New Zealand Holiday Homes

New Zealand offers many types of accommodation for the holiday maker. There are, of course, the usual array of hotels, motels and guest houses, many of them in lovely locations. However, there is much more choice if self catered holiday homes are taken into account. These are available all around New Zealand, many of them near to beaches, and they tend to be less expensive to rent than hotel rooms. Food in restuarants is generally good and relatively cheap so why pay for hotel food when you can get better food at cheaper rates in a restuarant of your choice.

For the visitor who wants more contact with the locals the best accommodation are farm and homestays. These offer a room (generally with their own bathroom) , breakfast and evening meals in New Zealander's own homes. Meals are normally taken with the host family, so the opportunity is there to get to know some native New Zealanders and find out more about their life style, country and culture. More info: www.visitdownunder.co.uk/new_zealand_holiday_homes.htm

New Zealand Seasons

People can visit New Zealand at any season of the year although, of course, the spring, summer and autumn are the best times to go. Unless, of course, your interest is in skiing or related sports, in which case the season is late June to early November.

It's strange for people from the UK to see New Zealand at Christmas or New Year as it's bright, warm and sunny and yet there are Christmas decorations and Father Christmas effigies dressed in the familiar clothes of home. If you go at this time of the year, you'll find that the cities are deserted because New Zealanders go to the beaches for their annual holidays and nothing much happens for a fortnight or so.

Hot tip: one of the cheapest times to fly to New Zealand is the few days between Christmas and the New Year as people with families there tend to go for the whole of the holiday period and therefore get there before Christmas and come back after the New Year. So, the airlines tend to drop there prices for this short period.

The average minimum temperatures in NZ range from 10-20 degrees celsius in winter to 20-30 degrees celsius in summer. The North Island has a sub-tropical climate and is therefore warmer overall than the South Island.
More information can be found on my web site http://www.visitdownunder.co.uk/.

Generally, New Zealand has a moderately high annual rainfall but it wouldn't be such a lovely green country if it didn't.

Holiday Tours in New Zealand

New Zealand is a great place for holiday tours as there is so much to see and do. It seems pointless to travel all the way to New Zealand just to sit on a beach and sun bathe, you can do that just as well in the Med. In fact people from the UK generally opt for tours in NZ and are delighted by the great variety of scenery and the sights that are evident wherever they go. New Zealand is not a big country geographically and the people are very friendly so a tour enables the visitor to sample much that NZ has to offer and, at the same time, gives them the opportunity to meet and chat to the Kiwi's. Many New Zealanders have ancestors that went from the UK to New Zealand to live in days gone by and they are therefore very interested in the history and modern day life of the UK.

Visit to Auckland

My previous post described our journey to Auckland via Singapore. On arrival at 9 AM on 1st January, we were met by a representative of our tour company who took us to our hotel, The President Plaza. There was nothing remarkable about the hotel but it was comfortable and the food was reasonable.Hotel President Plaza
(Left of large tower)

Although we were pretty tired from our journey, we spent the day exploring Auckland on foot. Since we were in the city centre we were able to see the harbour, the Sky Tower and have a general look round. The Sky Tower affords great views over the city and we were able to pick out many interesting places that we would like to have visited. However, we contented ourselves with simply relaxing for the day, went had a meal, went back to the hotel and were in bed at 8 PM.
The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and were met by a chap from 'Budget Rent a Car' who transported us to the depot to pick up our 4x4 Toyota Rav4 which, I have to say, was a nice vehicle. The roads were almost deserted as almost everyone from Auckland has gone away for their Christmas holidays. This was good since it can be diffficult in a foreign country to find your way about and watch the traffic at the same time.
Next time I'll recount our journey to 'Bushland Park Lodge'.

Journey to New Zealand

When we (my wife and I), went to New Zealand we flew from Heathrow, briefly stopped over in Singapore airport and arrived in Auckland many hours later. Singapore airport is great and we were lucky to be there on New Years Eve, so it was decorated appropriately. There were flower beds with Orchid in them and really interesting shops.
Flowers at Singapore Airport

The whole journey was 25 hours, which is a long time to be in the air. However, the time went very quickly given that there were films and TV programmes to watch, good food to eat, magazines to read and we did get quite a lot of sleep. When I was awake I found it passed the time quite well to observe the cabin crew at work. This was not as dull as it sounds since the stewardesses were all charming, great looking ladies from Singapore. I would definately recommend Singapore Airlines to anyone. The planes were on time, relatively roomy and the cabin crew were really attentive.


We arrived in Auckland at 9 am and were met at the airport by a representative of the company that we booked our holiday with, 'Rest New Zealand Tours'*. More about Auckland next time.

*http://www.restnztours.co.nz

Progress

Beach near Auckland

I'm pleased to report that, after my hols. last week, progress is being made on my http://www.visitdownunder.co.uk/ web site.

The bulk of the New Zealand information pages are complete, even though there is some way to go yet.

I can't wait to get going on Australia but I must be patient and get 'New Zealand' complete as far as possible.

Trouble is that all of this is making me wish that I could go back to NZ and see loads more of the country. It really is great there and the people are so friendly and relaxed.

I know that New Zealand is a long way away and, if your time is limited, you won't be able to see it all but, in my view, this country must be seen in every British persons lifetime. Why? Simply beacause it's a great country and our peoples are so closely linked historically.

Launch of website

The visit down under website is about to go live. I'm afraid that the Australia part of it is yet to be created, however, the New Zealand section is worth a visit even if it's not yet completed. Come to think of it, I don't think that it will ever be complete, there's so much is there to say. Why not give it a try on www.visitdownunder.co.uk