Travel New Zealand's islands

[Robi]

I am planning a month long trip from the south island of New Zealand to the northern island. we are planning to start off at Wellington take a ferri to the south island, from Nelson get to Grey mouth, and down to Franz Josef there to Christchurch. we got it all mapped: http://www.voyajo.com/viewTrip.aspx?trip=106469 we need information is around October there are allot of travelers? and i also need recommendations for accommodations that are not too expensive.

cheers

[Graham Harrison]

"Robi" <rache...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:505fcb68-8a4d-4097...@googlegroups.com...

There are plenty of motels in New Zealand. Most of the rooms tend to be
"efficiencies" to a degree. There are also bed and breakfasts but the
price of B and B vs Motel isn't significant. I booked an hotel for when we
got off the plane from Hong Kong and also the air ticket, train tickets and
motels from Auckland/Christchurch/Greymouth/Hokitika/Franz
Josef/Haast/Queenstown/Invercargill and Stewart Island. I did that because
I felt that when we were there (late January) there were going to be more
travellers than other times and I wanted to make a booking to get to
Doubtful Sound and also to Stewart Island and once I had those it made sense
to book the rest. Everywhere else we would look at the little books the AA
issue free, pick some likely motels, have a quick look on the internet and
then make a call maybe a day or two before we arrived. The only places we
had any kind of problem were Dunedin and New Plymouth but both were solved
without major issues. I don't know how you're travelling, we hired a car
from Apex on the recommendation of friends. Actually, we hired 2 - one in
Auckland for a week for a quick trip up to Northland then something like 6
weeks in Greymouth which we dropped back in Auckland. They treated the 2
as a single hire for pricing purposes AND threw in a ferry ticket to get us
back to the North Island. Public transport down the west coast of the
South Island isn't wonderful. Most of the roads are pretty good but some
can be bendy and thus slow.

Having said all that, one of my sons was there a couple of years before us
and did use the public transport. He stayed in Hostels which come in all
sorts of sizes, cleanliness and price.

Looking at your voyajo map I have to ask, you do realise there is no road
from the west coast to Mt Cook and Lake Tekapo the numbering suggests you
plan to go from Franz Josef to Mt Cook. You can do it (fly), but by road
it's a long way round.

If you want a nice meal when you get to Whakatane go to the Wharf Shed -
nice fish, nice position.