Five nights in Sydney is fairly long so you could take some time from there and take the drive from Melbourne to Sydney at a more leisurely pace. The coastal route takes some time to drive and enjoy. I see this as an opportunity to see more of Australia (it’s quite different from the Great Ocean Road and people will be able to suggest routes and places to enjoy along the way). However distances are long here and you need to factor that in.

One little thing Grand Pacific Drive is not a name we’ve heard before.

I read about the Grand Pacific Drive on someone's travel blog. It starts around Royal National Park and ends in the Shoalhaven area.

The great thing about participating in this forum is that I learn things all the time, including about things in my own country. Grand Pacific Drive looks great!

Hi Karen Woo,
How delightful that you're coming to visit us and the Kiwis!
I think your idea to make your trip October - November is a good one. The later you leave it, the warmer it will be and this might make a difference to your enjoyment of New Zealand's South Island.
As others have resoundingly said - use the 3 weeks in the South Island. I like the North too, but for sheer heart-stopping spectacular scenery, both pretty and rugged, my vote goes to the South, too.

Just for some context and so you'll see what we mean when we say Australia is a big place, here's my favourite map.Australia – size map: https://www.virtualoceania.net/austr...ustralia.shtml

Bokhara2, thanks for the great map! Wow! Europe looks like a baby compared to Australia!:)
I've been reading my NZ guidebook today and based on what people are saying, we will spend 3 weeks on the South Island if we decide to add the extra week to our trip.

Hi Karen, coming here late but I think you have a good start with your proposed distribution of time and places. Like others, I recommend sticking with the South Island for 2-3 weeks although I do like Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf very much. Ten days in Melbourne and the surrounding area is good and a week between Sydney and the Blue Mountains give you a good amount of time. If you like flat walks, there are plenty to choose from around Sydney Harbor.

On the South Island, my favorites are Queenstown, Milford Sound, Mount Cook, and the Catlins. We didn't have time to go to the West Coast, but decided against it as we've visited glaciers elsewhere. I recall early December to be in the 70s during the day and 50s at night. Here's my report from December 2020 / January 2021 (my last pre-COVID trip): Trip Report To That Special Place: A Holiday in New Zealand, Sydney, and Hawaii - Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (fodors.com)

Like yestravel, I too enjoyed Tasmania very much. Temperatures in Sydney and Melbourne will likely be in the 80s, possibly 90s, in November during the day and 60s at night. Here's my 2016-17 report on Sydney, Melbourne, and Tasmania. It's a bit dated, but we did plenty of walks around Sydney Harbor. Also in the report on links to walks. Trip Report Australia: "Home" for the Holidays - Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (fodors.com)

Regarding spending 3 weeks in NZ, should we spend all 3 weeks south of Christchurch OR 2 weeks south of Christchurch and one week north of Christchurch? Everything looks interesting to me!

I've been researching visas, and I am surprised, but happy, that US citizens visiting Australia and NZ for holiday only need the Electronic Travel Authority. I assumed we would have to send our passports to the Consulate to get the Visa that is put inside our passports, much like what we had to do for China. This will be so much easier. I assume I should make airline reservations after we get our visas approved, right? We probably won't be ready to make airline reservations until around January. Oh, I just remembered that we have to renew our passports anyways. We plan to do that around October 1. So can't do anything until we receive our new passports.

tripplanner001, thank you very much for your helpful advice. And thanks for including the links to both of your trip reports. I finished reading Yestravel's report today. Will start on yours tomorrow.

Electronic travel authority is easy. It should not take more than 5 minutes online - you enter your information, pay via credit card, and receive your email confirmation. I have typically applied for it a week or so before travel so that I could potentially use it more than once.

By the way, the UK and the EU are moving to this system for Americans next year so it will be even more widespread.

A lot of countries, mostly our allies, already do this when coming to the US.

"Regarding spending 3 weeks in NZ, should we spend all 3 weeks south of Christchurch OR 2 weeks south of Christchurch and one week north of Christchurch? Everything looks interesting to me!"

Therin lies the problem! Everything in New Zealand is interesting and it is as much about deciding what to leave out as what to include.

We have done three long trips there and usually allocate more time to the South Island than the North. Deciding between the north and south of the south island is more difficult but with tree weeks you have enough time to include both. We all like different things but for me, the attraction of NZ is away from the cities and for that reason I would spend as little time as possible in places like , Christchurch , Queenstown and Dunedin. Favourite places include Abel Tasman NP, Marlborough Sounds, Lake Tekapo/Mount Cook, the West Coast Glaciers (though it has been very concerning to see them receding over the years.

Milford Sound is great IF the weather plays ball. On one visit in September we had torrential rain and felt that it was a long way there and back. We drove in our camper van but in your case, I would advise a tour from Te Anau

I didn't post that much on our blog given the amount of time we spent in NZ but there are a few photos of some of the places we visited here
https://accidentalnomads.com/category/new-zealand/

Nice to see some familiar names popping in - Hi Tripplanner.

Crellston - I agree about the cities in NZ, fly in - spend a day & get out to the natural beauty. I do want to put a plug in for Dunedin, though. I think it's a nice little city - and it has the world's only urban Albatross sanctuary. https://albatross.org.nz/
It's fascinating and very accessible - really recommend a visit.

Karen Woo - Europe is tiny compared to our big beautiful country. We have sheep & cattle stations bigger than quite a few European countries.

Visas: Yes, you will need a Visa/ETA for Australia and one for New Zealand. You just need to download the App for the Australian one and I think it costs about US20. Here's a link. VISA FINDER: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visa...sa/visa-finder

Karen -- I agree with others - trying to decide what to see in the SI is tough. Way too many choices and you won't go wrong with any of them. Is hiking something you want to do?

Get your plane tickets before the NZeTA . I had to do it on a desktop, couldn't get the app to accept my ID photo upload. From a desktop the processing time should be no more than 3 days. If you can get the app to work it's a little faster and cheaper.

Thank you to everyone who has responded. You are all very, very helpful, and I appreciate your time and effort.

Crellston, thanks for letting me know we have time to visit both north AND south of the SOUTH ISLAND in 3 weeks. That's a big help. And I love your AccidentalNomads blog. What an exciting life you and your wife have been leading. My husband would love to do something like that for a few years but I've always been hesitant to take the big plunge. I think I'm too tied to our life, family and friends at home. If we can handle a 6-week trip to Australia and NZ, I would like to start taking more of those. But I always need to come home for awhile. Will seriously consider a tour from Te Anau to Milford Sound, especially after reading Yestravel's report.

Bokhara2, Thanks for the tip about the Albatross Sanctuary!
Yestravel, we like to do some hiking/walking but more or less flat terrain or gently, rolling hills! We can't handle the steep stuff. Our bones are too old. :) We will probably take some guided tours, such as a guided wildlife tour, the boat tours you mentioned, etc. Hoping to see some wildlife (especially koalas and kangaroos) in the wild.

mlgb, I'm surprised we should get our plane tickets before we apply for the ETA's. I would think it would be the other way around. Do the applications request your airline flights? So I assume it would be rare that we would be denied the ETA's.

We just got our NZ ETAs last week for a trip next month. We booked the flights months ago. No, you don't have to provide flight information. The ETAs are good for two years. My ETA was approved in about 60 seconds (literally!) and mr_go's in two days. Like mlgb, I couldn't get the app to work and did ours via the website.

Can't comment on New Zealand's visa/ETA requirements, but for Australia, it's always advised to get your ETA/Visa approved prior to booking anything you can't cancel with full refund. Our Visas are good for 12 months from the date of approval and the time "in country" starts the day you cross our border, as you'd expect.

Most applicants from countries which don't have a reputation for over-staying are approved pretty quickly, some instantly as you've seen above. However, if people don't read & answer the questions properly, that can create delays and/or denials. Typically, and puzzling to me - some people manage to tick the "Criminal Convictions" box when in fact they don't have criminal convictions. Not sure how anyone would get that wrong - but there you are.

Recently, we had a family where one of the kids was born in a country which apparently does raise a bit more monitoring than the country of birth of the rest of the family, the US. Three of the 4 were approved within a day. The other took several weeks and was only approved a day or so before the family's departure date. We've also seen instances of delays where people have dual nationality. No one is sure whether that was the cause of the delay, or whether it was just one of the applications chosen at random for manual processing.

Wandiligong is a beautiful Alpine area-Victorias high country. Bright is a pretty town near there. A good time to visit -not the ski season
Temps in Victoria in November are a high to 22C and low of 11C

School holidays in NZ in 2024 are 23rd September to 8th October, so a good idea to go after they have finished. Two weeks south of Christchurch then travelling up to Nelson area via the West Coast would be ideal.

The West Coast has some nice hikes/walks that arent steep. Punakaiki is interesting to explore and while rocky not steep.
I loved the West Coast. We didnt end up going to Mt Cook because of bad weather, but there is plenty else to see on the rugged coastline.

There is also a tourist tax paid when you apply for the NZ ETA. Probaby why I waited. The first thing I did after sending in my tour deposit was to book flights, since I needed specific dates and way flying on Hawaiian Airlines (from Long Beach via Honolulu). The LGB to HNL flight was 100% full.

Bokhara2, thanks for the information about the ETA's. That's a funny story about people checking off the Criminal Convictions box!:) They must be rushing and not reading what they are checking off! My husband was born in China but he is a naturalized US citizen and he does NOT have dual nationality. Hopefully, he won't have any delays. We'll apply for the ETA's for both countries before we make any reservations.