Itinerary

Last night we finally took the plunge and started doing some major planning for the New Zealand trip. Yes, finally we could put it off no longer and we've sorted of worked out what we're going to do and when. For now anyway.
It wasn't easy and there was a lot of bickering involved as we sorted it out. It's the travelling around that makes this trip quite tricky. Obviously we want to make the most of our time over there and see as much as we can,but the distances make this quite tricky. Another problem is that Steve wants to make the most of the chance for some sight seeing too and I can't really expect him to drive solidly for four weeks, so we're going to do some travelling by train and coach. Unfortunately, the next problem is that many of the places we want to visit aren't served by public transport, so it's been quite a logistical problem trying to sort it. Then when you add in some confusion about what's on which island, and well, we bickered. A bit. But after a couple of hours we came up with a plan that's workable.

So we're in Auckland for three nights to recover from the flight, sight see and sort a few things out... then it's 12 hour train trip down the North Island to Wellington, across the sea on the inter-island ferry to Kaikoura on the coast for whale and dolphin spotting... then on to Christchurch and across the Abel- Tasman national park to Greymouth and off to the Franz Josef glacier. That's the first week and a bit. Then we're going back up to the North Island to visit Uncle Phil and Co, hot springs, rack railways, and the hometown of Crowded House genius Neil Finn. Well it has to be done!
It's going to be amazing.