I've been planning to go to New Zealand since 2003 but somehow other countries got in a way ;) Finally in late 2013, I managed to get cheap plane tickets to Auckland on my favourite airline. You can read the story here: Malaysia Airlines. The original plan was for the four of us to go on a three weeks self-drive adventure. Unfortunately two months before our scheduled departure date, a tragedy struck which resulted in two of our group members cancelling their trip.
If you know me personally then you will know that I rarely drive long distance (my car mileage is only 8.4k km after 4 years!). With the two members unable to go I lost my alternate driver so I ended up driving from North Island to the southern most South Island covering over 3000 km within 17 days! Truly an adventure for me most especially driving from Lake Taupo to Napier. The route was like a roller coaster and snake combined! The journey to the Crown Range (the highest paved road in New Zealand) was quite a suspense too. I was worried that our small rental car, Toyota Yaris cannot climb the high altitude. I actually smelt smoke just before we reached the place!
Our trip was from 26 March to 18 April 2014. Total damage for both of us was RM18.7k. Plane tickets (includes domestic flight from Christchurch to Auckland) RM5.7k. Accommodation (22 nights) RM6.9k. Transport in New Zealand (car rental, ferry, petrol and airport bus) RM5k. Food and other miscellaneous items RM1.1k. Since we were interested in nature, we didn't spend a lot of money on adventure stuff that New Zealand is famous for. If you wish to join that, I suggest you add a few thousand ringgits more to your budget. It is quite pricey most especially when your own currency is only worth one third of theirs :(
Our itinerary was as follows. On hindsight if I want to tweak the itinerary, maybe I will stay two nights at Dunedin and only one night at Kaikoura.
26 March Kuala Lumpur to Auckland
27 March Auckland
28 March Auckland - Rotorua
29 March Rotorua
30 March Rotorua - Lake Taupo - Napier
31 March Napier - Wellington
1 April Wellington
2 April Wellington - Picton - Kaikoura
3 April Kaikoura
4 April Kaikoura - Geraldine
5 April Geraldine - Lake Tekapo - Mount Cook - Twizel
6 April Twizel - Wanaka
7 April Wanaka - Arrowtown - Queenstown
8 April Queenstown
9 April Queenstown - Te Anau
10 April Te Anau - Milford Sound - Te Anau
11 April Te Anau - Bluff - Invercargill
12 April Invercargill - Dunedin
13 April Dunedin - Christchurch
14 April Christchurch
15 April Christchurch - Auckland
16 April Auckland
17 April Auckland
18 April Auckland - Kuala Lumpur
The weather during our trip was quite marvellous. A combination of light rain and sunny days. The temperature was great too. Not too hot and neither too cold. My only disappointment was the leaves were not colourful enough even though we aimed our trip nearer to the middle of autumn.
My favourites during the trip were Mount Cook, Wellington and Queenstown. I was quite disappointed with Milford Sound and Te Anau Glow Worm Caves after reading such rave reviews from other travellers. Dunedin was a surprise though. Didn't expect that the city to be quite huge!
I normally drive quite slow and most of the highways in New Zealand are only two lanes so my favourite signboard during the trip was "Passing Lane Ahead". Thankfully all the drivers (even tourists) were very patient and followed the speed limit. During the trip we saw only one accident and it was at Auckland's six lanes highway. I guess slow driving does prevent accidents :)
All in all it was a good adventure. New Zealand is a tourists heaven most especially to English speaking visitors. Their tourism industry is so well managed. Our online bookings of car rental and accommodation were perfect. The roads are very well maintained. During our trip we frequently encountered road maintenance crews hard at work :) So if you plan to do a self drive holiday, don't hesitate. If I, an unadventurous lady can do it, I think almost everybody else can too!
It took me close to 6 months to process all the scenery photos. Serve me right for being camera trigger happy. You can end up with a lot of pictures if you are not careful. Took roughly around 2.7k photos (4 cameras) and after painstakingly going through one by one (4 separate files), I managed to reduce them to 1,404. I hope I've learnt my lesson and not make the same mistake during my next trip!
You may access the photos at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.
Njoy!!
