January 5, 2010
Fair warning: between traveling to New Zealand for three weeks in March and the Bahamas in April, this blog may turn into a travel blog for much of January-April, 2010. Unfortunately, it will then become a blog about training for a Marathon from June-November. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So this is the first of many posts about New Zealand. Here are the plans thus far:
- We fly out of Charlotte, NC to Los Angeles for a seven hour lay over to catch the plane to Auckland.
- We arrive in Auckland, immediately flying down to Queenstown in the South Island and renting a car
- We stay in Queenstown for three nights/four days where we will enjoy nature with a boat tour of Milford Sound, visit Minus 5 Ice Bar (the place we enjoyed so much in Vegas), maybe some jet boating, and maybe bungy jumping! Queenstown is a big adventure town
- We travel up to Fox Glacier for two nights/three days to take the helicopter flight over the glacier with a quick landing on the glacier
- We drive up to Greymouth to drop off the rental car and take the Tranz Alpine train to Christchurch. We stay in Christchurch for only one night and fly up to Rotoura the next day.
- We stay in Rotoura two nights/three days and are scheduled to go to a Hangi Concert of the Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) and check out the boiling mud, geysers and maybe even a geothermal spa session
- We drive north to stay only one night in Coromandel on our way to Paihia, which is in the Bay of Islands, where we will take a cruise through the Hole in the Rock and mostly relax for three nights/four days.
- We return to Auckland where we only stay one night before boarding the plane back to the States. We arrive in San Fransisco for a 10 hour lay over before flying back to Charlotte.
I plan to take my laptop along to record what we do each day, although I don’t think I’ll worry that much with trying to post while traveling. Alex prefers to relax while on vacation while I enjoy more adventure so hopefully this will strike a good compromise. I’ve tried to do my research but does anyone out there know of any places we should definitely visit while there? This is probably my only trip to New Zealand, so I want to make it count!
What a way to start the year! Hot spots of New Zealand can be enjoyed by land and sea. I suggest you go on a cruise were the both of you can relax and at the same time enjoy the wonderful coastline.
I cannot tell you how green with jealousy I am about this! I have a couple of friends who went there last year and they did bungee jumping and skydiving. They got a video of both of them and it’s so freaking cool! I’m excited to live vicariously though you!
That hole in rock looks so cool – way cooler than driving my car through a tree!
Are you still wanting to possibly meet up when you’re in San Fran?
Driving your car through a tree is very cool. The thing about the hole in the rock is that if the weather is not great/waves are too choppy, they’ll cancel, and that’s about my luck-to go half-way around the world only to not be able to do it. I’ll pray for good weather.
And definitley want to meet up when we’re in San Fran-we’ll talk details as it gets closer.