New Zealand
Auckland, Waiheke Island, Hobbiton, New Zealand
From December 21 to 30, 2022
Day 1
After celebrating Christmas early with our families, we flew up to SFO to catch a 13 hour overnight flight to Aukland, New Zealand.
Upon landing around 11 am, we had a tour group collect us from the airport and start our tour of Aukland right then and there. It was actually a good way to try and crush jet lag, while getting picked up from the airport, and getting the lay of the land of the city all at the same time. John from Aukland & Beyond Tours: aucklandandbeyond.co.nz
Our guide John from Aukland and Beyond Tours (aucklandandbeyond.co.nz) started us off by going through One Tree Hill and over to the Winter Gardens in the Auckland Domain.
We stopped at a war memorial that honors fallen New Zealand soldiers, and then grabbed lunch at the Winter Gardens cafe
We had a few more stops on the tour planned, but jet lag set in and we asked to be checked into the Sofitel.
After a quick nap, we set out on foot to the Sky Tower around 5pm, just before they close to catch 360 views of the city and the beginning of sunset.
We walked around downtown and made our way a bar called Caretakers Speakeasy in Wynyard Quarter. We had snacks with our drinks and it felt like a great way to settle into the city.
A few too many cocktails later, we made it to our dinner nerservation at Kingi where I had a whole fish to myself. It was incredible
Day 2
The Sofitel has a breakfast spread they set out that’s self service, so we were able to grab a quick bite to eat before catching our ferry ride over to Waiheke Island. Highly recommend getting to the ferry line early (an hour before departure) as the queue can get long, and they won’t let you on if the boat is already full from others who have booked at different times.
A driver picked us up once we docked at Waiheke Island and a Santa Claus on a dinghy greeted us with Christmas carols being played by his trumpet. It was quite a sight and a warm welcome. Apparently he does it every year during Christmas time. You can think of Waiheke Island like Catalina Island off the coast of Newport Beach.
The car tour took us around to Onetangi Beach that was really incredible, clear and remote.
We stopped for lunch at Man ‘O War, which is both the name of the beach as well as the lunch spot. They had a number of wines for us to taste, so we had a wine tasting just before our lunch.
After a leisurely lunch at Man O’ War, we took a detour and stopped off at Waiheke Distilling Co. Our tour guide suggested this extra stop and I’m glad she did. It had absolutely the best view I can imagine on that entire island. We stayed there for a bit and split a vodka and gin tasting between the two of us.
Feeling pretty good, we set off for the next spot, although we were happy to stay at Waiheke Distilling Co. Once we got to Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant, we were blown away again with the scenery and views. This winery is a must while on Waiheke, but you can expect it to be busy. Make sure to walk around and explore.
Our tour ended and we took a 4:30 ferry back to Auckland to get ready for dinner. We walked from our hotel up to Ponsonby (a 30-45 minute walk) to dinner at Jervois. Ponsonby seems like a locals type of city and everyone inside the Jervois restaurant certainly looked like it wasn’t their first time there. Mad had a steak.
We walked home from dinner around sunset time and safely made it back to our hotel.
Day 3
We woke up early this day to prepare for our 6am departure to Hobbiton. The car ride is about 2 hours from Aukland heading south. Are we nerds for doing this? Yes.
Once we got to the city, we could easily tell what a production it had become. Turns our Peter Jackson is from New Zealand and he picked this place to be The Shire while traveling in a helicopter above trying to spot some property. We were on the first tour in, since we had heard how busy it gets. The tour of the area was about 45 minutes and it looked absolutely picture perfect.
Upon the completion of our tour, they invited us to have a drink at the Green Dragon (also in Lord of the Rings)
Our driver was very excited for us upon our return and he met us with a lot of enthusiasm. He really wanted to represent the best New Zealand has to offer, as a retired school teacher. We left for Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. Apparently there are hundreds of caves around the area that have glow worms, but this cave was the only one open to the public.
The drive back to Auckland was about 2 hours long, but it was a scenic one.
We went to Broken Lantern back in the town of Pontonsby and loved the bar snacks!
Day 4
The next day was our flight to Queenstown and we were looking forward to a change of scenery. We were picked up by our tour group and taken straight to our hotel at the St. Moritz.
While driving through the small town of Queenstown, we noticed a large crowd and line outside of a food spot. Our driver let us know that Fergberger was a famous burger spot in town.
After checking into our room, we set out on food back to town to see what this Fergberger was all about. The line looks long and daunting, but it went by pretty quick. We waited under 20 minutes total. We understood the hype.
We walked around Queenstown Gardens to burn off the burger and the Queenstown Trail took us all around the park. The botanic gardens had many flowers, rose gardens, ponds, more trails, an outdoor frisbee park, an ice skating rink, a skate park, a lawn bowling club and more.
After our walk we prepared ourselves for Christmas Eve dinner at The Bunker. It’s a classic old establishment that seems like you’re in an establishment. You can tell many people have spent many hours in that spot with no windows.
It was there that our waiter showed us Amisfeld wine, one of the top wines from Australia.
We walked back to our hotel and called it a night.
Day 5 - Christmas Day
We woke up early Christmas Day to catch breakfast at the hotel and to call our families and wish them all a Merry Christmas (day early).
Our driver picked us up from the hotel around 9am to take us through Skippers Canyon, a half day tour through the mountains to explore the area when New Zealand experienced its gold rush in the 40s.
We got back to Queenstown after a half day in the car and we were ready to stretch our legs and try some of the street food we had seen the day before. We had had corn and pork dumplings from the local street food cart.
We weren’t ready to head back to the hotel yet, so we went to another restaurant to grab a drink. We found out that a law was passed in 2012 that in order to order a drink you must also order food during 5 days before and after Christmas. I think this is to keep Queenstown from being a party town.
We had tickets up to the Skyline for Christmas Dinner, so we went up early to enjoy the views, take a mini go-cart ride around the top of the Skyline area.
Day 6
We woke up ready for a day of adventure. We started off at Morning Star Beach Recreation Reserve to do canyon swinging.
We ended up doing 2 jumps. For both jumps we were able to do our “jumps” together. The first one we “jumped” while hanging upside down; they called it “The Gimp.” The second jump was while we were seating upright, but they used a chainsaw to chop our cord loose.
After the jumps, we traveled down the road about 5 minutes to hop on the Shotover River with the jet boats. We went through the river on these unique boats, sliding and jerking all around on the boats. After getting completely drenched, our tour on the Shotover River was over and we headed to the last excursion of the day: Over The Top Golf.
We got back to the Queenstown airport to catch a private helicopter ride to the top of the mountain where we were given golf clubs and balls to take our shots at 1 hole on the top of the mountain; a par 3. We took about 3 shots from 3 different tee boxes to try and hit the green. Both Max and I eventually hit the green :)
We had dinner at Mama Woo, a small food shop in the heart of Queenstown and fell in love with this Malaysian food.
Day 7
We slept in a bit late, and barely made it out of the hotel for lunch. We stopped for pizza for lunch at Winnie’s Gourmet Pizza Bar. It wasn’t quite gourmet, it was more of a dive, but perhaps that was the draw.
We took a taxi over to the airport to catch a helicopter ride from a different helicopter company for our tour of Milford Sound. There’s a lot of hype around Milford Sound!
Our pilot was excited to show us all that Fiordland National Park has to offer, so he stopped off on the side of a mountain for us to walk around Lake Quill and have a private pit stop.
From there we went up even higher to the highest spot of the mountain above Milford Sound (it’s called Mitre Peak), the one that’s pictured the most of all things New Zealand. With the helicopter still buzzing, we hopped out of the chopper to snap a few quick pics before heading into the harbor of Milford Sound to catch a boat ride through the sound itself.
We landed at the airport and walked over to our boat ride. We didn’t realize the whole boat would be ours, so when we bypassed the lines of people waiting to take a larger boat to hop on to our large boat for just the two of us, we had a laugh. It was nice to have a private tour of Milford Sound, to get all the unobstructed pictures and videos of the beautiful landscape that so many come to see.
After hour hour long tour via boat through the sound, learning how it was discovered and which parts of the sound have the most “mystic”, we hopped back on the chopper for our ride home. Our pilot had another surprise in store for us when he landed the helicopter on a glacier just north of Mount Tutoko. This may have been the most exciting part of the helicopter ride. He pulled a bottle of champagne out of his helicopter and handed it to us to drink while playing around on top of the glacier. He made Max look like a champion.
We got back to town after the helicopter high and walked back to the hotel for an early night
Day 8
Our final Day in Queenstown was an eventful one, of course. We did a famous bungee jump from Kawarau Bridge just outside of Queenstown in Gibbston. It’s a very scenic spot and this location allows for you to dip into the water at the bottom of your jump. They take your weight and then control how deep you’ll be able to jump into the water. They saw Max and because of his height and stature, they wanted to play it cautious with him. He didn’t get to dip into the water, but Hailey did.
We managed to finish up our jumps early, so we were slightly ahead of schedule for the day. Luckily, the Kawarau Bridge is located in Gibbston Valley where all the wineries are. So, we headed off to the first winery of the day at Kinross. The food was incredible at Kinross and the wine was a perfect compliment to our adrenaline rush of a morning we had.
Next stop was Mr. Rosa where we had a charcuterie board and more wines. Mt. Rosa was a cute little winery spot that was seemingly run by an older couple who probably spend every day there. They took and interest in Max and I and made sure we were taken care of. They had hats you could wear/borrow to block out the sun, corn hole and a bunch of bean bags and cute places to take pictures.
The next spot was at Gibbston Valley Wines, and this spot was a lot larger production than the last 2 wineries. Gibbston actually had wine caves and they took us through the caves for a tour. This place certainly was an operation, there were ‘heaps’ of people there and everyone seemed very ‘thirsty’.
The last stop of the day was Brennan Wines. After already having gone to 3 wineries previously, Max and I rolled in hot to this final spot. And, also to mention, it was extremely hot out. Brennan Wines was very excited to receive us, they had apparently been told a story that a young couple from California was coming to look at Brennan Wines to potentially invest or purchase the property. They put us through the whole dog and pony show. Max played along… shocker.
All wineries were within a 15 minute from from each other and the Gibbston Valley is a great spot to wine taste. Many people were out bike riding from winery to winery, and had it not been so hot, I would recommend doing that.
After a long day of tasting, we went back to the hotel for a nap. Our final excursion was to the Onsen Hot Pools just outside of Queenstown.
Onsen Hot Pools is a location where you can basically rent a space out that has jacuzzis that overlook the Shotover River. You can rent your jacuzzi for however long you want, get massages, and other treatments. It’s somewhat like a day spa that has a months long waiting list to get in.
Next time we visit, we plan to check out:
Christchurch
Arrowtown