New Zealand - The Land of the Long White Cloud

New Zealand is 11,500 miles from the UK, so like myself most of clients head to this beautiful part of the world on an extended bucket list trip. I'd always recommend given the long journey to enjoy a stop over for 3 nights enroute which will also help to ease your jetlag as New Zealand is between 11 and 13 hours ahead of the UK depending on the time of the year you go. New Zealand has four distinctive seasons, so is really a year around destination but peak season and the best weather is December to February. A lot of my clients prefer to self drive either in a car or motorhome, as you drive on the left and the roads are clearly sign-posted and much quieter than the UK. I was travelling solo and wanted to be able to enjoy the scenery so I opted for an escorted coach tour that would cover both North and South Island across a pretty intensive 14 day period. One of the things I learnt was don't be deceived by the size of the country, there are so many things to see and do, that after visiting myself, I'd always recommend a minimum of three weeks if you want to cover both islands. My tour started off in Christchurch, also know as the "Garden City", reinvigorated after the 2010/11 earthquakes the city is a lovely blend of artsy shops, independent restaurants with a beautiful and expansive botanical garden and a fun tram that runs through the city. After a couple of nights here, we set off to jump aboard the TranzAlpine train and enjoyed some spectacular scenery through gorges and over viaducts. We had a quick pit stop at Hokitika, the heritage and cultural centre of the west coast renowned for its jade and then continued onto Franz Josef and its infamous glacier, the glacier has retreated over the years so the best views are by taking a flight over this natural wonder. The next day we hit the Haast Pass and the Southern Lakes, including ice mint coloured Lake Hawea and Lake Dunstan, then drove onto Arrowtown a very cute historic town with its gold rush buildings, before hitting Queenstown with Lake Wakatipu (an inland lake with a restored steamship) and the infamous The Remarkables mountain range and popular ski area. Queenstown is the adventure capital and I loved this laid back town, there are so many activities to do, so I chose the Skippers Canyon Scenic Tour and invigorating Jet Boat ride on the Shotover RiversKI, plus took the gondola up to the observation deck and enjoyed an hour at the Kiwi Park being lucky enough to see young kiwi birds in their blacked out enclosure. Froom Queenstown, we headed through the Cleddau Valley to Milford Sound where we enjoyed a cruise through the Fiordland National Park with its thundering waterfalls, before travelling to Te Anau, one of the South Island's largest lakes and onto the "Edinburgh of the South", Dunedin which had a really interesting museum, the Otago Settlers Museum, lovely art lined alleys and is also know for Speight's Brewery and the nearby Lanarch Castle. Next up was heading across the Canterbury Plains with a stop at Omarama, this quirky little town is the headquarters of Steampunk and the museum is really fun and unique, plus there's a Victorian style street with boutique stores and a great farmers market. Then it was back heading north and up to Picton, where we caught the Interislander ferry across the Cook Strait to North Island and its compact capital Wellington. Wellington has a stunning waterfront with restaurants housed in reclaimed warehouses, colourful street art and one of the best award winning museums I've been to, Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand. Don't miss the funicular for some great views across the city and you'll be spoilt for choice with lots of uber cool cafes, bars and restaurants. Continuing through North Island, we drove along the Kapiti Coast, past the humongous Lake Taupo and onto Rotorua, the home of bubbling geysers and Maori Culture. We enjoyed a fantastic evening at Te Puai, enjoying hangi-inspired cuisine, a cultural performance with haka and then a tour around the thermal valley with its steam jets and bubbling mud pools. The next day we headed off to Hobbiton, to see Middle Earth for ourselves and enjoy a magical tour of the Lord of the Rings 12 acre movie set including actually exploring the new human sized hobbit holes - I can't tell you how much fun this was! Our next to the last stop were the Waikato River's Waitomo Caves where we took a fascinating boat ride in the darkness before it became literally radiant with thousands of glow worms! Then it was onto Auckland, New Zealand's largest city and home to two yacht filled harbours plus some great tourist attractions like the Sky Tower which you can bungy jump off, the All Blacks Experience and the not to be missed Weta Workshop Tour where you can get hands on and immerse yourself in a wacky world of special effects, props and larger than life sets. New Zealand gave me some long lasting, wonderful memories and I'm sure you'd love it just as much as I did!