Our Self Guided Tour of New Zealand Part 1
Place: North and South Island NZ
Country: New Zealand
Towns: Auckland, Hobbiton, Rotorua, Christchurch, Greymouth, Franz Josef, & Fox Glacier
Time of Year: February (Summer in New Zealand)
How we got there: Plane, Train, Automobile, Boat & Helicopter
Ten days was just not enough time to see everything in New Zealand, but we gave it our best shot! We had been thinking about New Zealand ever since we visited Australia back in 2019. I still remember the day I saw the notification from Going.com that there were reasonably priced plane tickets to Auckland in February, which is summer in NZ. I bought them that day without any research about how many days we would need. In my mind, NZ was a pretty small island-like country. I soon found out that it was much larger than I thought! This is how we fit it all in:
Getting There
It took us 27 hours to fly from Phoenix to Auckland. 3 flights in all. We first flew to San Francisco with a 3 hour layover on Feb 2, 2023. No problem because we had United Club passes. The next flight was SF to Tahiti with a 6 hour layover. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? I always wanted to see Tahiti! But not in the middle of the night with high humidity, an outdoor airport, and a storm brewing! We survived though! Our plane departed for our final destination at 2am and we touched down on New Zealand soil at 7am on Feb 4, 2023 having lost one complete day along the way!
The North Island
Once we arrived in Auckland, we knew we had to stay up so we could get adjusted to the time change! Luckily our hotel The Four Points by Sheraton allowed us to check in early. We are Marriott members and used points to stay for free. NZ does not have any Marriott Hotels however the Four Points is affiliated with Marriott. Our Titanium Elite status gets us a long way in foreign countries. Internationally we get a gourmet breakfast (not microwave eggs on a Styrofoam plate), valet parking and professional concierge service.
After a quick shower to freshen up, we were off to explore Auckland! Days before, the city and airport had been flooded by a huge storm. There were signs of the flooding everywhere. We decided to take the Davenport Ferry over to Davenport North Head to enjoy the view of the cityscape. Then drive to Mount Eden to hike up and see the dormant volcano which is now covered in lush green grass. Our last stop of the day was the Auckland Sky Tower. We have a thing about sky towers so we could not miss this one!
Hobbiton & Middle Earth
The next day we had tickets to tour Hobbiton in Middle Earth! If you do not already know, it was the movie set for parts of The Lord of the Rings. What an amazing place! It was picture perfect right down to the smallest detail! We just loved the hobbit homes with little smoking chimneys and the adorable mail boxes. The landscaping was immaculate. Flowers and beautiful trees everywhere. The weather was perfect with a little breeze. We were told that it is normally very warm and they do supply umbrellas to keep the sun off if you happen to visit on a hot day. You must book a tour with a tour guide to explore this wonderful village. We got ours online at Hobbitontours.com ahead of time. At the end of our tour we were served a ginger beer from the Green Dragon and we sipped it down by the water taking in the views. They have a yummy café near the ticket office and we enjoyed an early lunch before heading out to our next stop.
Rotorua & Maori Village
About an hour southeast of Hobbiton is a place call Rotorua. Rotorua is a geothermal area filled with hot springs, bubbling mud pools and geysers. It is also home to several Maori Villages. If you visit New Zealand, learning about the Maori people and their culture is a must. The second half of our day was dedicated to doing just that! Our first stop was the Living Maori Village of Whakarewarewa. We didn’t realize it at first but we were walking into an intimate experience. This is a populated village where the people use the geothermal activity on a daily basis for cooking and bathing. We walked past a village member cooking vegetables in a thermal pool and later got to try them. There are about 288 households here and a school house as well. I loved learning about their tattoos and watching some of their traditional dances. To protect the privacy of this Maori Village, we were asked not to take photos of the people.
That night we planned an evening at the Mitai Maori Village Cultural Experience. This was a more touristy activity however we still really enjoyed it. We shared a hangi dinner feast with many other tourists from around the world, witnessed a Maori war dance and took at hike to the river to see the Maori warriors paddle a war canoe. We loved every minute of it! I was super sad that we had to leave early. It was poor planning on my part. We were still 3 hours away from our hotel in Auckland and we had to catch a domestic flight at 6am the next morning. If I had a chance to plan that over again, I would have booked a hotel in Rotorua for that evening. You live and learn!
The South Island
As I mentioned before, we had an early morning flight to the South Island. We arrived in Christchurch, NZ on a domestic flight run by JetStar. New Zealand is much larger than I had originally thought and JetStar Airlines is a pretty inexpensive option to get us where we needed to go in a short amount of time. This hop was a one way trip as we would be using other means of transportation to get us around the South Island. We had 24 hours to make the most of visiting Christchurch, NZ.
Christchurch, NZ
Christchurch is the most romantic and picture perfect city! It is the largest city on the South Island and sits on the east coast. After picking up our rental car, we headed to the center of town where we would start our day’s adventures! We were still pretty exhausted from the previous day’s travels, but as we only had 24 hours to explore this cute city. We had to get some coffee into my husband’s system! I’m not a coffee drinker (I wake up ready to go most days!) but I have to mention that Cesar was pretty impressed with the quality of coffee available in this country! There were 3 things on our lientery for Christchurch; Punting down the Avon, exploring the city on the vintage trams, and riding the Christchurch Gondola to see the breathtaking views of Christchurch. I used a site called Backpacker Deals to book a 3 for 1 pass to all these things. Actually, I used Backpacker Deals for many of our “excursions” on this trip and we found that they are very reliable!
If you have not heard of punting before, you are not alone! Turns out a punt is a very long boat with a flat bottom and the punter is a person who moves the boat along the river by pushing a long pole off the bottom of the river . Of course they are dressed in classic punter’s attire! The trip down the Avon River was peaceful and had the feel of an old time romantic date. We even got a glimpse of the slimy eels slithering along the banks.
I was excited to ride the vintage trams through the city and listen to the history of Christchurch. This is a “hop on and hop off” kind of system however after a few “hop ons” we were gritting out teeth at how slow each stop was. It took forever for people to get off and new people to get on. The trams themselves were beautiful and historic and I am glad we were able to ride a few but we opted to walk the rest of the way just to save time. The weather was perfect and like I said before, the streets had a romantic feel so it was a nice place to walk hand in hand to the Riverside Market for lunch.
The last stop on our 3 for 1 pass was the Christchurch Gondola. It is located a little outside of town so we did need to drive our rental car. After our 10 minute gondola ride with views of sheep on the mountainside, we walked a few of the “tracks” or trails as we call them, around the top. The views were stunning. We could see Lyttelton Harbor, the city of Christchurch and the Pacific Ocean from one side and on the other side was the sparkling blue waters of Pegasus Bay. We were wishing we had our mountain bikes at this point!
TranzAlpine
Bright and early the next morning, we returned our rental car to the small airport and headed to the train station for our scenic train ride on the TranzAlpine run by KiwiRail. This was a 5 hours coast to coast tour though the Great Divide and Southern Alps of New Zealand with a stop at Arthur’s Pass. Many people take the train to Arthur’s Pass to hike for the day and then catch the train back. We opted to travel through to the west coast and into glacier country! The trip was very cozy with beautiful views which we could see from either our large picture window or the open air viewing car. We were offered headphones to listen to facts and history of the surrounding areas as we traveled the 139 miles to Greymouth. There was also a cafĂ© onboard offering reasonably prices snacks which we visited several times! If I haven’t said this before, we found New Zealand to be very inexpensive when it comes to food and lodging!
Greymouth, NZ
Arriving in Greymouth was a little hectic but our method of divide and conquer got us on our way. I went to collect our luggage while Cesar bulldozed through the crowds disembarking the train and got the the car rental line before everyone else. Before we knew it we were on the road in our hybrid rental car which by the way, only cost us $60 in gas for the week traveling over 400 miles plus some detours! It just keep recharging its own battery as we drove. Our next destination was Franz Josef and Fox Glacier but on the way we got to admire the gorgeous west coast of the South Island. We found the quirkiest beach in Hokitika where they had recently hosted the annual Driftwood and Sand Beach Festival. Participants in the festival use driftwood ( there is plenty) and other natural beach materials to construct the most creative pieces of art! Luckily the tide hadn’t washed them away yet! We took so many pictures as we examined each one! It amazes me how many wonderful artists we have in this world! What a treat this was!
Franz Josef
Next stop Franz Josef! Now this is where the excitement begins! I had planned so many adventures in the South Island and Franz Josef was going to be the highlight of our trip! This excursion was so amazing that I wrote it’s own separate post and you can view it here https://dawntillduskaz.com/i-cried-when-my-new-zealand-heli-hike-was-cancelled/ Our HeliHike!
After our epic day on the glacier we had some time to check out the town of Franz Josef and the Kiwi birds at the West Coast Wildlife Center. It was unlikely that we would see a Kiwi bird in the wild although the roads have “Watch for Kiwi” signs. Believe me I looked with no luck! Next best option was to visit them at the largest Kiwi hatching center on the South Island. We got to see two Kiwi as we walked through their nocturnal house and I found it fascinating! Such odd little creatures! Photos are not allowed but this is well worth a visit. You will need less than an hour.
Glow worms were the next on our list! I had read about a rain forest hike to a dark tunnel to hunt glow worms and since the sun doesn’t set until after 9pm a dark tunnel was our best bet to see them! The Tatare hike or track as they say in NZ, turned out to be a beautiful walk through dripping wet ferns and greenery with a fast moving river running down below. We arrived at the old mining tunnel which was to be the location of our glow worm hunt, and found that it was pitch black and filled with water! A little more than we bargained for? Good thing we brought our headlamp but wished we had some galoshes! We sloshed through the dark tunnel turning our light off here and there looking for our elusive beetle ( they are not actually worms) and low and behold we spotted a whole TWO on the tunnel ceiling!
It was time to wrap up our amazing day in Franz Josef and head back to our AirBnb which was a treehouse home nestled in the middle of the rain forest under a glacier! Believe it of not this place was under $100 a night and included a self served breakfast laid out for us each morning. I still cannot get over how affordable the lodging is in New Zealand if you are willing to try out unique private homes as an option! Sure beats hotels as you get to experience how the locals live!
End of part 1!
I realize that this post is a long one so I am breaking it up! We still have lots of fun excursions ahead so continue reading in Part 2! https://dawntillduskaz.com/our-self-guided-tour-of-new-zealand-part-2/
