[wobbler]

I wonder if anyone had any experience or suggestions - we are coming over, I think in Feb, for a reccy trip. Me, OH and and children 3 and 5 will fly into Aukland mid Feb for about 15days. I thought the best idea is to hire a campervan - the only place we have to go to is Wellington. We are not ones to rush around and spending our days on long drives - so where to go, what to see?

May be get an internal flight to South Island and dirve back to Aukland?
May be a circular route around North Island?

[Ana&Steve]

We did a circle around NI in a week and 3 days, and saw a lot of great things!
From Auckland: Matamata, (Hobbiton, pricey) Rotorua, (thermal baths at hotel, TePuia Park, all very resonable $), Taupo, (Craters of the Moon, Huka Falls, Opepe Bush Walk, ALL free!) Napier, (found it a bit pricey, but it was a holiday wkend) Wellington, (TePapa Museum,{free} Karori Preserve,{worth the cost} and great shopping, nightlife on wkends, and Cuba St was really fun for the "hip" mood) and then we went to Waitomo Caves (worth the cost) on the way back to Auckland. That's not even mentioning all the sights, people and resturants, all along the way. We loved our trip, but we do look forward to a SI trip in the future!
Hope that helps, PM me if you want specifics. :)
Ana

[Smiler]

You'll be fine doing a circular trip of the NI in that time but what do you plan to do on your reccie?

Do you need to look for places to work, have interviews etc or just have a holiday type reccie?

Some camper vans do one way hire, usually from Welly back up to Auckland, so you could fly down and drive back up or hire a car and do motels etc.

We did the whole of the Ni on our reccy from Auckland clockwise down to wellington and then back up, whizzing straight past Taranaki through Auckland to Cape Reinga and back to Akl. We met some business contacts in that time and stayed in Napier for nearly a week coz we liked it so much. We missed out the SI because we wanted to save something for when we came back.:D

[wobbler]

Thanks I'll be researching your suggestions - reassuring that others have already done what we are thinking about. Proves we are not alone in our madness!