After a couple weeks in Australia, we took a flight from Melbourne to Queenstown, New Zealand to start our 2 week New Zealand photography road trip. We drove through breathtaking landscapes! I had heard that Australia was a country where all the animals and vegetation are trying to kill you, while everything in New Zealand is friendly and harmonious. The majority of our time was spent in the South Island, with only 3 days in the North Island.
Stuff worth mentioning:
- Fergburger – THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THIS PLACE. We have great burgers in Boston (and in the US as a whole). So underwhelming.
- Sunset paragliding – Excellent. Two thumbs up. Ask your guide to go crazy. We did some insane flips, and it was awesome.
- Bungee/Skydiving – We skipped this, because we’ve done it before. Had we not, we’d be all over this.
- Lamb leg – We picked up a lamb leg from the grocery store (as well as some fresh rosemary, garlic, potatoes, and olive oil). Over several hours, we roasted it and made everyone in our hostel insanely jealous. We roasted several lamb legs during the trip.
- Milford Sound – We took the cheap JUCY cruise. Though it was cheap and a cloudy day, the views were tremendously awesome.
- Te Anau – Fiordland National Park is beautiful. We also did a short excursion to the glowworms. I’m pretty sure they just put a whole ton of Christmas lights on the ceilings of the cave.
- Wanaka / Arrowtown – Definitely my favorite city – chill, down to earth, quiet.
- Fox Glacier / Franz Josef – If you’ve ever seen a glacier before, skip this. We were going to heli-hike, but for three days in a row, it was cancelled due to weather. Be sure to book with the company so that you can get a refund.
- Greymouth / Punakaiki – Felt similar to the Great Ocean Road! We wandered everywhere, stopped many times, and all stops led to a memorable mini adventures. Motukiekie beach and Punakaiki pancake rocks.
- Canyoning in Abel Tasman National Park – This is probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done. Zip lining, abseiling, cliff jumping, swimming, rock slides, and general frolicking.
- Rotorua – I don’t usually buy stuff, but there were some beautiful dark green pieces of carved jade that I thought were beautiful. The entire city smells like sulfur. The natural hotpsrings are pretty cool for a quick feet soak. Zorbing was pretty fun. We jumped into a giant plastic ball and rolled down a hill. Highly recommend to go in the ball by yourself, unless you’re super comfortable getting squished to the person in the ball with you. Also, because of all the swishing and sliding in the ball, swimsuits easily come off. You’ve been warned.
- Auckland – Eh.