Many people will tell you that trying to do both the North & South Islands of New Zealand in only 2 Weeks is ambitious. They would be right. Me and my partner in crime are indeed ambitious. We traveled from a total of 3336 km from Auckland to Queenstown in 2 Weeks. Here’s the short version:
- Day 1: Arrive Auckland.
- Day 2: Auckland > Hobbiton > Rotorua.
- Day 3: Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland & Waitomo Glow Worms Boat Tour.
- Day 4: Waitomo Glow Worm Tubing > Tongariro.
- Day 5: Tongariro Alpine Crossing > Wellington
- Day 6: Wellington > Ferry to Picton.
- Day 7: Cloudy Bay > Nelson Lakes National Park.
- Day 8: Reefton > Franz Joseph.
- Day 9: Franz Josef Glacier > Fox Glacier.
- Day 10: Fox Glacier > Wanaka > Lake Tekapo / Lake Pukaki.
- Day 11: Lake Pukaki > Aoraki / Mt Cook National Park > Wanaka > Te Anau.
- Day 12: Te Anau > Lake Manapouri > Doubtful Sound.
- Day 13: Doubtful Sound > Lake Manapouri > Routeburn Track > Milford Sound.
- Day 14: Milford Sound > Gertrude Saddle > Te Anau > Kingston.
- Day 15: Queenstown > Auckland.
If you want to learn more and see some amazing pictures (that’s not me bragging about my picture taking skills, just a fact that New Zealand is so stunningly beautiful that even crappy iPhone pictures that capture 1/10th of it’s beauty are totally gorgeous), check out these posts:
New Zealand has been my #2 Dream Destination (2nd only to Paris) since I was a little kid. Before Flight of The Conchords and well before Peter Jackson’s cinematic triumph of one of my favorite book series LOTR. So those magical things coming out of this dream island literally on the opposite end of the earth made this country an absolute bucketlist fantasy for me. In fact, the first thing I did when I decided to move to Bangkok was to look up how much closer to NZ I would be. The result shocked me – ummm what? It’s still 12 hours for a direct flight?! Wow. This is a big planet.
So when my bestie agreed to endure the grueling journey from New York to join me there I was over the moon. We quickly decided the best way to see this fantasyland would be in a Campervan. Because 1. Road Trips are the Best, 2. Camping is awesome, and 3. Classic. OK, so it wasn’t actually quite that easy. The Campervan selection was the most difficult part of planning. It’s literally a whole ‘nother story. Which I wrote in a little post over here: Choosing a New Zealand Campervan.
The big adventage of our Self-Contained Campervan is that we did not set our itinerary ahead of time. I did put together a rough outline since we had limited time and a lot of ground to cover, but then we were free to follow our hearts each day and drive until we wanted to stop.
So, did all of my decades of wishin’ and hopin’ and plannin’ and dreamin’along with Peter Jackson’s millions of dollars of special effects build up this little island nation to unrealistic proportions in my expectations? Not even by a longshot. Every inch of this country is stunning in ways that were utterly overwhelming to my senses and impossible to describe. The entire long journey back to Bangkok I cried because my heart was broken. And in case you think this is fanciful poetry, I had the actual same emotions of a devastating romantic heart break. A piece of my heart/soul remains there and I look forward to returning and reuniting with it. Also, I really want to try Zorbing.