New Zealand just after Christmas

Hi,

My big dilemna is that while I'm really looking forward to going to New Zealand and Australia just after Christmas, I really want to be disciplined and not go mad but at the same time I want to enjoy myself too. I plan to do a lot of walking and my last weigh in before I go will be Christmas Eve (eek) so have to try and curb my eating for Christmas and stay on track (and lots of walking too) while away, pity I couldn't weigh in over there as I'm not sure do I have enough holidays to cover me.

I'm sure some of you have been there before so any advice would be great.

How long are you going to New Zealand for? Both islands? Are you hiring a car? Going on a tour?

My wife and I went there on our honeymoon back in May and had an unbelievable time!!!!

Eating out can be expensive for a restaurant, the same cost as London really. Usually when I am on holiday I would be thinking about the next meal quite a bit but this was not the case in New Zealand as there is just SO MUCH to do and to see!!!

We ended up getting some breakfast bars, bread rolls and cold meats from the supermarket and had them while driving between places. If we ate during the day out it would be little things like pies (they have some good pies) or sandwiches etc. There is a pretty good hot dog shop in Auckland that we went to a couple of times! Some days we didn't even have an evening meal.

In summary New Zealand is so spectacular that finding places to eat will be at the bottom of your list...

Do you have a rough itinery?

We are going for a month, flying into Auckland and staying with my brother in law and his girlfriend, we will be there for New Year's Eve (fantastic). We will chill there for a few days but my brother in law is taking time off and he is going to travel with us after that. We will be hiring a car (have to do it in style though, not too often we get this chance). We are going to travel to both islands and I want to meet two people when there, Dunedin and Tuarango.

Kind of planning out our journey now as my brother in law and his girlfriend will be travelling with us and when they go back to work then I think we may go to the South Island and visit my friend in Dunedin then but nothing definite yet. We hope to visit the hobbit village and also we want to see the whales (I think near Dunedin) too but I plan to do a lot of walking and eating a lot of fruit and veg.

Thanks a million for this, by next January, if I lose another stone by Christmas my target will be in sight and I don't want to push that too far ahead so will be good

Fay737731 said:

How long are you going to New Zealand for? Both islands? Are you hiring a car? Going on a tour?

My wife and I went there on our honeymoon back in May and had an unbelievable time!!!!

Eating out can be expensive for a restaurant, the same cost as London really. Usually when I am on holiday I would be thinking about the next meal quite a bit but this was not the case in New Zealand as there is just SO MUCH to do and to see!!!

We ended up getting some breakfast bars, bread rolls and cold meats from the supermarket and had them while driving between places. If we ate during the day out it would be little things like pies (they have some good pies) or sandwiches etc. There is a pretty good hot dog shop in Auckland that we went to a couple of times! Some days we didn't even have an evening meal.

In summary New Zealand is so spectacular that finding places to eat will be at the bottom of your list...

Do you have a rough itinery?

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Orla1973 said:

We are going for a month, flying into Auckland and staying with my brother in law and his girlfriend, we will be there for New Year's Eve (fantastic). We will chill there for a few days but my brother in law is taking time off and he is going to travel with us after that. We will be hiring a car (have to do it in style though, not too often we get this chance). We are going to travel to both islands and I want to meet two people when there, Dunedin and Tuarango.

Kind of planning out our journey now as my brother in law and his girlfriend will be travelling with us and when they go back to work then I think we may go to the South Island and visit my friend in Dunedin then but nothing definite yet. We hope to visit the hobbit village and also we want to see the whales (I think near Dunedin) too but I plan to do a lot of walking and eating a lot of fruit and veg.

Thanks a million for this, by next January, if I lose another stone by Christmas my target will be in sight and I don't want to push that too far ahead so will be good

Click to expand...

I recommend so many places:

Bay of Islands for a swim with the Dolphins
Kaikoura is really amazing for the Whale Watching
https://www.google.co.uk/search?saf...a=X&ei=h05dUpayGePT0QXkiICwCA&ved=0CCoQvwUoAAMilford Sound is a MUST!!! If possilbe it is expensive but get a plane there as my wife and I were both on the verge of tears from just how beautiful it was!!!!
Marlborough Sound scenic drive from Picton to Nelson was breathtaking!!! Wish we had more time to stop on-route for that one.

The locals will tell you how beautiful the south island is and is but you really have to see it to believe it!! I was there for 3 weeks and wish I have been able to stay longer. We didn't even touch on Coromandel (for the hot water beach) or the Able Tazman Park (for the biking and Kayaking).

If you get a chance I would really recommend this: Maori Cultural Performance, Maori Tourist attraction, Rotorua, New Zealand
This was our highlight in Rotorua and completely unexpected at how much fun we had. They take you down to see their local spring and you can see the glow worms and unbelievably clear water!!!!

Sea Kayaking was fun to see the Maori Stone Carvings as Lake Taupo but you can get a boat our there was well.

I could spend hours more adding to this list.....

Rotorua smells really really bad....like rotten eggs. I may have almost vomited on a number of occassions

Thanks Fay for all of that, I have to say I'm not big on kayaking or anything like that as I'm terrified of heights and I don't swim either but when you mentioned Kiakoura then I realised that is the place we want to go. We bought a book and it gives everything about accommodation and places to see so definitely will look up these places you mentioned.

Can I ask in terms of accommodation, did you travel around by camper or travel by car and stay in a hotel/B & B, any advice would be greatly appreciated

We hired a car because it was our honeymoon and wanted to vary the places we stayed: B&B's mostly; some nice one off places in the cities; a lodge on the beach.

I am kind of glad we got a car rather than a camper because I couldn't imagine driving around the narrow winding roads of the South Island in anything bigger than what we had but that's mostly because I am a nervous passenger rather than anything wrong with the roads, I'm used to well lit cities. The only down side was that if we were bored of a place (there isn't much to do in the cities, always outside) we didn't have the felexibiliy to go to our next place early. The same goes the other way where we really loved some places and it would have been amazing to be able to stay a little longer.

A lodge on the beach sounds lovely, that would be just heaven to wake up in the morning and go for a nice walk along the beach, any chance you could tell me where to go for this. I don't drive so this would be totally up to himself whether he drives a car or camper but at least I know the roads are narrow and a camper would be totally impracticable.

I'm wondering would it be a good idea to book places now as January is their holiday season and a lot of these places may be booked out by the time we got there.

Thanks so much for this, I have to say I'm getting really excited now that we are near 10 weeks away but as soon as we leave we will be back in no time, the time will fly

Orla1973 said:

A lodge on the beach sounds lovely, that would be just heaven to wake up in the morning and go for a nice walk along the beach, any chance you could tell me where to go for this. I don't drive so this would be totally up to himself whether he drives a car or camper but at least I know the roads are narrow and a camper would be totally impracticable.

I'm wondering would it be a good idea to book places now as January is their holiday season and a lot of these places may be booked out by the time we got there.

Thanks so much for this, I have to say I'm getting really excited now that we are near 10 weeks away but as soon as we leave we will be back in no time, the time will fly

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I wouldn't say impractical, people do it everyday! I just wouldn't feel comfortable going 60 around these roads like the locals but there are so many amazing views to absorb that maybe going a little slower isn't a big deal

We stayed here: Pohara Beachfront Motel (Golden Bay) - Motel Reviews - TripAdvisor
But it is a good 3 hours from Nelson so it's not worth it unless it was already on your planned route around. We only went that was to see a natural spring that was recommended to us but the spring you could go see at the Maori Cultural Experience (link above) I found actually surpassed the one we detoured hours to get to!!

Coromandel: dig a hole on the beach and it fills with warm/hot water....we didn't go here but it sounds really fun and on our list for when return in however man years time...! That might be a nice beach front location to stay!

We went during May which is approaching their Winter so we didn't have any booking issues so I can't advise on that one. The weather was surprisingly nice for what we expected after being told that May is like an English Autumn! Temperature wise it was milder than our Autumn's and also far less grey! I think we were lucky!

Oh and you mentioned doing lots of walking. Are you interested in hiking or just meant lots of general exploration? Because there are some 3-5 day trecks (we didn't do any) that are highly recommended in the South Island.

Also, coming from living in a bright city and going to these remote places it was great how truely dark it got at night! I wish I was capable of taking photographs of the stars and I have never seen so many!!!

Think I am starting to sound like a walking travel guide now! It was just such a once in a lifetime trip we had (for both the holiday itself and it being our honeymoon) and enjoyed it so much!

I wouldnt want to do one of those mountain treks that last for 3 days, that would be too strenuous but definitely if we could do a fair bit of walking then that would be fantastic.

Coromandel sounds lovely, would just love to put my feet into that warm water, soooo relaxing. I will look at the above links this evening but I'm going to look at all these places you mentioned on the book we got, oh the excitement is really building now