My husband and I are trying to decide when to take a motorcycle trip of New Zealand. The dates we are looking at are: 2/16 - 3/1/08 or 3/1 - 3/16/08. This will be our first visit to New Zealand and we will be touring both islands. Our concerns are the weather and also if we would need to make all of our lodging reservations ahead of time. Thanks for your help.

February & March have the most settled weather, so probably are a good choice. You should still be fully prepared for rain and wind. We get this at any time of the year. It probably won't be particularly warm. Low 20's mostly, and cooler in the South.
Christmas through to the end of March is the peak season for overseas visitors. You may find accommodation hard to get in the more popular spots (Queenstown, Te Anau, Wanaka, Rotorua, Taupo etc) If there is anywhere you particularly want to stay you should get in early, but for most places you should be OK winging it.

This maybe helpful, its about motorcycle rental, and travelling New Zealand
http://www.newzealandatoz.com/index.php?pageid=735

Thank you both for your helpful information. We have decided to arrive on February 2nd and will be taking a two week organized motorcycle tour of both islands. After the tour we plan on staying on for about 10 days in the South Island. Our plans are a night in Christchurch, two night in Kaikoura and two nights in Nelson. I would then like to visit Dunedin. Is there a route, with possibly a night's stop from Nelson to Dunedin that you could recommend?

Again, thank you.

Trish

Chico, we actually just returned from a motorcycle trip in NZ in Jan/Feb 2007. We did the trip independantly and spent the entire 2 weeks on the South Island. If you haven't already booked the tour, check with www.gotournz.com
Ian was awesome in helping us with suggestions and the condition of their bike was perfect. Also, they do some really great tours as well. Check them out. As far as weather, we had some rain and temperature around 75 during the day and some nights got to around 45 (farenheit). We were told that march has more stable weather and less rain. Make sure you take your rain gear. The roads are really thought and had no problems. Just watch for the curves in the mountains (some of the up coming tight curves were not posted).

Have fun and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

I also posted quesions about motorcycle touring in NZ before we went and didn't get any responses.