worms with their beaks. No pictures allowed. (We also saw kiwis in Rotorua, again in darkened settings).
One surprising stop that just happened to be on our way were the glowworm caves in Waitomo. Frankly we might have skipped this, but it turned out to be very interesting. You hike through a cave and exit by boat through the cave. Again no photos allowed in the cave, but it was quite a site, glowworms looking like stars in the sky. A stock photo of the glowworms and our picture exiting the cave.
Now time to return the rental car to the Auckland airport. We shared a ride back with a couple returning from Lake Taupo, They had been there for the Ironman, which made the area a zoo. So while we missed Taupo, turns out it was a good arbitrary decision this time. Funny we were on the big island of Hawaii for one of the first Ironman in the early 80s.
A couple notes. New Zealand is a beautiful country, mostly rural still with lots of sheep, but more dairy these days. It is surprising how much wine is being grown and made there. In many ways it does parallel California, with a little of everything, but New Zealand is a lot more rugged. Timber is also a major export, and they do a lot of sectional clear cut followed by replanting.
We splurged for United Polaris (business class) which was great and Scotties car rental was the cheapest part of the trip, Like Australia tipping is uncommon, and you might order from a waitress, but almost always pay at the bar. Often breakfast is ordered and prepaid at the bar. While some European tourists we met thought food was cheap, we thought it was slightly more expensive than here in Florida, even adding in the equivalent tip. Our navigation was done with New Zealand tourist web sites, Booking.com, tripadvisor, and google maps. It is so much easier to wing it for travel these days,