New Zealand trip! Home of middle earth!

 

Ah, how I miss the cold breeze, fluffy sheep and those fat cows in New Zealand. My family and I, along with my cousin and her husband, went to New Zealand for two weeks in Nov 2013.

It was a painful 10.5 hours flight to Auckland followed by a domestic flight to Christchurch. We travelled around the south island of New Zealand anti clock wise starting from Christchurch and ending in Christchurch too.

Once again, Mi was the one behind the whole trip from planning to booking of accommodations. She got the infos and ideas from those blogs she read and also Tripadvisor. She spent months to plan so that everything is well taken care off.

After a few rounds of amendments, she finally decided on the route trying to cover as much as possible in South Island.

 1)  16/11  -  KL - Aukland  - flight @11.55pm
 2)  17/11  -  Aukland - Christchurch  -  1.35pm arrive Aukland, 5pm Jetstar to Christchurch 
                 -  6.25pm arrive Christchurch, collect rented car from Apex Car Rental
 3)  18/11  -  Christchurch -  Hokitika 
 4)  19/11  -  Hokitika - Fox Glacier
 5)  20/11  -  Fox Glacier - Wanaka
 6)  21/11  -  Wanaka - Queenstown
 7)  22/11  -  Queenstown
 8)  23/11  -  Queenstown - Milford Sound - Te Anau
 9)  24/11  -  Te Anau - Kaka Point
10) 25/11  -  Kaka Point - Dunedin
11) 26/11  -  Dunedin - Mt Cook
12) 27/11  -  Mt Cook - Lake Tekapo
13) 28/11  -  Lake Tekapo - Christchurch
14) 29/11  -  Christchurch - Aukland,  6.55pm flight , 8.25pm arrive
15) 30/11  -  Aukland - KL 1.35am  flight  7.25am arrive
Only when the route was confirmed that she could proceed to book the accommodations which is very important so that everyone could have a good rest at the end of everyday! She opted for motels with cooking facility so that we could cook our dinner instead of eating out to cut cost. In fact, this is what most people do when they travel in NZ. AS usuak, she uses Booking and Agoda for booking.

Next she moved to car renting. From http://www.qyer.com/, she learned that Apex Car Rental is reliable and cost effective. To accommodate the 4 of us, she chose Nissan Wingroad Station Wagon which is also the cheapest in the range.

My cousin Tess and her husband Lai, fly SIA from Singapore directly to Christchurch reaching a few hour ahead of us. They get themselves a Ford Focus, also from Apex.

This is the plan for the whole trip. Well, I must say that it is quite well planned taking into considerations of all aspects including travelling time, meals time and ample time of sightseeing!