Traveling between Australia and New Zealand in June

Old Jul 30th, 2014, 01:00 PM
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Traveling between Australia and New Zealand in June

We are a family of five planning to travel from Boston, MA to explore the east coast of Australia from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef as well as the North and South islands of New Zealand in June, 2015 for 14-18 days. I know this sounds very aggressive, but we have traveled a great deal and are used to being active and on the go. We plan to ski in New Zealand. Our boys will be 19, 20 and 25; and we are thinking this will be our last whole family vacation. I'm not sure if there is a preference as to which country we should travel to first. I'm thinking it will be best to organize the order of our trip and then to book one-way flights separately, but I'm open to all suggestions! Thank you for your help in planning.
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Old Jul 30th, 2014, 01:16 PM
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It's your vacation, but I am an active and well-traveled person, especially in Australia and New Zealand, and I would never attempt to visit as much ground as you plan, especially in June. I think you will have an excellent tour of the airports of Australia and New Zealand.

If you still plan to do this, it would probably make more sense fiscally to book this as a multi-city trip rather than a bunch of one-way trips.
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Old Jul 30th, 2014, 01:33 PM
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CapeConway, i agree that this is really too much for the time you've got.

at most I would think that you could manage to see 3-4 places in 2-3 weeks - skiing in the SI, diving on the GBR and possibly seeing Sydney &/or Melbourne. you should do this as a multi-city trip to keep down costs, rather than a series of one-way flights.

when planning you have to remember that you lose quite a lot of time whenever you move from one place to another - for example, to get to the GBR you would need to fly into, say Brisbane then fly up to Cairns; by the time you've got to either Cairns or better still Port douglas further up the coast, that's a day. Then you would want to be there for several days to explore the place thoroughly. You could then fly back down to Melborne [perhaps spending a few days there] to connect with a flight to Christchurch [another day] where you would need to hire a car to drive to your ski resort, or fly to Queenstown. To get from there to Sydney [a good place to end up with a big choice of international flights out] you'd need to go back to C/Church.

perhaps something like this:
Day 1 - fly into Brisbane, transfer to flight to Cairns. Drive to ? Port Douglas. Stay 4 nights.
Day 5 - fly to Melbourne - stay 4 nights
Day 8 - fly to C/church, pick up hire car, drive to QT or fly. Stay 5 nights
Day 13 - fly to Sydney - stay 5 nights
day 18 - fly home.
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Old Jul 30th, 2014, 04:32 PM
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With all due respect CapeConway, I think this plan is nuts, but hey, it's your trip.

I've been visiting NZ for years and I find it near impossible to give justice to just one island in two weeks, let alone two, plus Australia!

Having said that, if your plan is to just fly into NZ to ski and then fly back out, it might be doable, but just.

Keep in mind that June is still early in the ski season. I assume you're thinking Queenstown? I've been there twice in June where there was very little snow, so all the skiers were wandering around town instead.
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Old Jul 30th, 2014, 06:50 PM
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do you plan on flying to every destination on your trip?

if so, it would be really expensive. you'd be much better off in renting a sedan or a small car then drive to the places you want to visit.
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Old Jul 30th, 2014, 08:01 PM
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June in NZ is hit and miss for skiing. While most of the slopes plan to open queens birthday weekend (first Monday of June) they didn't his year and some still weren't open late June yet last year they had a massive dump in late May so he start of the season can be quite fickle. Leave skiing till last to try and get the best possible conditions.

I'd skip the north Island of NZ in winter too, wrong time of year to be heading there and if you're going for skiing then the South Island is 100% the place to go over north.

I'm not sure about Melbourne but sydney flies directly to queenstown, don't go via Chch if you can avoid it as it will just add ~4hrs to your trip if you fly and 7-8hrs if you drive and the roads are open.
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Old Aug 5th, 2014, 01:01 PM
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Thank you all for your great feedback! It has been over two decades since I've been to either country, and I wasn't sure about the time management regarding travel from place to place. We are just in the beginning phase of our travel plans and flexible as to the dates. Perhaps, it's better to go in August when the skiing is better and sticking to the South Island of NZ; Sydney and Cairns. Again, your help is much appreciated!
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Old Aug 5th, 2014, 07:49 PM
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Sounds much better in August South Island. You'll have a great time!
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Old Aug 6th, 2014, 11:03 AM
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well, thanks for taking our advice in the way it was meant. not everyone does which can lead to tears before bedtime.

hope you have fun planning your trip and even more fun when you're there.
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Old Aug 16th, 2014, 05:00 PM
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Well, for what it's worth, we did a bit of both islands of NZ and a bit of Oz in 18 n including the night on the plane from N America. Mind, we put our focus on specific things, no way you can 'see' NZ and Oz as countries in such a short time. But we had a good time. If you like I'll pull up our trip report.

We did it by booking an open jaw on Air NZ LAX to SYD via ZQN, and returning MEL to AKL via WLG (Wellington). Connected SYD and in our case, MEL using a 1 way ticket on Qantas. A third RT ticket connected our home town with LAX (Los Angeles).

Flew to AKL and then onward to ZQN (Queenstown, South Island.)3 n (but we didn't ski, we did sightseeing, and this was in the 'fall' i.e. April.)
Flew to SYD for 4 n direct from ZQN.
You want to go north from Sydney to CNS (Cairns) for the Great Barrier Reef, whereas we went south to MEL for 5 nights and did the Great Ocean Road and a bit of Melbourne.
Flew back to WLG (Wellington) on the north island for 2 nights, but you're not interested so suggest you fly straight to AKL which may or may not be possible from CNS, you might have to go via SYD.

Anyway in AKL we rented a car and did 2 nights in Taupo to have a daytrip to Tongariro National Park and do a thermal park.
We finished with a night in Auckland and flew back to NA the next evening, gaining a day back on the return.

Excluding Wellington, that's 15 nights plus 1 night for the plane, you don't say where you're from but we spent a couple of nights In LA coming and going.
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