We are seniors in our 70s considering three weeks in NZ and a week on one of the South Pacific Islands (or four weeks in NZ), around March 2005. We will not be driving.

We are moderate walkers (not hikers), enjoy some sun/beach, Maori culture /history, meeting people and would consider a farm stay for a few days. Budget-wise we are average not luxury class travellers. Our trip will be independent, but with assistance of an agent in Australia. At this point I am not looking for too many details but some direction.

1. We have Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch as arrival points, and free fares to the other two. Do you recommend arriving in Christchurch and can you make suggestions on areas to cover as we work our way up to Wellington and Auckland?

2. Would you consider that flying from Christchurch to Wellington and Wellington to Auckland we would miss too much in between? Train and bus are options. Do you have suggestions.

3. It's a lot to ask but if you have a suggested route I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks.

Hi Michi.
We are visiting NZ in Dec also for 3 weeks. While we'll be renting a car and driving ourselves for most of the way, there are public transport options that have been discussed on this board such as trains and buses. Airfares between cities are particularly low if you book with Qantas from their NZ site - Air NZ requires a NZ address to get their lowest fares, but Qantas doesn't.
I've posted our itinerary on this board as a reply under the "need help getting my arms around new zealand" post (just scroll down the list of posts on the left). Our budget was also average. Maybe this will be helpful to you. Since this is our first trip, I can't talk from personal experience yet, but there are really helpful kiwis who'll chime in as well as other past NZ travelers. I worked with a wonderful agent in Auckland and can give you that info is you wish. BTW, there are lots of senior discounts available - make sure to ask for them.

Hi Michi - I enjoyed reading the posts and looking at the pictures of your OZ trip. We leave in 3 weeks for our first visit to NZ and OZ. We are also seniors - I will celebrate my 70th in NZ.

We will be spending about 2 weeks in NZ and decided to concentrate our stay in 4 places - primarily the South island. For the most part we will not be driving although we have a rental car reserved in each place for local touring.

We arrive in Auckland and spend the first day and night there. Probably limited sight-seeing and recovering from the trip.

The only real driving will be the next day when we drive from Auckland to Rotorua via Otorohanga to visit Kiwihouse and Waitomo to see the caves. Total is about 5 hours driving time and the rest of the day seeing the sights at Kiwihouse and Waitomo.

We wll spend 3 nights in Rotorua staying at the Swiss Lodge B&B. There seems to be a lot to see and do in the Rotorua area.

We then fly to Nelson for 2 nights at Long Lookout Gardens B&B.

Nelson is a gateway for Abel Tasman Park. It is also known for its fine crafts which is one of our interests.

From Nelson, we fly to Christchurch for a 3 night stay at Weston House B&B. We will be making day trip excursions from CHC. One day will be the Tranz-Alpine Express and another day will be an hour trip to Akaroa. (This is supposed to be a VERY nice French community on the coast. Also has an excellent restaurant where we have a reservation - C'es La Vie.)

From CHC we fly to Queenstown for 4 nights. This is the only non B&B - we will be at the Millbrook Resort. Again we are planning on day trips from the Q'town area. One day to Milford Sound and possibly one day on the Dart River Safari. I'll also have a chance to play a round of golf at Millbrook. (Living in a golf community in Florida, I might have withdrawal symptoms and need a fix.)

I had thought that 2 weeks would be plenty to see NZ. How wrong I was. There is so much to see and do that we could easily spend 2 or 3 times that amount of time. However, we had to limit is somewhere and this is what we came up with.

I expect to post a trip report on my return which will be after the first of the year. (I have good intentions. We'll see if they result in actions.)

Michi, we spent 10 days on the North Island in April. You can read my rather lengthy trip, cleverly titled "10 Days on North Island April 2004" or something along those lines, by scrolling through the threads here.

I also have a photo album of our trip at community.webshots.com/user/ElendilPickle if you'd like some ideas.

Rotorua or the East Cape are probably the best places to go for Maori culture; since you're not driving, you may be able to take a tour on the East Cape. If you saw the movie "Whale Rider," it was filmed there.

Most NZ motels have kitchen facilities and are a good choice for budget travelers. We enjoyed staying in a couple of hostels on our trip; many of the smaller hostels feel more like you're staying at a B & B except that you're doing your own cooking. We especially enjoyed Lloyds Lodge in Whakatane on the Bay of Plenty.

You would miss a lot of lovely scenery, especially flying between Christchurch and Wellington. You'll have time to take the bus or train where you want to go.

Our itinerary - again, this was just for the North Island - was

Day 1 Auckland to Whakatane
Day 2 Dolphin swim in Whakatane; to Rotorua - Maori concert and hangi at Te Whakarewarewa
Day 3 Rotorua to Waiotapu Geothermal area to Tongariro National Park
Day 4 Short hike in Tongariro, then drove to Wellington
Day 5 Wellington - Te Papa and walking around
Day 6 Wellington to Wanganui via Kaitoke Regional Park and the west coast
Day 7 Wanganui to Egmont National Park
Day 8 Egmont to Waitomo - cave tubing and a night walk to see more glowworms
Day 9 Waitomo to Auckland - took the ferry to Devonport
Day 10 Auckland Museum, then home

Lee Ann

Mover

Have a good trip and a happy 70th birthday in NZ.

I have been to the site NEED HELP GETTING MY ARMS AROUND NEW ZEALAND and have found it extremely interesting and useful, so I will continue on that thread by posting further questions there.

Thanks to you all for your interest and help which I will be looking into carefully in the coming weeks.

Happy travelling everyone.

The ferry/train combo from Wellington to Christchurch is worth it. It will take you most of the day, but the scenery is gorgeous, especially the ferry ride. Once I got to New Zealand, I bought a few, cheap one way tickets on Air New Zealand, so that I could cover more ground; I only had about 10 days, and 5 were spent on a dive course. But I managed to hop (fairly inexpensively) from Dunedin (toward the south end of the South Island) to Napier (gorgeous, well-preserved art deco town on the east side of the North Island) up to Whangarei (north of Auckland) for more diving. Not that you'd necessarily want to follow my route - just keep in mind that a few cheap fares might fit into your budget, and allow you to see more/spend more time in certain places.

Two budget hotel options: (1) The YMCA in Christchurch is a hostel-type place with some private rooms. I found that it was quite a good value (many hotels in Christchurch seemed overpriced). It presents some good opportunities to meet people, as you mix more with other guests than you would in a regular hotel. You can find it on the net. (2) In Napier, I stayed at the quirky Masonic Hotel (somewhat old-fashioned decor, but in a funky way) - and it has a sweet, resident cat.