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For those that read my trip report on my week in Australia and Fiji, I’ll continue this on a new thread so it doesn’t lost amongst all the great topics on this forum. Although it’s out of season for New Zealand, my report may be of some use to people who are travelling in a few months. I’m going to write our trip report where me, the wife and our 6 month old spent a few weeks in New Zealand. We arrived in Wellington from Fiji, spent a week with family before spending a week on the South Island (which will be most interest to most people I imagine), and then flew back and had another week in and around Wellington.
Right, I will start from the second week in New Zealand where we were departing to go to the South Island.
Having got a lift to Wellington airport, we were ready to “bag drop” for our Jetstar flight to Queenstown. I checked in the night before and I was quite impressed with the Jetstar app.
Wellington domestic is easy to navigate. You bag drop, you walk through and then you either go right to Jetstar flights or left to Air New Zealand where there is then security for either airline.
The flight was decent enough enroute to queenstown. After marvelling at the view on our descent, we collected our bags and realised a wheel was missing on our case. That’s not a bad record. 2 flights within a week, and 2 of our large cases absolutely nackered.
The wife had organised our car hire as Avis was unavailable. A quick word on that. An American lady I met was adamant that air NZ has the monopoly on Avis cars, and kept telling me that next time I must book through them. She may be right to some extent but I put in a couple of dummy dates and the cars were still unavailable. Right, back to our car hire, we jumped on a bus and after a 8 minute drive we were there at our car. I wasn’t overly keen and as I really didn’t want any nasty surprises but tbf they were fine and everything worked out okay. They sent us an email with all the pictures of what the car had looked like before we drove it. I’ve asked the wife and she said the company was called discount car rentals.
A couple of minutes into the drive, we veered right off the main highway and went for some food. The food was fantastic and it was called 11th Avenue by Franks. It was extremely busy for a lunchtime and I think it was a bar at night so definitely looked like the place to be.
After the delicious food, we were enroute to mount cook. We pencilled in a stop at Twizel which wasn’t far away. It seemed abit of a quirky place. It was similar to the outback where the fuel was expensive and the price of eggs and cauliflower in the supermarket were extortionate. I don’t think my wife believed me when I said she had to get some substantial food for the next few days.
We were enroute to our digs for the night, and I was unimpressed with the items she bought from the supermarket. After some scenic stop offs and a few clicks of the iPhone, we were almost at our destination. It wasn’t quite mount cook, it was just on the edge. We had booked a “self contained” unit at Glentanner. It was certainly not an intercontinental, Hilton or Sofitel but it possessed charm, and we both agreed it was fantastic. I couldn’t recommend it enough, and it was exceptionally clean. It’s made me want to stay in more places like this in the future. The view of mount cook from our living room/bedroom/on the edge of our kitchen area/just out of the bathroom was superb. I’m glad I captured the view of the mountain as due to weather conditions, we didn’t see such great views again. We saw some good clouds though on the other 2 days we were there.
We had a walk down to where the sea was and had a walk on the edge of the runway. Glentanner runs many helpciopter tours.Day 2 – As predicted, the weather was pretty abysmal, and I soon realised my pumps were going to have to be resilient, or they were going to have to be chucked. We ate in the cafe in Mount cook and I did a couple of walks, before and after the food. The weather just didn’t let up, and I was well and truly soacked. I saw an iceberg and a few other things but as you tell, it wasn’t a day to appreciate sightseeing.
It was a cosy feel in our self contained unit at 4pm as I dried off and listened to the rain hammering down whilst watching some sitcom about Australian doctors that I was about to be engrossed in for the next couple of weeks. There were tents and motorhomes on site, but I was happy in my unit. Back int”day I’d have gone to the communal kitchen and told someone who was cooking that I was an head chef at a Michelin star restaurant and challenged someone to cook some decent food. I’d have given them a couple of quid for the privledge but I’ve grown up now, so scrambled eggs for me and family it had to be. Oh, I had it with toast, it was accompanied with nice bread.Day 3- we set our alarm early in the hope we may be able to see more of mount cook. We weren’t too hopeful looking at the forecast. The forecast was spot on, so I got up and cooked some more scrambled eggs, had a chat to our new neighbours next door who were a lot more prepared in there hiking gear, and off we went. Wanaka was our next stop. We did a few stops on the way and one of the roads rivalled San Francisco in bendiness. Just before reaching our motel in Wanaka, we stopped off at the toy/transport museum. My personal opinion of this museum was, AWESOME. It may be the best 10 quid you ever spend. If ever you are in the vicinity, I really would recommend. I won’t spoil it, but I went inside some old Aircraft, and yep it was brill. We were going to venture to puzzle world but after a quick coffee, we thought better of it. Later in the evening we spoke to someone in a pub who told me he was known in the town as “book man” and he was a self proclaimed introvert. He informed me that puzzle world was a gimmick and was naff. I felt after listening to him that we may made the right call by not bothering.
After reaching Wānaka in the afternoon and after checking into our motel, we went for a walk by the lake where there was a triathlon taking place that weekend. Wanaka itself has a lot of English people residing there and also as AlOT of backpackers. It’s a charming place and the lake is just wonderful to look at.
After looking at the lake (from the pub), it was time to make dinner. We booked Kika which is on the Amex dining credit. I’m not usually fussed about service but the Irish waitress was superb. She took passion for her place of work and a knowledge of the food to a whole new level. What have I turned into? I’m usually happy with a dull middle aged woman with no teeth lobbing my beef, Yorkshire pudding and gravy at me.Day 4
After checking out at Wanaka and enroute to Te Anau I couldn’t help but feel that we didn’t make the most our accommodation. It had an array of facilities and it was called Clearbrook Motel Wanka.
Although one interesting thing to note, I couldn’t fathom how to lock the door the front door, After 5 minutes the lady came out of the office and said “we usually chuckle for 5 minutes to ourselves when people can’t lock it but I thought I would come out and tell you how to do it” that’s kind of You luv, thanks.We stopped off at Arrowtown. It reminded me of somewhere in South Carolina, minus the US flags. L Wanaka bakery was lovely but they have got rid of the eat inside policy, so when you order then wait for your number. Having been there for over one hour, I was astounded how many people paid and then never collected the food when their number was called out.
Having double checked my accommodation for the evening coming up, I realised it said a shared bathroom. I kind of remembered that at the time that it wasn’t perfect but I just needed to book something as everything was getting fully booked. As I was almost arriving into Te Anau, it was squeaky bum time and I tried to see if I could get an upgrade but no room at the inn. Anyway we stocked up on some food for our cosy 2 nights in our glamorous accommodation. Once at Te Anau, we went to our room which was literally just a room. It had a bed, and erm that was about it. My wife embraced it and went to the common room to store our food in the fridge. What I did find strange was how quiet sone people were or just how “introvert” they were. It wasn’t like that in my backpacking days when everyone wanted to play games and ask where you were from, and where you were heading next etc.
Day 5
Having not woken up once in the middle of the night to use the communal toilets, I felt quite proud of myself. We were on our way to Milford Sound quite early in the morning. We used discover NZ and the tour on the boat was informative. We then did the extra bit and went under the water. I realised very quickly I was getting bitten so I came back up to sea level. I did enjoy Milford sound but it was touristy and the car parking management team could quite possibly be best mates with the ones at Manchester Airport.
I’ve done Milford sound twice now so it’s not something I’ll probably be ever doing again. I would have liked to have visited doubtful sound, but it was not practical.
We headed back to Te anau with a few little stop off on the way before having a nice meal. We actually ate there twice. It was called Bailiez cafe & bar.We headed to Queenstown after another successful night in our accommodation. I saw some
Massive creepy crawly thing in the shower block though, I hadn’t seen one that big since Ayers Rock in 2011. We dropped the car off in Queenstown and then got an Uber to our hotel. I had originally booked Hilton but I’d read some reviews and contacted them prior and wasn’t overly impressed, so I changed it last minute to the Sofitel. I don’t usually do self praise, but it was a master stroke. A moment of genius if I say so myself. I genuinely could not recommend it enough.
As we walked through into the lobby area, there was a just a man sat down at a desk and it gave a real boutique feel. There was a grand piano in the foyer and I would describe the bar as ”classy”. Having been upgraded (Accor gold) to a room with a balcony.
Once checked in, I couldn’t help but go straight to the rather famous Ferg Berger. I took the order and off I went, and what greeted me was a 20 minute queue to order and people hogging the pavements and taking pictures of the queues and the world famous burger joint. Apparently there is one behind it for half the price and just as good. The price in my opinion was reasonable, and after paying, I got my ticket number (another 20 minute wait) and ventured outside. I thought I was been clever and saw the bar next door so had a quick pint. I then realised this was “ferg bar, and they even had a tablet inside with your order number on. I soon realised, plenty of people were doing this, and that’s what this bar was designed to do. It could have just been to allocate the stress of so many people outside on the pavement, but I’m guessing it had more to do with them making more money. I sat in the spa bath that night and did some reading on Fergburger and its owners which remain pretty secretive. They also have an ice cream parlour and a bakery.
For the remainder of the afternoon we went to the Gondola which in truth was a bludy waste of money. It must have been up there with the most expensive gondola ride ever I wouldn’t particularly recommend that. The views were decent at the top but you had to wade past many others and I saw just as good views that morning from the lookouts as I travelled from Te Anau into Queenstown.In the evening after my jacuzzi bath and sitting in extremely impressive surroundings in the bar at the Sofitel, we ate at Jervois Steak house. Id enquired through the day of making a reservation and earliest they could do for us was half past 9. The Jervois steak house was on the Amex dining credit and I felt it was reasonably priced for the quantity and quality of steak. I must re-iterate though, I am not a culinary expert. It was attached to the hotel so it was rather convenient on a windy night to transfer our sleeping baby from the hotel to the restaurant and back via the corridor.
Day 6
We had another venture around Queenstown and I had planned on having another Fergburger but I thought that was just pure greed having still felt full from my Al la carte breakfast at the Sofitel. We had a walk around and I realised half of where I was walking was not even built when I had previously visited Queenstown in 2011. They have a lot of fancy branded shops now, and plenty of touristy activities to partake in down by the lake. We took the Uber back to the airport, and we had the same driver we had the day before, what a lovely bloke. The trip back on Air NZ was uneventful and we were picked up and taken back to our “base” for pretty much the rest our time in Nz.The rest of our time in New Zealand
Having landed back at Wellington and able to do our washing and chill out, we had a few days before we had a weekend away at the coast. On those days, we stayed fairly local and lived like a local really. We took the baby to the library some days where we went to story club and sang some songs. It was abit sad that back in Uk I don’t attend any playgroups, but I have to go all the way to the other side of the world, and I felt like a stay a home Dad.
On one of the days we took the train into Wellington, I thought it was quiet on the platform, and it turned out that we had timed that for 3 hours that day it was a bus replacement service. This had nothing on northern rail replacement bus services, it seemed to take forever. Once we arrived, we had lunch at Pravda (on the Amex dining credit). It seemed to be quite the place to be. On the subject of food, on a different time we visited Wellington, we ate at Boat Cafe, and it was another impressive lunch.
We visited a few museums in Wellington. They were Wellington Museum, Te Papa and the cable car museum. Te Papa was the most impressive.We also visited Himatangi when in NZ, and I could best describe it as sleepy little seaside village/town, around an hour and half from Wellington. We were in a house with 4 bedrooms and it was very 1960”s. I counted 4 different bits of wall paper just in the living room alone. Cars were allowed on the beach here at Himatangi and it had the Nz version of a working men’s club in it. It was quite lively on the Friday and Saturday, but the Sunday was quite depressing as everyone had gone home, and it was just felt like there was only a handful of residents left. We did a few other things but I can’t imagine too many HFP people visiting here so I won’t go on. On the way back from our weekend away to the beach, we stopped off at foxton and visited “the windmill” for breakfast. I haven’t been that mesmerised looking at a windmill since I visited Brixton windmill back in the covid era.
A few more days of doing normal things and realising that lawn bowls really wasn”t for me, we were all ready to head upto Auckland.
It was an Air Nz flight, and having taken two Air Nz flights, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be that bothered about flying them again. I prefer Jet star tbh. Credit to them though, we noticed that ANOTHER case was damaged on arrival into Auckland and they replaced it with the same branded case there and then. As we only had around 36 hours in Auckland, we opted to use the luggage storage service which was situated in the international terminal. I thought I would take the leisurely stroll from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, and the heavens well and truly opened.
We stayed at the Intercontinental in Auckland. It wasn’t fully open but it was smart. It would be interesting to know what it is like now. I booked this stay on points, and at the time, it represented great value.
The weather was atrocious in Auckland and as a cruise ship was departing the day after, the couple of bars I went in were literally full of English folk. The amount of construction that was going on in Auckland CBD was unreal.Having had a meal in the restaurant at the IC that night, we departed the following day to Kualur Lumpur. I’d hazard guess at least 30 people on that flight were going direct back to UK, and they were having itchy feet as our flight was over an hour delayed from what I recall. Think that’s standard practice. When we arrived at KL international, I soon learnt the airport train is now defunct, and it’s replaced by busses. The immigration line was that bad that when we got to the baggage Carousel, our flight wasn’t on the screen. That was a first for me.
As I titled this Newzealand trip report, I won’t go on much more. We had 2 nights in KL and stayed at Mandarin Oriental which although not too luxurious (who am I kidding, what do I know about luxury?), it had a charm that will no doubt make me rebook. I loved the buffet, and the bar food and poolside food was probably the cheapest I have ever seen at an international branded hotel.
We then went onto Singapore for one night which was efficient as ever.It was a great trip, and I’d love to visit again one day. Although I flew Qatar to Aus and then Qatar from Singapore to Manchester, flying from UK to Nz on Qatar for the standard avios pricing must be the best value out there at present.
The wife had a great trip, and the baby won’t know anything of it. I’ll show her a few pictures one day.Thanks for reading
We were in Auckland late last August on the way to French Polynesia and then back in late September.
We stayed in the Voco next to the Holiday Inn Express on Wyndham Street. Had a lovelycorner room with great views, and there was a nice rooftop bar. We ate acorss the road in the Culprit – they were really busy, so said we could eat at the end of the bar/serving counter. Great food and fabulous watching all the kitchen comings and goings.
But our impression was that Auckland was a bit like Glasgow! Even had a Specsavers!
On the way back, the weather forecast was like Glasgow – rain for the week! So I looked online and there were two business class seats on Qatar to Edinburgh the following day and cancelled the following week’s redemption.
Had a great boat trip across the bay to Devonport and a wander around – nice cafe at the NZ Torpedo Museum.
So, apologies NZ – we’ll come back in your summer!
ps. On final day, the hot water in the hotel had packed in – so Mrs MacK (in her dressing gown) and me were escorted in the freight lift and various corridors to a room in the adjacent HIE for a shower!
Great review, thanks. We’re flying to Auckland in October, and are doing an absolute flying visit to both islands (in 6 days!). Doing Queenstown and Milford Sounds.
How were Air NZ in terms of being strict about hand luggage size and weight please? And in case anyone else comes along and knows the answer, a similar question about Qantas (we’re flying from Christchurch to Sydney with them).
Very helpful,interesting and informative trip report. My determination not to let Mrs Hampshire Hog further cajole me into a trip to NZ has been reinforced.
Interesting report, thanks.
If you went as far as Twizel, did you carry on to Lake Tekapo? That is (was) one of my favourite places in the world to stop for lunch – fantastic views on a good day.
I’m guessing the massive creepy crawly thing was a wētā, which the film effects company wētā workshops is named after.
Doubtful Sound is so much better than Milford imho, predominantly because it’s a bit harder to get to and therefore much quieter. Doing an overnight cruise, dining on Blue Cod you caught earlier in the day, crayfish you helped pull up in a cage an hour earlier, and venison that the captain shot off the hills the day before is an experience like no other.
How were Air NZ in terms of being strict about hand luggage size and weight please? And in case anyone else comes along and knows the answer, a similar question about Qantas (we’re flying from Christchurch to Sydney with them).
Depends on the route. Some of the flights to local airports are on aircraft that make an Embraer look like a jumbo jet, so they rightly need to be harsh on the limits. AKL-ZQN will be an A320 though so you should be fine as long as you’re not blatantly taking the proverbial. Similar to what you can get away with on BA to Europe. Same with Qantas.
How were Air NZ in terms of being strict about hand luggage size and weight please? And in case anyone else comes along and knows the answer, a similar question about Qantas (we’re flying from Christchurch to Sydney with them).
Depends on the route. Some of the flights to local airports are on aircraft that make an Embraer look like a jumbo jet, so they rightly need to be harsh on the limits. AKL-ZQN will be an A320 though so you should be fine as long as you’re not blatantly taking the proverbial. Similar to what you can get away with on BA to Europe. Same with Qantas.
Thank yo, that’s reassuring. I won’t be trying it on too much (and have booked some extra hold luggage for a very reasonable price for the AKL – ZQN leg), but I do have some medical stuff that’s going to need to be in a bag of it’s own, and haven’t fully got round to sorting that out yet (should be fine with Air NZ, but it’s the Qantas leg I’m worried about).
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