3 weeks oz, 2 weeks nz in june
 

hi everyone,
honeymoon in june and the plan so far is dublin to sydney for 5 nights, drive the coast to Noosa with a 2 night stay on route somewhere(byron bay maybe and ?) and then 3 days in noosa, one of which to do the Fraser Island day tour, then drive back to brisbane and fly to Airlie Beach, do 2/3 days there including whitsundays and then drive onto Cairns(one night stay on route) for 3 nights and Port Douglas for 2 nights. Fly Cairns to NZ.
in north island fly into auckland, hire a car go to rotorua and lake taupo...total 4 nights in NI. Then fly to south island,Christchurch,Franz Josef Glacier,Te Anau for 2 nights. do cruise to Milford Sound.Te Anau to Queenstown,.....please give an idea of itinerary...4 nights in NI and 9 nights in SI.

i am looking for suggestions on how to better this itinerary. can we get mt cook into this??
need ideas on the milford cruise...is it best to do the day tour or the overnight cruise.
is the driving distances reasonable??

all help and tips are welcome.

Apart from the obvious requirements of a honeymoon what are your interests? Fraser Island for instance is visited by some for the fishing, others for the scenery and yet others to birdwatch or chase small mammals.

It'll be difficult to fit both the West Coast of the SI and Mt Cook into so few days, unless you want to spend most of your time driving.

Flying into or out of Queenstown will free up some time, but won't solve the problem of fitting in both as you'd only be driving one way.

QT to Te Anau is about two hours as is Te Anau to Milford. You'll want most of a day for the drive from Te Anau to Milford for a day cruise, as there's a lot to see along the way, and some great tracks if you enjoy hiking.

Drive distances in NZ are much longer than they appear on a map, roads are winding and narrow. This site can help you work out drive times:

http://www.aatravel.co.nz/main/td-calculator.php

thanks for above

Fly to Chch, drive to Greymouth
Greymouth to Franz Josef
Day at Glaciers
Franz Josef to Queenstown
Day in Queenstown
Queenstown to Milford Sound day trip
Queenstown to Mt Cook
Day in Mt Cook
Mt Cook to Chch

Some comments/suggestions for Australia -

Unless you're big city person, 5 days in Sydney seems a bit much unless you're planning trips outside the city. Suggest using a couple of those days elsewhere.

Why not more variety rather than just hitting coastal resort towns? Depends on your interests, but I'd suggest a foray inland here and there - like Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland (stay at Binna Burra or O'Reilly's), and the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland. Great places for wildlife.

I'd use the 3 nights you have planned in Cairns somewhere else. Atherton Tablelands? Undara? Another day in Port Douglas?

Is there really a day tour of Fraser Island from Noosa? Fraser is tough to see in a day.