4 weeks in New Zealand

If you get the opportunity to visit mount cook national park the walk to the terminus of the hooker glacier is most memorable

I keep coming back to this thread, but having been there in 2006 for around 6 weeks and only having scrapped the surface of a fabulous country I can't make too many suggestions for such short trips!

Just enjoy the trip(s), and be prepared to make plenty of stops. On South Island in particular I just found a new vista round every bend in the road!

Four recommendations;

White Island - gently active volcano with great high speed boat trip there and back.

We 'did' Doubtful instead of Milford Sound, and no regrets whatever. We were on the only ship there, and did it as part of a tour that took in one of the underground power stations. A great and diverse day with very few tourists.

We stayed in Queenstown overnight and 'did' the jet boats on Dart and Shotover rivers. Enjoyed both - do at least one! We found Dart less busy.

We went North from Auckland taking a few days to travel right up to Cape Reinga. Stayed in Paihia and the Bay of Islands. Seems not many people get up that way and I really enjoyed it, including surfing down sand dunes, taking in the The Aupouri (petrified) Forest and Ninety Mile Beach.

Practical suggestions;

You might be Pentaxians with great DSLRs and shed loads of lenses, but take instead a bridge camera (I bought a Canon S3IS) or high-end compact with zoom . Something that will take good stills and video and preferably run on AA batteries. I'm really please I did as I just wanted to enjoy the experience and not faff around with dslr cameras and lenses.

If the camera you take doesn't have GPS, buy one to take with you or at least make sure you can record where you are on your phone. You'll want to geo tag all your shots when you get back. I didn't have any GPS enabled devices with me, but fortunately my wife get a good diary. Even so, it still took us a few days to work out where many of our impromptu shots were taken (see vista round every bend).

Thanks very much for all the recommendations.

We've slowly been putting everything together, and my only worry is that we are doing too much driving.
I think for the north island we have about 1200kms (in 5 days), and for the south a good 2600kms (in 16 days). We've had to book up a train back up through the centre of the north island and the ferries (both ways), and with this everything sort of fell in to place. I know 200-250kms a day average driving doesn't sound like much, but I imagine the roads aren't fast going, and with stops for photos etc... I wonder if this leaves time to actually do stuff.

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As for the photographic side of things, I thought long and hard about getting a new lens (for landscapes) but I wasn't sure which one as I was struggling to justify a new lens purchase that wouldn't be FF compatible... so the 50-135mm, 40 Ltd and kit lens will have to do for this trip.

When I travel I take only one lens - it used to be the DA16-45, then I tried the DA18-135 and on my last trip it was the 16-85. It's too much faff to take multiple lenses. I also take a spare body and lens in case of breakdown - which is what happened in Vietnam to my K-5.

It does sound like a lot of driving as from what I have been reading you don't get to whizz along at all on many of the roads.

In New Zealand the speed limit now varies more than the 50 km/h (urban) and 100km/h (open road) limits that were for many years the only national limits. Speed limits can range from 10km/h to a maximum of 100km/h, in 10km/h increments.

Speeding is enforced, and since car insurance is, afaik, still NOT a legal requirement you need to be careful. I took out fully comprehensive insurance as part of the car hire.

When are you here?

There was a big earthquake last night, felt very far across the country.
Is pretty bad near the centre (north of Christchurch in the South Island) but not too bad outside of this.
Shouldn't affect travel too much.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/quakes/felt/strong

This thread sure brings back many memories. Reading about the yesterday's quake is saddening. The quake in Christchurch devastated a city me and my wife truly enjoyed.

We went twice, in 2005 and 2007 and hope to do it again. A reason for me to go again is on both trips I had cheap digital cameras, 3mp iirc, and I'd love to go again with the gear and photographic experience I have now.

What I am missing for these tips are wineries visits; such great wines to be found, the best of which never reach Europe. Marlborough is well known but the Pinots of Wairarapa and Central Otago... yum! Some great aromatics around Nelson too.

Well today I went to Milford sound

This was my third trip to Queenstown and I decided that this time I would ensure I made it there, having always had a shortage of time or money or both previously.

Having run a conference in Queenstown earlier this week, and presented a few session also, I've rented a camper van for a few days and set aside some time for me before returning home to the north island.

Have struck it extremely lucky with the weather (think I'm a bit sun and wind burnt now) and I saw two very rare beasts in the wild - two Pentax cameras today, more than I've seen in New Zealand all year!

Guys. An update. First week here on the north island has been good, obviously the earthquake has been quite devastating and we've altered our route on the south island due to road closures. The north island was fun enough, although the drive along the eastern cape was marred by one day of really awful weather.
Only been on the south island one day and the scenery really is stunning (the 50-135 is getting one hell of a work out).
Driving is slow going, by my reckoning with photo and toilet stops etc... we're going about 50-60kms an hour max. One long drive tomorrow over Arthurs pass to Tekapo and after that it should be less kms per day.
Also the sun is brutal here... Managed to get badly burnt despite it not being hot. Bloody lack of ozone 😞.
May try and post some pics if I get some proper down time.
Cheers!

Ha I'm in tekapo right now. Leaving first thing tomorrow, on a mad dash up to Christchurch to return my relocation camper and catch my lunch time flight home.

Watch the wind with sunshine. You can get quite windburnt without realising it, and some sun on top of that doesn't help.

I was so lucky with the weather. Was a super fast trip for me, but was very happy to get to some of the locations I did.

I am so happy to find this thread as I am also going on holiday to NZ next year. I will be stealing some of the advice given here and applying it to my own itenary!

Hi Richard, looked like another bad earthquake ,hope everything is ok. Really useful thread , we are currently planning to be in NZ in November 2017 for a month or so , so anything to be aware of is really helpful.

Pete

Am back and more or less over the jet lag, now I've got a stinking cold

I knew NZ would be offer beautiful landscapes, but I wasn't quite prepared for how lovely some of the scenery would be.
Just had a quick dig through the pics... These are literally straight from the camera (ok, quick process through LR).

Lake Tekapo



Drive to Mt. Cook



Anaikwa

3 very nice shots - I'm looking forward to the rest