marcia
19th February 2006, 09:45 AM
Well I’ve been really busy since we arrived back from New Zealand, with all the mundane day to day stuff, plus trying to de-junk (de cluttering if you watch the house selling programmes!!) and haven’t really had time to post anything about our trip, but here goes!
SINGAPORE AIRLINES
Fantastic, can’t praise them enough, always coming around with food and drinks, can’t do enough to make you comfortable and happy. Our eldest was ill anyway before we left home and 12 hours into the first flight (only one hour before we landed at Singapore – typical!!) he was sick. I couldn’t get the bag open quick enough – you have to tear the top off – (so if you are flying with anyone who is travel sick – GET THE BAGS SORTED EARLY!!) We went to sit out of the way on the crew seats whilst they cleaned up, and they were so concerned, could they do anything, did we want some travel sick pills etc.
They bring the kids meals around first so you have time to help them before yours comes, also if the kids were sleeping they told us to just shout when they wanted their meal and they’d heat it up and bring it later.
HAVE A STOP-OVER!!
Our biggest mistake was not having more than a 2 hour stop in Singapore. It was a really difficult 2nd leg, made worse by the horrendous turbulence over Australia, (it was so bad the captain was asking the crew to sit down and belt up! Kev swears we were hitting ‘pot holes’ in the sky!!) I think we would have been better booking a room in the transit hotel for a few hours, just to be able to stretch out and lay down properly.
JET LAG
We arrived in AKL early hours of the morning, straight to motel and bed, got up at 8.30am, despite still feeling shattered and went sight seeing, back to bed early and up again 8.30am. Try and get into the right time zone ASAP. I think it helped because we landed at night and all we wanted to do was go to bed anyway. Coming home has been the worse to adjust to. Not only because we know we don’t want to be here now, but we landed at 6.30am, so shattered had to go to bed for a couple of hours. Took more than a week to get back into the swing properly, we were waking at 3.00am, desperate for bed at 4.00pm!!!
MOTORHOME
We hired our motor home from Adventure rentals. Can’t fault them, excellent service, helpful, good price, well equipped van. Pick up from airport accommodation. The motor home we should have picked up the first day had been in an accident was still in the garage so they gave us a smaller one for the day, told us to set off and they’d follow us to where we were staying and swap vans later. We ended up going to the beach for the day with Marie and Dave Parker, then back to their house. Our motor home was brought there for us. Had a couple of problems with the toilet and fridge, but one phone call (free phone number) and the adventure people told us where to go to get it sorted, bills sent direct to them.
CAMP SITES
We used ‘normal’ sites, top ten sites and even had one nights experience at a DOC site! (Department of conservation - Unmanned sites have an honesty box for payment, no water other than stream water, and a ‘long drop!!!’) All the other camp sites are fantastic. I have camped in the uk since I was a kid and the facilities in NZ, which are ‘the norm’ are far better than ‘the norm’ in the uk. Every site had kitchen facilities with gas/electric cookers, a hot water geezer for drinks (a must for tea bellies like me, park up and first job get the tea pot out!) Free BBQ cooking, etc.
PUBLIC TOILETS IN NZ
Silly thing really, but the standard of the public toilets in NZ, even in the most remote places was excellent, Clean, no nasty smells, toilet paper. And if you are in Dannevirke, you MUST visit the public toilets opposite Mitre 10 – an experience not to be missed!!
PLACES TO VISIT
One or two of the places we particularly liked.
Sky tower – a must really for all ‘tourists’
Opito bay – (the bay of islands just outside Keri Keri) – fantastic walks through the ‘jungle’ to an amazing secluded beach and fantastic views of the islands.
Langs beach – (McKenzie Cove just south of Waipu) – Beautiful unspoilt beach, just stopped by chance to have dinner there and the boys went wave bashing!
Driving creek railway - http://www.drivingcreekrailway.co.nz/Introduction.cfm – near Coromandel town – amazing guy named Barry Brickell has spent the last 25 years building the entire narrow gauge track through his property to the highest point, named the ‘eyefull tower’ Views are fantastic.
Coromandel gold stamper battery – pan for gold and have a tour with Ashley – the guy is so enthusiastic, kids were a bit bored, but he was excellent, had so much info to tell you – (turn the map of Coromandel sideways and it looks like Cornwall!! If you stuck a stake through the earth from Coromandel it would come out at Cornwall!!)
Cooks Beach – lovely beach, (bit disappointed at the memorial, took ages to find it, on the side of someone’s fence!!)
Cathedral Cove – You have to walk, 45 mins from car park or go by boat. But well worth it. Busiest beach we went on (but still seemed empty!!) Sand too hot to walk on, sea so cold Kev’s legs were numb!!! But so beautiful. Make sure you take plenty to drink – no ice cream sellers or little caravan with refreshments!! (Yippee) Unspoilt!
Mount Maunganui – Hot salt water pools – We visited at night, bathing in hot mineral water under the stars, fantastic.
Whakarewara Geothermal Valley – Rotorua – Fascinating guided tour of a Maori Village. Bit scary when she told us to jump up and down and you could hear the hollow thud under your feet and she told us it’s where the earths crust is the thinnest!!!!
Waikite Valley Thermal Pools – Rotorua – We were pointed in the direction of these pools by some kiwis we met, we were going to visit the Polynesian ones but were told they would be packed. The ones at Waikite were quiet, clean and wonderfully relaxing. Excellent food there too.
Martha’s gold mine – Waihi – You’ve all seen it on Billy’s tour – well we went there too. Not the greatest of days for the kids, very hot, long walk down into the mine, but an experience that is once in a lifetime – How many gold mines open their doors to the public? And I’ve even got my own piece of rock with bits of gold in to treasure!
Stockcar racetracks – we raced at Rotorua (Paradise Valley), Palmerston North race track and the track at Upper Hutt, Wellington. All were great tracks; fantastic racing and we’ll definitely be back in the future.
Bay of Islands
Beautiful places, scenery magnificent, definitely need a boat and your own tractor to launch it. Property prices are quite high up there.
Coromandel
Again a beautiful place, the drive from Thames to Coromandel town is quite an experience. Property prices again high.
Tauranga/Mount Maunganui
Tauranga was a big place, seemed very busy. Mount Maunganui, only place we noticed any hooners, beautiful with beach’s on two sides, property very expensive.
Dannevirke
Definitely not the ‘Hicksville’ it has been portrayed to be. Much bigger than I expected. Property prices appeared quite reasonable
Palmerston North
Much bigger than I expected. Great shopping centre. Property prices reasonable. A builder quoted us approx 1000$ a square metre to build a house.
SUPERMARKETS
These are ‘my’ comparisons in price/quality/store Ambience
Pak n save - Lidl/Netto
Food town - Tesco
Woolworths - Asda
New World - Sainsbury’s
Something to be aware of - your bill at the end of your shop will be ‘rounded’ up or down to the nearest 5 cents, the 5 cent coin is due to be taken out of circulation soon which means rounding will be done to the nearest 10 cents!
Only thing we couldn’t find that we wanted was tinned hot dogs, tried the frankfurters from the deli counter but they weren’t the same. (Fussy kids?!) Uncle Tom’s choc chip chewy cereal bars were yummy; kids loved the RBS bars, and the anthrax (Kev never gets it right!! ‘Anzac’ cookies were scrummy and the carrot cake from pak n save.
COST OF LIVING
Difficult one really when you are touring around and not actually ‘living’ there, but here’s our view.
Diesel, obviously a lot cheaper, we toured a lot of North Island in the motor home and only spent a total of £130 over the 3 weeks. We looked at electrical places and white goods etc seem to be about the same as the U K. Council tax/poll tax/rates – call it what you want, seemed to be much cheaper than the UK, but we only had prices in Palmerston. Food – again it depends on you and what your shopping habits are, we found things in pak n save that cost $1.50 more in new world. Shop around like you do anywhere. But overall cheaper than the U K, (some more/some a lot less)
Fish and chips – wow – get those $10 packs bought. Great value, but don’t whatever you do buy a scoop of chips per person as you would in the U K!! We made that mistake and needed a wheel barrow to shift the 3 scoops we ordered!
SINGAPORE AIRLINES
Fantastic, can’t praise them enough, always coming around with food and drinks, can’t do enough to make you comfortable and happy. Our eldest was ill anyway before we left home and 12 hours into the first flight (only one hour before we landed at Singapore – typical!!) he was sick. I couldn’t get the bag open quick enough – you have to tear the top off – (so if you are flying with anyone who is travel sick – GET THE BAGS SORTED EARLY!!) We went to sit out of the way on the crew seats whilst they cleaned up, and they were so concerned, could they do anything, did we want some travel sick pills etc.
They bring the kids meals around first so you have time to help them before yours comes, also if the kids were sleeping they told us to just shout when they wanted their meal and they’d heat it up and bring it later.
HAVE A STOP-OVER!!
Our biggest mistake was not having more than a 2 hour stop in Singapore. It was a really difficult 2nd leg, made worse by the horrendous turbulence over Australia, (it was so bad the captain was asking the crew to sit down and belt up! Kev swears we were hitting ‘pot holes’ in the sky!!) I think we would have been better booking a room in the transit hotel for a few hours, just to be able to stretch out and lay down properly.
JET LAG
We arrived in AKL early hours of the morning, straight to motel and bed, got up at 8.30am, despite still feeling shattered and went sight seeing, back to bed early and up again 8.30am. Try and get into the right time zone ASAP. I think it helped because we landed at night and all we wanted to do was go to bed anyway. Coming home has been the worse to adjust to. Not only because we know we don’t want to be here now, but we landed at 6.30am, so shattered had to go to bed for a couple of hours. Took more than a week to get back into the swing properly, we were waking at 3.00am, desperate for bed at 4.00pm!!!
MOTORHOME
We hired our motor home from Adventure rentals. Can’t fault them, excellent service, helpful, good price, well equipped van. Pick up from airport accommodation. The motor home we should have picked up the first day had been in an accident was still in the garage so they gave us a smaller one for the day, told us to set off and they’d follow us to where we were staying and swap vans later. We ended up going to the beach for the day with Marie and Dave Parker, then back to their house. Our motor home was brought there for us. Had a couple of problems with the toilet and fridge, but one phone call (free phone number) and the adventure people told us where to go to get it sorted, bills sent direct to them.
CAMP SITES
We used ‘normal’ sites, top ten sites and even had one nights experience at a DOC site! (Department of conservation - Unmanned sites have an honesty box for payment, no water other than stream water, and a ‘long drop!!!’) All the other camp sites are fantastic. I have camped in the uk since I was a kid and the facilities in NZ, which are ‘the norm’ are far better than ‘the norm’ in the uk. Every site had kitchen facilities with gas/electric cookers, a hot water geezer for drinks (a must for tea bellies like me, park up and first job get the tea pot out!) Free BBQ cooking, etc.
PUBLIC TOILETS IN NZ
Silly thing really, but the standard of the public toilets in NZ, even in the most remote places was excellent, Clean, no nasty smells, toilet paper. And if you are in Dannevirke, you MUST visit the public toilets opposite Mitre 10 – an experience not to be missed!!
PLACES TO VISIT
One or two of the places we particularly liked.
Sky tower – a must really for all ‘tourists’
Opito bay – (the bay of islands just outside Keri Keri) – fantastic walks through the ‘jungle’ to an amazing secluded beach and fantastic views of the islands.
Langs beach – (McKenzie Cove just south of Waipu) – Beautiful unspoilt beach, just stopped by chance to have dinner there and the boys went wave bashing!
Driving creek railway - http://www.drivingcreekrailway.co.nz/Introduction.cfm – near Coromandel town – amazing guy named Barry Brickell has spent the last 25 years building the entire narrow gauge track through his property to the highest point, named the ‘eyefull tower’ Views are fantastic.
Coromandel gold stamper battery – pan for gold and have a tour with Ashley – the guy is so enthusiastic, kids were a bit bored, but he was excellent, had so much info to tell you – (turn the map of Coromandel sideways and it looks like Cornwall!! If you stuck a stake through the earth from Coromandel it would come out at Cornwall!!)
Cooks Beach – lovely beach, (bit disappointed at the memorial, took ages to find it, on the side of someone’s fence!!)
Cathedral Cove – You have to walk, 45 mins from car park or go by boat. But well worth it. Busiest beach we went on (but still seemed empty!!) Sand too hot to walk on, sea so cold Kev’s legs were numb!!! But so beautiful. Make sure you take plenty to drink – no ice cream sellers or little caravan with refreshments!! (Yippee) Unspoilt!
Mount Maunganui – Hot salt water pools – We visited at night, bathing in hot mineral water under the stars, fantastic.
Whakarewara Geothermal Valley – Rotorua – Fascinating guided tour of a Maori Village. Bit scary when she told us to jump up and down and you could hear the hollow thud under your feet and she told us it’s where the earths crust is the thinnest!!!!
Waikite Valley Thermal Pools – Rotorua – We were pointed in the direction of these pools by some kiwis we met, we were going to visit the Polynesian ones but were told they would be packed. The ones at Waikite were quiet, clean and wonderfully relaxing. Excellent food there too.
Martha’s gold mine – Waihi – You’ve all seen it on Billy’s tour – well we went there too. Not the greatest of days for the kids, very hot, long walk down into the mine, but an experience that is once in a lifetime – How many gold mines open their doors to the public? And I’ve even got my own piece of rock with bits of gold in to treasure!
Stockcar racetracks – we raced at Rotorua (Paradise Valley), Palmerston North race track and the track at Upper Hutt, Wellington. All were great tracks; fantastic racing and we’ll definitely be back in the future.
Bay of Islands
Beautiful places, scenery magnificent, definitely need a boat and your own tractor to launch it. Property prices are quite high up there.
Coromandel
Again a beautiful place, the drive from Thames to Coromandel town is quite an experience. Property prices again high.
Tauranga/Mount Maunganui
Tauranga was a big place, seemed very busy. Mount Maunganui, only place we noticed any hooners, beautiful with beach’s on two sides, property very expensive.
Dannevirke
Definitely not the ‘Hicksville’ it has been portrayed to be. Much bigger than I expected. Property prices appeared quite reasonable
Palmerston North
Much bigger than I expected. Great shopping centre. Property prices reasonable. A builder quoted us approx 1000$ a square metre to build a house.
SUPERMARKETS
These are ‘my’ comparisons in price/quality/store Ambience
Pak n save - Lidl/Netto
Food town - Tesco
Woolworths - Asda
New World - Sainsbury’s
Something to be aware of - your bill at the end of your shop will be ‘rounded’ up or down to the nearest 5 cents, the 5 cent coin is due to be taken out of circulation soon which means rounding will be done to the nearest 10 cents!
Only thing we couldn’t find that we wanted was tinned hot dogs, tried the frankfurters from the deli counter but they weren’t the same. (Fussy kids?!) Uncle Tom’s choc chip chewy cereal bars were yummy; kids loved the RBS bars, and the anthrax (Kev never gets it right!! ‘Anzac’ cookies were scrummy and the carrot cake from pak n save.
COST OF LIVING
Difficult one really when you are touring around and not actually ‘living’ there, but here’s our view.
Diesel, obviously a lot cheaper, we toured a lot of North Island in the motor home and only spent a total of £130 over the 3 weeks. We looked at electrical places and white goods etc seem to be about the same as the U K. Council tax/poll tax/rates – call it what you want, seemed to be much cheaper than the UK, but we only had prices in Palmerston. Food – again it depends on you and what your shopping habits are, we found things in pak n save that cost $1.50 more in new world. Shop around like you do anywhere. But overall cheaper than the U K, (some more/some a lot less)
Fish and chips – wow – get those $10 packs bought. Great value, but don’t whatever you do buy a scoop of chips per person as you would in the U K!! We made that mistake and needed a wheel barrow to shift the 3 scoops we ordered!