Day 12 - I can smell it

Started off with brekkie and we went to the buried village, good activity for the family to see the history of the area and also what life was like for the pioneer of the area.

We then went to paradise valley, which had a mini zoo with a variety of wild nz animals and also lions. The kids were able to get up close and give the lion cubs a cuddle and a photo.
They also had a spring which ran through the property and also there was so many trouts in the stream, you could. Have jumped in and grabbed them bare hand

For dinner we had a Maori hangi and cultural experience at the matariki, it was a good experience and also the crowd was able to particapate as well

Day 11 - back to rotarua

Headed off from Palmerston north at 10 and visited the army museum just off the desert rd highway. The road looks like a desert that leads nowhere with mountains in the background. Had dinner at lake taupo and headed off to rotarua. Will be doing some more stuff we missed last time

Day 10 - back to the north island

We drove to picton to catch the 230pm ferry back to Wellington. Got into wellington at 530pm. Everyone is tired so we drove up to Palmerston north and went to a pizza place and they had no pizza dough!!!
We crashed for the nite!!

Day 9 - visit around greymouth

We visited shanty town whic was outside greymouth. They show the way people used to live back in the early 1800. There was lots of old bottles, old irons, things that we take for granted.

We went to the pancakes blowhole, again we were disappointed with the no show of the blowhole but lots of nice scenery pics.

Got to Nelson for our last night in the south island.

Day 8 - the glaciers

Left the hotel, had breakfast and started our trek towards fox glacier, nice view of the glacier but the kids was disappointed they could not get close to the ice. Was a nice view and also they had labels of where the ice glacier was in the 1900 etc.

Next stop was lake matheson, no one told us u had to be there at certain time of the day to get a reflection of the snow mountains in the background, as there was a breeze and we could not get the perfect shot.

Franz Josef glaciers was 45km away which was our next stop. We found a lake called peter's lake which we were able to get a nice reflection shot of the glacier off the lake

We made it to Greymouth and relax for the night after dinner.

Day 7 - one week

7th day in nz already. We are starting our trek up the western side of the south island to fox glacier. We drop by the puzzle and maze in wanaka. Did the maze and puzzle for 3 hours, before we left for our 4 hours trek to fox glacier.

On our way we saw a really big waterfall as we approached, so we stop and took some really nice photos. The water was freezing!!

7pm and we just into the town of fox glacier. Had dinner and went for a drive to fox glacier via the tourist drive, very dark, did not see anything but the possums was around.

Day 6 - still in queenstown

Were still in the queenstown, we went up the mountain via the gondala which was a steep 5min ride up the mountain. Even saw sheep grazing on the edge.

We visited arrowtown which is 15min out of queenstown, such a nice picture perfect little town, used to be a old gold town.

We went to the goldfields which made for an interesting 2-3hours of trekking and looking at the way people live during the gold rush on NZ.

We stayed in another hotel away from the main street, very nice view from the hotel room.

Day 5 - snow bound

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Left Christchurch and started to head south for our journey to queenstown which is the furthest south we will be going. We took a detour to mount cook, and the view was unbelievable from the bottom, this added extra time to our journey,but it was definetly worth it. Along the way there was so many photos ops with so many blue clear lake, the snow capped mountain and big mountain range which kept appearing on all sides. We got to queenstown at 10pm.

Day 4 - all aboard to christchurch

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Had to get up at 8 and be ready to get down to the dock to catch the interislander to get across the south island. Great boat, very accomdating for families with a whole section for kids. Took 3 hours to get across, saw dolphins swimming along side the boat. Also forgot to mention, great breakfast inboard and also the ice cream they had was really delicious. Left picton at 2:30 and started to head to christchurch. Along the way we stop by and seen seals resting on the rocks. It's always great to see animals in the wild. We made it to Christchurch by 7 and relaxed with a thai dinner

Day 3 - heading to Wellington

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we left for Wellington after breakfast, my wife was glad to leave rotarua, she hated the smell, we drop by huka falls which was a spectacular view of the amount of water that gushed over the 15m drop, over time the edge of the waterfall will be more upstream. We also visited the Crater in the Moon, which was one big crater with boardwalks and lots of thermal vents and mud pools. The smell there was not too bad as the win was blowing it constantly away. We finally got to Wellington at 7 and relaxed fur the nite.

Day 2 - heading south

Had breakfast and started to head south, we been in the road for 3 hours and got to rotarua, and realized we got another 4 hours to get to Wellington so we dedcided to stay in rotarua. At lunch our plan was to stay in rotaurua for a few days. We were going to stay in rotaurua on the way back from the south island. We visited a few thermal vents. It's amazing whyere some of these vents are. The first one we visited was located in a normal park and there was about 20 or so vents and about a block away is the football field and the otherside is shops. The smell affected my wife and she was vomiting all over the place. There is smell that linger around, and somehow it's not a smell u can get used to.

Day 1 - Auckland bound

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got up at 2:30, to head down to the airport, had to ring the taxi company as the first one must if came at 2:30 insted of 3:30, guess he forgot about daylight saving shifting back. We got to auckland at 11am local time, and got our van and headed off to mt smart stadium and watch the seaeagle beat the warriors. The fans are so different, unlike the Aussie crowds callling the opposition wankers and other vulgar names. There was none of that. They were quiet, and very vocal if their team was doing well.

Got to our hotel at 7. By that time the kids were tired, so we had dinner at the hotel and relaxed for the nite.

The Sky City Hotel was really nice and it was practically next to the sky tower

Useful iPhone Apps for New Zealand travel

These are the useful apps i found on the appstore. Some of the apps can also be used for other destinations and most of all these are mostly free.

AucklandNZ - great app to find attraction around Auckland

Kayak - search hotel, flights, cars - also used for other destinations

ispeedy - search flights, hotels, cars - also used for other destinations

TomTom NZ - cost $100 but if you're going to spend a lot of time on the road, this will be definetly handle.

All these apps will be very handy, as we will be looking for hotels, and attractions around NZ. Some of these apps will require internet access as the data is stored on a server and not on the phone itself. I will post my review of the useful apps once i finished the trip. Make sure you get a prepaid mobile data plan if you have a iphone, otherwise some of these apps are useless, unless you can get free wifi access.

Update:
After using some of these apps, I can tell you that TOMTOM was definetly the best app to use. We drove about 3500km around New Zealand, and without it, we might have driven more, looking or asking for directions.

Kayak was also excellent at looking for hotels. We drove approx 250-350 km per day and stopping at place of interests and also for the usual lunch and toilet break. There are lots of great hotel and city guides available free at the tourist info kiosk or shops but they seem to only have boutique, small or local chain hotels and motels. We used them for about 4 days into the trip and some of the small hotels along the way was charging double for what the big chains like Accore was charging. I stop using the guide books and started using Kayak on the iphone again and it was great to find the bigger hotel chain charging less than what the local or smaller hotels or motels was charging.
I dont mind supporting the local business but not when the cost are 50 to 100% more expensive, especially when they then charge you extra for milk or don't even provide it.

New Zealand Spot-on is also a great app which lists the districts of North and South Island and then you can view the activities and attraction available in the area. This app is free and very handy especially if you're stuck on what to do with some spare time.

Car Hire in NZ

Searching car hire in NZ in Google and u will find all different provider from multinational to small local providers. For 13 days we had a number of quotes ranging from 650 - 1900 - some look cheap at the start but then when u start adding extras like baby seats, chains, insurance etc, you add almost another 25% in top. Just glad it's in NZ dollars!!

Also make sure you book in advance, if you have a big family as most of the people mover are always out of stock with the well known car hire place.

Where do you buy airplane tickets?

After deciding on New Zealand, the fun part was looking for tickets. Expedia, webjet, flight centre, there are so many websites out there offering cheap flights out there.
Flights average from $2000 to $3000 but the best was actually from qantas.com.au which was $2000.
The cheaper ones was from the no frill airlines, so we were very happy to find a qantas flight for that price.

Updated: we were planing to visit New Zealand for 10 days but after buying the tickets and trying to do an itinerary we added another 3 days so we has to change our return flight. The cost was $620 extra which was $100 each for 5 people to change and the rest was for the difference in the flight cost.

Organising and deciding where to go

We went to Phuket last July for the school holidays which was great since it was winter in Sydney. For our Easter holidays we looked at the pacific islands, Bali, and other Asian countries.
In my opininion the best way to visit the pacific island is by cruising and island hopping and visiting the different countries/islands. Unfortunately there was only enough room for one kid. Cruises have policy of restricting the numbers of kids in different age groups. We looked at Fiji, Tahiti, cook island, new caledonian, but we could not justify spending ten days laying in a resort.

My first choice was Bali, but due to high level threat of terrorist attack in Indonesia, my wife did not feel comfortable going. There was other Asian countries but cost and also having been to Asia last year we decided to visit our closest neighbour New Zealand.

We decided to go for 10 days but in the end we decided to go for 13 days, so we can get home on Saturday and relax for a day before going back to work. Its going to be a drive holiday, starting in Auckland and working ouw way down the north island and then down the south island and visiting the major city and whatever comes along. We've booked our vehicle, but no hotels yet, as we might enjoy one place and decide to stay an extra day, we wont have to rush.

This blog is created so if you happen to stumble across it, will provide you with some information and advice in planning a trip for your family.