The Itinerary as we plan it....

October 17th - October 19th - travels...

Frankfurt (FRA), 12.30 h, October 17th - Kuala Lumpur (KUL), 06.25 h, October 18th
Kuala Lumpur (KUL) 21.20 h October 18th - Auckland (AKL) 12.20 h, October 19th

Seeing as we will have a stopover in Kuala Lumpur of almost 15 hours, and it will be around bedtime for our body clock when we arrive, we've booked a day room in the Concorde Inn Sepang Hotel at Kuala Lumpur airport to get some hours of rest before the second leg of our 36 h trip. I'm especially looking forward to dinner in the "Melting Pot Cafe" before we take off again!

I've now heard that everyone recommends you sleep on the second flight .. oh well, we'll do it this way, and maybe have some sort of nap on the 2nd plane, but I am pretty sure we'll be too excited to sleep, knowing that the next touchdown will be in Auckland!

October 19th - October 21st - Auckland

We've decided to give our jetlagged bodies a 48 h rest and stay in Auckland to explore the "City of Sails" a little bit. A room is booked in the Bianco Off Queen hotel which is located right next to Auckland's busy main street "Queen Street", and basically walking distance to everywhere we want to go during those 2 days.

Some of these places are:

http://www.bolliwood.co.nz (Ponsonby in general)
http://www.viewauckland.co.nz/pubsandbars/ocarrolls-review-58611.html
http://www.occidentalbar.co.nz/ (the mussel pot seems to be really worth it!)

If we want something for lunch whilst checking out the famous Ferry Building, we will either drop into Wagamama or just stay for dinner at The Harbour Side restaurant (I guess I might even prefer the latter ;)).

On October 21st, we will pick up our car at Ace Rentals around 10 am, and then we're off to the Far North.

October 21st - October 22nd - Far North

Once we got our rented Nissan Bluebird on Thursday 21st, we'll be heading northwards on the Highway #1, and then turn left onto the Highway #12 towards the Westcoast of the North Island. Here we'll be visiting the famous Kauri Forests before driving up back on Highway #1 to the farthest point north - the famous Cape Reinga. It will be quite a treat to watch the Pacific Ocean and the Tasmanian Sea merge at this historically important spot, which is also known as "Spirits Bay", because a Maori legend says that the spirits of their late relatives leave for their journey to the afterlife.

Depending on how much time we have left, we will either visit Cape Reinga still on Thursday 21st, or much more likely, end the day half way up the Ninety Mile Beach in our accomodation for the night, Pukenui Lodge, and drive up to Cape Reinga the next day which would mean getting up quite early.

October 22nd - 24th - Bay of Islands (Russell)

Seeing as this was the first picture I ever consciously saw of Aotearoa sometime in the 90s, we thought it would only be logical if we spent our first weekend in New Zealand here. To celebrate this occasion, we went 10 NZ$ above our self-imposed budget of 150 NZD per night, and booked The Bay Suite at The Russell Bay Lodge, which has an own patio with breathtaking sea views. If this isn't the right place to fully start our Kiwi adventure, then I don't know.

Before we get there on Friday 22nd though, we will have to stop at a very meaningful place: At Waitangi, where the treaty of 1840 was signed on February 6th. This will most likely be our first close encounter with the Maori Culture, and God knows I cannot wait.

The weekend in Russell will then be for relaxing, sightseeing, eating and drinking. Possibly at the famous Gables (it's been closed for huge refurbishing and has just reopened again), or maybe at the Kamakura, or just at Sally's. Whenever not doing the a.m., we'll be watching the approx 800 boats coming in from Auckland, as it is Labour Day Weekend and therefore the weekend of the annual Coastal Classic. And of course, as we're proper tourists :p, the famous Cream Trip must not be missed and will happen at 1.35 pm on Saturday October 23rd.

October 24th - October 31st - Bay of Plenty/East Cape/Hawkes Bay/Wellington

This will be the mostly pre-planned, though partly spontaneous trip to Wellington on the Pacific Coast Highway around the East Cape via Coromandel Peninsula.

We will stop on Sunday 24th in Thames, Coromandel, where we booked a night in the Avalon Motel, which isn't exactly our first choice, but seeing as it is Labour Weekend, and Monday therefore a national holiday, the nicer places were booked.

But hey, we've got the mostest awesomest location booked in the Bay of Plenty for the following two nights from Monday 25th - Wed 27th in this dreamy hotel in Whakatane. Of course a day trip to White Island, New Zealand's only active marine volcano, is already booked for the 26th :) Before, I guess we will just have to have dinner at The Wharf Shed which apparently is almost world famous & award winning for its unique seafood dishes.

On the next day we head to Gisborne, where we will be staying at the beautiful Portside Hotel. We've booked one night to secure accomodation for the 27th, but we might add another night, as we deliberately left the time between 27th and 30th open for spontaneous decisions. On the way to Gisborne we will most definitely take a stop at the famous Pacific Coast Macadamia Nut Farm which is well known for its Macadamia & Honey ice cream, so a must for an ice cream & macadamia nut addict like me :o Of course, some dinner places have been sussed out already too, one of them is this.

I am especially looking forward to this day trip from Whakatane to Gisborne on the 27th, as it is basically through Maori Land, which is what the region around the East Cape is often called, as sometimes up to 80% of the population are Maori. There will be beautiful carvings, maraes and other precious signs of their culture everywhere to be seen.

After our stint in Gisborne we will head via Napier with likely one night stay (if we win the lottery, it will be here at the Nautilus; if not, we'll find somewhere a bit cheaper but still nice :))  towards Wellington, where we will stay from October 30th to November 1st in the IBIS Wellington, which is located almost next to the Bluebridge Ferry Terminal. As we are really into nice food and want to try as many different world cuisines as possible wherever we go, we might have dinner at a Cambodian restaurant, although there seem to be so many great places to try! At any rate, the 2nd evening we will eat at Kai In The City, which was suggested by Paul, and apparently offers great authentic Maori food.


November 1st - November 4th - South Island

Why Ferry Terminal, why next to it? Well, because we will be crossing the Cook Strait from North to South Island on November 1st at 08.00 am, which means reporting time at the ferry is 07.00 am.

We'll be arriving in Picton around 11.00 am so we hope to hit the road about 30 mins later and have a great lunch at one of the famous "snacks" around Kaikoura, which means nothing but "meal of crayfish". Which is of course what we are gonna tuck into, maybe at one of Kaikoura's places, maybe outside the town. At any rate, we will try to at least suspect the sight of a whale, although we will unfortunately not be able to do a special whale watching tour which they offer, because we will be heading further south towards Christchurch later in the afternoon, where we will spend our first night on the South Island right in the City Centre on Cathedral Square in the Camelot Cathedral Square hotel, which is located next to pubs and bars, so excellent after a day on the road, when all you want is a nice meal and some nice cool drinks before you hit the pillow!

The next day will be the day where we'll cross the famous "Arthur's pass". I am really super looking forward to this drive, and seeing as it's not much more than 240 km to drive, it will be a nice relaxed day on one of the scenic roads of New Zealand!

If we get there early enough, we'll of course stop in Shantytown and get a feeling how it was during the goldrush of the 1860s.

At any rate, our 2nd day on the South Island will end after a transcoastal trip highlight in Greymouth at the west coast, where we will stay in the Ashley Hotel for the night. We've prebooked all accomodation on the South Island because we don't have much time there, and cannot have any glitches spoiling these 3 days.

On Wednesday November 3rd we will be heading towards Nelson, which is supposed to be a really nice and cosy place to be, with lots of nice pubs. To celebrate our last evening on the South Island, I've put some effort into finding just the right accomodation (whilst the previous 2 nights we'll be staying where it's most convenient travel-wise), and found this marvellous place for a ridiculously low price.

As it's not quite 300 km from Greymouth, we might be getting up early in order to put in some stops on the way where it's worth it, and still get to this wonderful place relatively early to relax and enjoy whatever it might have to offer.

Sadly, we have to get up early again on Thursday 4th, because our ferry back to the North Island will be leaving Picton at 2.00 pm, which means driving up there 130 km and be there at reporting time 1.00 pm.


November 4th - November 10th West Coast/Forgotten World Highway/Central Plateau


When getting back to the North Island, we'll hit the road again instead of staying another night in Wellington. We'll be going up the West Coast until Wanganui where we will be spending the night at a lodge . If we can squeeze it in somehow the next day, we'll take a glance into Mt. Egmont National Park, and then at Stratford hit the famous "Forgotten World Highway" #43, where we initially planned to stay the night at the Whangamomona Hotel which is the headquarter of the "Republic of Whangamomona", but first none of their nicely refurbished rooms have an ensuite, and second they have no vacancies on the Friday night. So we'll just have a drink and/or a meal there passing by. It is quite a detour towards Lake Taupo which will be our next stop, but since I read about Whangamomona in some travel guide, I wanted to go there, because things like this are what travelling is about: Meeting weird people, learning weird traditions and try to become a part of them. So this is what we will do.

At any rate, after spending the night at this stunning place, we will head via Lake Taupo (either spend a night there or stay another night at the Creel) towards Rotorua where we will stay 2 nights from November 7th to 9th at this beautiful hotel which not only offers great accomodation, but also a daily Maori Culture Show which is not to miss. We will then have enough time to explore all the volcanic wonders around Rotorua including Thermal Wonderland and of course TePuia.

Right afterwards we'll have to visit the LOTR filming sites in Matamata, as Rob is a big fan of the movies. Depending on what time it will be, we'll either drive through to Auckland already on the 9th, but most likely spend the night in Hamilton, and then go back to Auckland on Wednesday the 10th so we will have another night there before we fly back on November 11th at 14.15 h.

So this is what we plan for our 23 days in Aotearoa, if everything goes to plan it will be 23 days we will still be thinking of when we're old and decrepit (me earlier than Rob :p).

Pictures, reports etc. will be posted either here or on my FlickR account whenever we get decent WiFi and of course the time to do it. At any rate, when we come back, it'll happen anyway, so stay tuned.

November 11th - November 12th - Travels

Auckland (AKL), 14.15 h, November 11th - Kuala Lumpur (KUL), 20.05 h, November 11th
Kuala Lumpur (KUL), 23.59 h November 11th -  Frankfurt (FRA), 06.05 h, November 12th

Back home :(