Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
Driving on the day you arrive after a long haul flight is a risk :- the travel time, time zone change and driving on the left (RHD). Have you driven right hand drive cars before?
Yes i have driven a lot in India which is RHD and i am pretty comfortable with it.
Originally Posted by
calbear2005
That's a lot of doubling back. You're losing a lot of daylight with fairly inefficient planning. Maybe try a "V-shaped" route as suggest by Mwenenzi of HKK-ZQN-CHC.
In Queenstown, do the Ben Lomond Track. It track starts right in town; skip the first leg and take the gondola.
Originally Posted by
CPMaverick
My earlier advice still stands. Seems that you've decided against it, which is fine, it's your trip! I just think it is wildly inefficient to go all the way to Mt Cook, then back to Queenstown, then drive to CHC. And why not overnight in Wanaka on arrival to break up the long, long drive from Queenstown to Frans Josef? The whole trip sounds absolutely exhausting. Hopefully your adrenaline will keep you going for those 12 days!
As for other things to do in Queenstown, you've pretty much packed the rest of your trip full besides those two 1/2 days. I'd leave that time to do something spontaneous or relaxing in Queenstown. You won't lack options.
Enjoy NZ.
Originally Posted by
PsiFighter37
You're not going to want to drive from Queenstown up to Franz Josef and back the same road. It's gorgeous, but it's a loooong drive (especially the portion through Mt. Aspire National Park). I would recommend flying ROT-CHC-HKK instead.
Speaking of Rotorua, I would also not sleep there. The town reeks of sulfur given the geothermal pools. The one night I spent there was one night too long.
Down in Milford Sound, I would recommend looking into doing a 3-night stay at Fjordland Lodge in Te Anau. You will not regret it, and it gives you a good base for doing a number of activities nearby (boats to Doubtful Sound, driving to Milford Sound, hiking the Kepler Track, etc.). Given the amount of time you are centralizing in Queenstown, I would recommend trekking out a little further.
Guys, firstly want to thank you again for all the tips and recommendations!!!
I understand there were many suggestions made here that i "did" not follow but i wanted to clarify few things on why
So the reason we did not opted for HKK flight was due to the fact that the only reasonable flight i was seeing was leaving ROT early morning but reaching HKK at around evening time due to long layover, this would have wasted my 1 full day without actually doing anything besides reaching from point A to point B, not to mention we would be at the airport without a car so wouldn't have explored anything new, so we opted for ROT - ZQN approach where in i will be able to explore Queenstown on first day when i arrive and we have quiet a few things planned for/near Queenstown so this half day helped us a lot! I understand this will make me drive from Queenstown to Franz josef one way X 2 but i think of it as this will give us sweet time to explore all the beautiful stops along the route since we have 2 days dedicated for the drive and exploring/taking pictures at new spots, we are also planning to stop and explore Wanaka while coming back from Franz Josef.
About Mount cook - that was not even in our to-do list till the very end when we found the combo tour of Milford sound and Mt. Cook, the tour will not drop us off at Mt. Cook and i understand i will have to drive the next day again on similar road for CHC but since i will not be doing the drive for the combo tour i will be able to relax and explore one part of Kiwiland that was not in out list.
I did decided to drop off my car back to Queenstown on 20th and pick up a free car as suggested by "
Mwenenzi" which helped me save a few bucks - so thanks for that info!
This is one of the more interesting (unusual) itineraries we have seen for NZ due to amount of back tracking.
100% agree on this
but if you look at some of our other vacations itineraries by clicking my signature link you will soon find we take vacations differently but i suppose we enjoy trying something new
Thank you all again!!