In December 2004 a couple of friends and I visited New Zealand. We flew into Auckland where we stayed for a few days. We then hired a camper van and headed down the North Island, across the Cook Straight and then travelled around the South Island. We saw and did some amazing things before flying from Queenstown back to Auckland for Christmas Day. I then travelled around the north of New Zealand, getting up as far as Cape Reinga. We flew to Sydney for a new days including New Year’s Eve. Here’s a day by day account of what we did:
| Day 1 | The outbound trip to Auckland | Day 2 | A tour of Auckland | |
| Day 3 | Auckland to Otorohanga | Day 4 | Waitomo, Otorohanga and Rotorua | |
| Day 5 | Rotorua Gondala, The Buried Village and Whakarewarewa | Day 6 | Rotorua to Bulls via the Huka Falls and Mount Ruapehu | |
| Day 7 | From the North to the South Island | Day 8 | Blenheim to Kaikoura | |
| Day 9 | Kaikoura Whale Watching | Day 10 | Shantytown, the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers | |
| Day 11 | Glacier helicopter flight and drive to Wanaka | Day 12 | Sightseeing flight to Milford Sound, a cruise and back, then on to Cromwell and the Clyde dam | |
| Day 13 | Goldfields mining centre, Gibbston Vally winery and Queenstown | Day 14 | Arrowtown and Queenstown | |
| Day 15 | The Shotover Jet and the TSS Earnslaw | Day 16 | Back to Auckland | |
| Day 17 | Christmas Day | Day 18 | Kauri Museum, Tokatoka Peak, the Waipoua Forest, the Hokianga ferry and north to Kaitaia | |
| Day 19 | Cape Reinga and Ninety Mile Beach | Day 20 | Kerikeri, Waitangi and the Bay of Islands | |
| Day 21 | Whangarei and the Auckland Skytower | Day 22 | Auckland to Sydney | |
| Day 23 | New Year’s Eve in Sydney | Day 24 | Sydney’s National Maritime Museum | |
| Day 25 | Sydney Opera House |
I have written a more detailed account of our holiday with many more photos and extended descriptions of what we did and where we visited. You can download this document as a PDF by clicking on the picture to the left. Please note that this document is 20Mb big and may take a while to download on a slow internet connection.