Rip up start again

[bobnick]

Not sure this is under correct heading but as the trip will be done in a MH what the hell.

Started this am to do the preliminary route for our next Aussie tour.
Got into the 4th week and thought sod it.
Screwed it all up and dumped in the bin.

New Zealand it is.
Deciding if we should start at the top of North Island and zig zag down to South Island then the same.
Or start at the top and come down east coast on both islands and go up west coast. Doing a bit of going inland to look at things.
Just starting so early days.

Thing is, New Zealand beckons.
Now got to look where i can learn the Haka. Did it once in Dunedin and made a right twat of myself.............nowt new there then.

 

[PaddyM]

I can send you our last itinerary, we did hire car and b n b but you could mirror it in a MH , we did Auckland to Christchurch via Doubtful Sound and Queenstown .
We are going again within the next two years but this time for much longer , fantastic country .

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Not sure this is under correct heading but as the trip will be done in a MH what the hell.

Started this am to do the preliminary route for our next Aussie tour.
Got into the 4th week and thought sod it.
Screwed it all up and dumped in the bin.

New Zealand it is.
Deciding if we should start at the top of North Island and zig zag down to South Island then the same.
Or start at the top and come down east coast on both islands and go up west coast. Doing a bit of going inland to look at things.
Just starting so early days.

Thing is, New Zealand beckons.
Now got to look where i can learn the Haka. Did it once in Dunedin and made a right twat of myself.............nowt new there then.

I will try and find our itinerary from a few years ago. We saw an excellent traditional Haka where the hot springs were.

The one on the right looked like Shifty after a bad curry

 

[SpeedyDux]

This has no relevance at all, but my first GF was a lovely New Zealander. Last I heard, she is a pub landlady ... in England.

 

[bobnick]

I can send you our last itinerary, we did hire car and b n b but you could mirror it in a MH , we did Auckland to Christchurch via Doubtful Sound and Queenstown .
We are going again within the next two years but this time for much longer , fantastic country .

Any info and or help would be appreciated.
We have been twice, both times on a cruise ship so very limited what one can see.
We did sail up the Milford and the Doughtful and others but i cannot take in all the places like some on here.

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[bobnick]

I will try and find our itinerary from a few years ago. We saw an excellent traditional Haka where the hot springs were.

View attachment 720486

The one on the right looked like Shifty after a bad curry

Now that looks very familiar, i could be a little over to the right

 

[bobnick]

I will try and find our itinerary from a few years ago. We saw an excellent traditional Haka where the hot springs were.

View attachment 720486

The one on the right looked like Shifty after a bad curry

Again, any info gratefully acepted.

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Again, any info gratefully acepted.

Sent! All accommodation was excellent apart from Dunedin. Hired a Camry hybrid which was good. Flew Biz class with Korean who were excellent - nice free layover Seoul on return

 

[Riverbankannie]

The order of your journey depends on time of year. We went Feb/March so NZ was moving into winter. We started South Island and gradually moved North to stay with the weather.
We liked the audio guide that was supplied with the MH (Kuoni), it was like listening to a radio station, great music choice, but then used GPS to tell us about points of interest and campsites coming up.
We stayed in a mixture of campsites and wild camping as we do in Europe and went with no advance plan apart from the hire dates.

 

[Holly's mum]

We are planning to go to NZ Sept - Oct next year, so I will be following this thread with interest. I have already scoured old threads for useful information

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[ChrisSue]

Give them a taste of their own medicine

 

[mapman]

We have been twice using Wilderness Motorhomes. Commercial sites were quite busy even in February but there are lots of DOC ( Dept of Conservation) sites if you don’t mind gravel roads and semi-wild camping. Since we were there (2013) they have tightened up on wilding with non self contained campers. In theory this should make full facility sites busier but DOC sites less busy. The problem has been small vans with no toilet or shower being hired to budget conscious younger folk who have been less than protective to the environment! We covered from Cape Raina to Bluff and both trips were fantastic. South Island was our favourite but Coramandel, Tongariro, and Napier area are all outstanding In North Island. There are not many roads and you regularly bump into the same people as you circle South Island. Enjoy.

 

[pappajohn]

Youngest daughter and her boyfriend did both islands in an estate car.
Air mattress and sleeping bags in the back.

 

[rb62]

Any excuse to get the photos out

This is when we went and what we did picked up MH in Auckland and left it in Christchurch,not sure how we managed to do Arthurs Pass three times

 

[Silver-Fox]

We went over in March 2016.

Found out later that most of the Asians had gone home so less likely to have them wipe you out on the road

Didn’t bother with an itinerary as I don’t like being held to dates etc, less relaxing imho.

Started on the North Island and drove North to start at the top.

We drove around the island keeping the coast on our left so we could easily stop in any lay-bys etc.

After doing the circle went inland.
We don’t do cities and wild camped most of the time.

After the North we went to the South Island.
Again started in the North and kept the coast on the left.

Did as before circled the island and moved inland.

We did end up revisiting some places on both islands due to the way their roads run.

Again mostly wild camped.

We had a self contained Moho that allowed us to stay where we wanted to.

We joined the NZMCA, like Caravan Club but much better.
This gives you lots of places to stay and cheaper ferry price.

Four weeks in the North and Five in the South.

Magical Country very easy going and friendly.

I’d go back again tomorrow

Ohh and I went cheap on the Moho and that meant only 3 roads we weren’t allowed to drive on so got to see “proper NZ”

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[Just smiffy]

Kiwi Brit and KiwiKampers are from there I believe and may help with info, Silver-Fox also went there but I see he’s already posted…. rangi will have some info too….

I’ll never be able to do a trip like that so if it’s as good as your Australia trip then I’ll be following….

 

[Bailey58]

I will try and find our itinerary from a few years ago. We saw an excellent traditional Haka where the hot springs were.

View attachment 720486

The one on the right looked like Shifty after a bad curry

Yer 'avin' a larf! Shifty's nowhere near as good looking!

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Yer 'avin' a larf! Shifty's nowhere near as good looking!

I used a photoshop filter to improve things but still doesn’t look as good as a rugby prop.

 

[DuxDeluxe]

We went over in March 2016.

Found out later that most of the Asians had gone home so less likely to have them wipe you out on the road

Didn’t bother with an itinerary as I don’t like being held to dates etc, less relaxing imho.

Started on the North Island and drove North to start at the top.

We drove around the island keeping the coast on our left so we could easily stop in any lay-bys etc.

After doing the circle went inland.
We don’t do cities and wild camped most of the time.

After the North we went to the South Island.
Again started in the North and kept the coast on the left.

Did as before circled the island and moved inland.

We did end up revisiting some places on both islands due to the way their roads run.

Again mostly wild camped.

We had a self contained Moho that allowed us to stay where we wanted to.

We joined the NZMCA, like Caravan Club but much better.
This gives you lots of places to stay and cheaper ferry price.

Four weeks in the North and Five in the South.

Magical Country very easy going and friendly.

I’d go back again tomorrow

Ohh and I went cheap on the Moho and that meant only 3 roads we weren’t allowed to drive on so got to see “proper NZ”

You make a very good point about the Asians - about as rude as the Russian tourists, plus a common trick for them is to rent a 4 berth MH (having driven nothing bigger than a Linglong 950cc city car) and then drive around the corner to pick up parents and the rest of the extended family. I saw 7 pile out of a small MH one time.

We avoided the MH route as didn’t fancy living in someone else’s van and actually B&B’s were about cost neutral. Rather than drive all the way to Milford we hired a plane excursion with a few others which was better and saved a few days as well. Big crosswinds made it “interesting”

 

[DuxDeluxe]

This has no relevance at all, but my first GF was a lovely New Zealander. Last I heard, she is a pub landlady ... in England.

I proved to my first GF that when you have sampled the best, nothing else will do. She is now a nun!

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[Silver-Fox]

You make a very good point about the Asians - about as rude as the Russian tourists, plus a common trick for them is to rent a 4 berth MH (having driven nothing bigger than a Linglong 950cc city car) and then drive around the corner to pick up parents and the rest of the extended family. I saw 7 pile out of a small MH one time.

We avoided the MH route as didn’t fancy living in someone else’s van and actually B&B’s were about cost neutral. Rather than drive all the way to Milford we hired a plane excursion with a few others which was better and saved a few days as well. Big crosswinds made it “interesting”

Apparently the Asians have an adversity to driving on the left

They cause lots of collisions I was informed.

Re B and B that would have tied us to dates and places.
That’s just not what we wanted.

We also stayed within an hour drive of Milford and met some nice interesting locals the night before on what was effectively a cl owned by NZMCA

 

[Holly's mum]

rb62 what was your weather like at that time of year, as that is a similar time to when we plan to go.

 

[rb62]

rb62 what was your weather like at that time of year, as that is a similar time to when we plan to go.

We were incredibly luckily and only had rain on one day and strong winds on two.Although it did snow on the night we stayed at Mount Cook! When we crossed from North Island to South Island it was the first flat calm crossing after the winter and the cruise in Doubtful Sound (on a local crabbing boat) was the first time he had been able to go out to open sea As you can see we're more country and scenery than city people so only spent time in Napier,Wellington,(Te Papa museum is a must), and Christchurch which was still showing the scars of the 2011 earthquake.

 

[Holly's mum]

We were incredibly luckily and only had rain on one day and strong winds on two.Although it did snow on the night we stayed at Mount Cook! When we crossed from North Island to South Island it was the first flat calm crossing after the winter and the cruise in Doubtful Sound (on a local crabbing boat) was the first time he had been able to go out to open sea As you can see we're more country and scenery than city people so only spent time in Napier,Wellington,(Te Papa museum is a must), and Christchurch which was still showing the scars of the 2011 earthquake.

View attachment 720587

Brilliant, thank you. We are country and scenery people too. Lovely photo's

 

[tony_g]

Fabulous country. We're going on Tuesday. Visiting son in Hawkes Bay. Going to meet the new baby - he is 3 and a half now!!! The recent cyclone hit the area hard so we will be limited in what we can do as a lot of the roads and bridges have been destroyed.

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[bobnick]

We have been twice using Wilderness Motorhomes. Commercial sites were quite busy even in February but there are lots of DOC ( Dept of Conservation) sites if you don’t mind gravel roads and semi-wild camping. Since we were there (2013) they have tightened up on wilding with non self contained campers. In theory this should make full facility sites busier but DOC sites less busy. The problem has been small vans with no toilet or shower being hired to budget conscious younger folk who have been less than protective to the environment! We covered from Cape Raina to Bluff and both trips were fantastic. South Island was our favourite but Coramandel, Tongariro, and Napier area are all outstanding In North Island. There are not many roads and you regularly bump into the same people as you circle South Island. Enjoy.

Interesting to read the hire company allowed gravel road driving as they don't in Aussie.
If we do do it in a MH we will use sites whenever we can, we will only wild camp if there were no other options.

 

[bobnick]

Apparently the Asians have an adversity to driving on the left

They cause lots of collisions I was informed.

Re B and B that would have tied us to dates and places.
That’s just not what we wanted.

We also stayed within an hour drive of Milford and met some nice interesting locals the night before on what was effectively a cl owned by NZMCA

80% of the population of the UAE are asians. Makes for interesting and exciting road behaviour.

 

[bobnick]

We would go Dec-Jan-Feb

 

[MattR]

We are planning to go to NZ Sept - Oct next year, so I will be following this thread with interest. I have already scoured old threads for useful information

I'd be tempted to go a little later if you have the option. The weather would be warmer and more reliable in Nov / Dec

 

[bobnick]

BTW, i've yet to convince HRH.

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