Customer Blog: Our "Happily Ever After in New Zealand…”

For our honeymoon we had a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ trip to New Zealand in mind and with the help of Lucy our dreams became a reality. Having Lucy’s support in organising and managing our trip was invaluable- she was able to save us an immense amount of time, money and sanity in helping us to create the perfect itinerary using her expertise and contacts in New Zealand. We were introduced to Lucy through family who had organised trips previously with her, and Lucy also helped us organise our ‘minimoon’ in Rome straight after our wedding in May. We waited until November to go to New Zealand to catch the late Spring weather and it was brilliant having Lucy to help us book both of our honeymoon adventures. Lucy was able to tailor our route and accommodation to suit what we wanted: a three and a half week self-drive exploration of both North and South island with a sampling of everything New Zealand had to offer, whilst staying in boutique Bed and Breakfasts along the way. We aren’t big wine drinkers and weren’t keen on the adrenaline-junkie activities that New Zealand is so famous for, but Lucy was able to hit our brief of ‘seeing a little bit of everything, especially the most beautiful bits’ perfectly. She organised our flights, accommodation, car rental and excursions for us, through phone calls and emails over the year or so prior to our trip. Her advice throughout was vital to assuring we got the most out of our adventure as neither of us had been before and it wasn’t a trip we’d be likely to repeat again anytime soon. We started our honeymoon on the North Island in Auckland, where we spent the day exploring and adjusting to the 13-hour time difference (and jet lag), before picking up our hire car and driving North to the Bay of Islands. This picturesque sub-tropical region was like something out of a dream. We stayed in a stunning property where our room overlooked the most glorious view of the bay, took a trip around the coast where we saw dolphins and snorkelled nearby, and learnt about the Maori culture at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. This was the perfect start to our trip as it helped us build a picture of the history of New Zealand and its peoples. Our last journey on the North island took us through the geothermal world of Rotorua and to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where we watched the Lady Knox Geyser erupt, before heading south to Wellington, the Capital city of New Zealand. Wellington was full of character and charm, I especially enjoyed the Cable Car- the furnicular-esque railway that took us to the Botanic Gardens. The South Island is home to just 1 million people, compared to the North Island’s 4 million. On some days on the South Island we could drive for ten minutes without seeing another car and no tourist attraction or scenic spot was even close to busy. We travelled to the South Island via the ferry from Wellington to Picton before travelling down the West coast to Nelson, Greymouth and Franz Josef. Our favourite accommodation stays were in this area- mine was close to Greymouth where we had the most stunning view of a secluded beach and it felt like paradise to me, and my husband’s favourite was on the edge of Franz Josef with views over the Southern Alps and the Franz Josef glacier. Most of our accommodation in New Zealand, bar a couple of hotel stays in bigger cities, were in small, family run guest houses with hosts (that felt like family-friends by the end of our visits and who helped us immensely with local itinerary suggestions and dinner recommendations!) Lucy has some great little gems of accommodations, Whilst in Franz Josef we took a helicopter tour of the Southern Alps and local glaciers. When people asked when we were home what our favourite part of the trip was, we both agreed it was this flight. I’d never been in a helicopter before but the views were on another level of beautiful and the whole thing felt other-worldly and like an almost out-of-body experience. I couldn’t recommend it more! Whilst in this area we also drove to Lake Matheson – the reflection lake- one of the most famous scenic sights in New Zealand and soaked in the mirror-like view of the Fox Glacier mountain range. From Franz Josef we took the train from Greymouth on the West of the island to Christchurch in the East through the Southern Alps. This was again, a beautiful experience and we saw views we wouldn’t have seen from the car. Christchurch was our favourite city, full of history and colour. We explored the city via tram, punt and Botanical Garden land-train before collecting our second car for the trip and heading down to Dunedin. Here we stayed at the delightfully quaint Lanarch Castle in one of the lodge rooms in the grounds. The castle was on the Otago Peninsula just round the corner from Dunedin and we organised ourselves a wildlife excursion with Natures Wonders where we saw blue penguins and grey seals in the wild. This was another day we won’t be forgetting in a hurry, especially travelling to see the wildlife on an eight-wheeled, all-terrain ‘Argo’ vehicle! We then made our way to our final big stop of the honeymoon: Queenstown- a vibrant, hipster-esque city that was well worth the visit. From here we had a day trip to Milford Sound via coach which included a cruise, and should have included a scenic flight back had the weather not turned on us that day. Our views from the road and water were incredible despite the poorer weather which gave us stunningly atmospheric photographs- and a bonus sighting of more penguins! After a couple of days shopping and eating our way around Queenstown we flew back to Auckland before starting our 32 hour door-to-door trip home. Please don’t be put off by this long journey home, it is truly worth it! We chose to fly as close to direct as possible- stopping just for a couple of hours in the Middle East to change flights – so we could make the most of our time away from home. In all, our trip to New Zealand was unforgettable and we couldn’t have done it without the help of Lucy. The itinerary did exactly what we had asked for, and it gave us a highlights tour of both islands at a steady pace, staying a couple of days in most locations, and creating memories that will last us a lifetime. If you ever get the opportunity to go to New Zealand, GO because you won’t regret it! (Especially if Lucy organises it for you!)