carrom

Hi, my kids (3 in early 20's) are planning a 10 day ski trip to New Zealand from Sydney around 10th July.
Bearing in mind that they come from Italy, they were hoping to also see some of the country and both islands but I think this may be difficult. Any suggestions on where would be the best base to stay close to the slopes but also where you can go for drives and get a feel of the place? Will it be necessary to rent a car and are the roads easy to drive around in winter? Any ideas for budget accommodation?
Thank-you very much.

Bushranger

There's skiing done on both NI and SI, NI season possibly a bit more limited than SI but by mid July there ought to be a reasonable cover of snow if given Melbourne just had it's coldest April night in about 50 years is anything to go by - Melbourne being not quite NZ but indicative of cold air masses and already snow in Victoria.

For the NI, there's a number of options and cheapest way when over there could be to stay in nearby youth hostels at Turangi, Okahune or National Park and I've even seen hostels in Tuaranga up on Bay Of Plenty organising day and weekend trips and I imagine there'd be similar from Taupo.
You'll find hostels listed on www.yha.co.nz www.bbh.co.nz and www.vip.co.nz

On the SI I'm less familiar with the skiing but Queenstown, Wanaka or Mt Cook I think are the main base locations and pretty sure there's a Snow Board Park accessed from Wanaka and again check out the hostels for those locations.

Most of the hostels have their own web sites and will probably have some reference to what transport/ski lift and gear hire deals there are.

http://www.nzski.com/ is one of the main snow info sites for the SI which is more the known skiing island of the two and there are other similar sites, some for just the NI where skiing is at Tongariro Nationalk Park/Mt Reapehu and a google will find you plenty.

One thing they'll probably be surprised by is the shorter runs for whilst I've not skiied in NZ myself, friends often said that was the big difference compared to Australia which has a lot lower mountains and generally less snow and our runs here are nothing like in Europe where you can get yourself up to the top somewhere by a series of gondolas/lifts and then ski for kilometre after kilometre.

As for driving I'd reckon they'll be better off using the services that go from the various hostels/towns and though from Queenstown/Wanaka area they'll be able to take trips to Fjords for which again a tourist bus might be better for that time of year, the NI will offer by far the better weather for driving after or before doing some skiing/snowboarding.

They also ought to have a look at what is on offer from the airlines, Qantas, Air New Zealand, Virgin Pacific as far as packages go, mainly for Queenstown I'd suspect for they usually have fly/drive and/or accommodation/ski lift ticket packages usually based on a couple but it might work out that they can get a package for two and the third just buy an airfare and lift tickets.
http://www.bestflights.com.au/ or www.flightcentre.com.au and any other major travel agents will also probably be marketing packages.

It be more straightforward to just fly into Queenstown and if it was possible to have a car component of package for a period after the actual ski time, that could work out well or if it is cheaper to just get a flight to Queenstown, stay in a hostel and then fly up to Christchurch, Nelson or Wellington, they could do some touring further north/on NI and fly back from Christchurch,Wellington or Auckland.

They really need to get themselves a map or a web site with a map - www.aatravel.co.nz being good for that and work out what they want to see in addition to skiing/snowboarding.

But two things for sure.
1. They'll need to have a return airflight booked from somewhere before an airline will take them to NZ - NZ immigration regs.
2. If they plan on going to the SI and doing it independently, they better check accommodation options quick smart for it'll be booked out real quick for snow season though our global economic conditions may have slowed things down a bit - quite possibly making some good airline packages available.

And do tell them to take care when driving, not too much at all in way of Autobahn [can't remeber Italian word] conditions and emphasise with them that whoever is driving, not to distract them do all of a sudden they're on the wrong side of the much narrower in place roads - too many accidents and deaths happen with tourists involved.

carrom

Thank-you for this really comprehensive and useful reply.
Do you mean a return flight back to Europe? 2 of them will have return flights Rome-Sydney and the other one is on a student visa in Australia for a year. Italians don't need visas for tourism in NZ it seems.
I will definitely check out all your suggestions.
Thanks again!

Thorn

How experienced are they at skiing? If they really know their stuff they may be interested in looking into some of the smaller slopes, run by ski clubs rather than as commercial as the treble cone, cardrona and coronet peak style. Apparently these are likely to be booked out on weekends and school holidays, so if they have a bit nmore flexibility they should be able to work around this.
I would seriously recommend not driving up to the slope - we spent a week skiing in queenstown and the drive up was terrifying, apparently most years at least one car drives off the side of the mountain, usually the crash is fatal. We saw a couple of cars down cliffs as we drove up in the nice comfy shuttle bus and were very glad not to be behind the wheel.

Bushranger

Bummer, lost first reply, so anyway in brief:
Yep no visa required for NZ for most for visits under 3 months.
But mentioned return flight [for out of NZ] just in case they decide to book flights in/out independently and think they could leave their decision on where to fly out from when they are already there, wanting to see where touring takes them.

www.statravel.com.au is also another student orientated site but not solely for students that may have some good deals too.

And re the student, some universities have ski clubs with their own lodges or arrangements with lodges and though they may have nothing in NZ because limited on snow accommodation there, the student could find some cheap trips possible in Oz.

On deciding re accommodation they may also want to consider membership of HI/YHA for members discounts.

carrom

Thanks again. All very useful. They are reasonably experienced skiers/snowboarders. I have realised somewhat late that there is no accommodation on the slopes like we have in Europe. So I will take your advice and check out hostels etc in Queenstown for 4-5 days and then something similar in the north island and they can do all of it by public transport.
My husnabd and I are planning a NZ trip in November this year so this is all very useful for me too though obviously we won't be skiing.