Itinerary help Australia & New Zealand
 

Hi, I'm new to the forum and need advice. My husband and I are planning to visit Australia and New Zealand possibly in Sep, Oct or Nov. We are both in our early sixties and physically pretty able. We are both experienced travelers and enjoy getting to know a place, not just visiting the touristy areas.
Australia is so big and diverse we don't know where to start. The only thing we know for sure is that we want to see the GBR and Sydney. No ideas on where to go in New Zealand.
We were thinking 2 weeks but could stretch that. We could also go at a different time of year if that makes more sense. Itinerary ideas please?
Though we usually travel on our own but aren't completely averse to tours.

hi, twosome,

if you want to see both Australia and NZ, you'll need more than 2 weeks. the trip that we took 2 years ago to both was 5 weeks long and we only scratched the surface. if you could stretch to 3 weeks you could see a lot of NZ, or quite a bit of Australia, comparatively speaking - it's a BIG place.

the time of year is fine - if you want the GBR, you should aim to get there before November which is when the stinger season starts [tiny jellyfish that make swimming in the sea a bit of a lottery] and then you could make your way south after that.

hope that helps a bit!

For only two weeks, I would pick one country or the other as you are going to waste two days traveling?
My daughter and I did a 19 day trip to both the north and south of NZ and saw quite a bit. We have also done a 21 day trip to Australia that included going up to the GBR at Port Douglas north of Cairns,Sydney and also spending 4 days on the Great Ocean Road coming back into Melbourne.We did a triangle mode of traveling-came into Sydney from the US,went up to the GBR then flew down to Melbourne and did that area while flying back to Sydney to spend a few days. It worked out quite well!

If you have only 2 weeks for this trip, you definitely need to limit yourself to either Australia or New Zealand. If you can stretch it to 3 weeks, you can visit Australia for 2 weeks and visit either the North or South Island of New Zealand, but not both, for 1 week.

With 2 weeks in Australia, you should limit yourself to 3, and no more than 4, destinations. The iconic "City, Rock, Reef" (Sydney, Uluru, Cairns/PD) itinerary makes for a good 2-week trip.

With 2 weeks in New Zealand, I would spent 5 - 7 days on the North Island and at least 7 days on the South Island. Or you could spend all 14 days on the South Island.

Pick one country, then pick one island or 2/3 states.

As you said, Australia is BIG and NZ, while small, is long and skinny and has limited roads. It'll take you a lot longer to get from Point A to Point B than you might expect.

This will give you an idea of NZ drive distances:

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

We saw selected parts of Oz and NZ in 17 nights, plus time to commute to and from those places from North America.

Flew to Queenstown (3 nights 3 days), then to Sydney (4 nights), to Melbourne and Great Ocean Road (5 nights), to Wellington (2 nights), to Auckland( 2 nights Taupo 1 Auckland), and then back to NA.

Car rentals in Queenstown, in Melbourne, and Auckland (backtracked briefly to see Tongariro national park.)

Since you have a special interest in GBR you would sub GBR for Melbourne. But yes, you need more time, even if you are very selective.

We are your age and fitness level and we think you'd have lots more fun spending your time in one country or the other. You would love city, rocks, reef in Australia, where it takes time to get to three different parts of the country. You could also do a lot in two weeks on NZ's South Island. It is easy to travel on your own in both countries; we have driven both. In Australia, I would fly among the three parts. In NZ, if you have to fly into Auckland, I would fly from there to Christchurch and do a loop, flying back out of Christchurch, or not quite a loop, flying out of Nelson back to Auckland. For NZ, Google self-drive tours to see how travel companies put together a trip to see how much you can do in two weeks (there are no real interstates in NZ). You could sign on with them, but you can easily put together your own trip. Often, self-drive tour options have two levels, one with upscale lodging and one with more motel-like accommodations. In either country, you will spend very little time in your room!

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Since reading your replies we've decided to either lengthen our trip and focus on one country.

If you want to see some of the places we visited on a recent Cruise around NZ my family did check this out :
http://hansellajc.wix.com/hanselltra...f21933cd57f91a

We also spent 3 weeks travelling around north and south island in a motorhome. Great adventure.

there are also other places to visit in Sydney, Melbourne and QLD on my blog.

enjoy your trip

great decision, travelling twosome. how long and which one???

Hi Annhig - still working that out

Thanks everyone - people on these forums are an enormous help!