I recently undertook a road and rail trip across New Zealand’s North and South Islands in December 2011 with my husband and then 17-month old daughter.
What follows is an alphabetically arranged account of New Zealand’s many attractions and experiences. Some letters (such as M) demand the inclusion of more than one topic. On the other hand, New Zealand may have some awesome things starting with U, X, Y or Z, but I did not encounter these.
Do check out the BootsnAll page.
No Dunedin?!
No unfortunately. Not enough time
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Hello, we’re also planning a trip to NZD and also thought about going on the train. And, we’re also travelling with our, then 23 month old, daughter. Can you recomend the train rides? How many stops did you take and was it easy to find accomodation arround the trainstation (mainly hostels, backpackers, holidayparks)? Would love to hear from you. Thanks for blogging and sharing you’re travel experiences! greetz from germany!
Thanks, Ursula! Yes, definitely I’d recommend the train ride, especially the Tranzalpine. We took the train from Hamilton all the way down to Wellington, and then the ferry to Picton, and again the train to Christchurch and then on the Tranzalpine. We actually did not stay very close to the stations, but sometimes, got complementary shuttles from the hotel, and sometimes, took a cab. The issue with the 7 day pass is you have to cover long distances in short periods. So if you want to go slowly and spend a lot of time in each city, it might be better to drive. But going by train, the scenery is very lovely, though for us we had to make sure our active toddler did not run all over the train. We used the train in the North Island till Greymouth and then drove down all the way to Queenstown by car.
Let me know if you have more questions.
Hello Arundhati! Thanks for you’re reply, that was helpful. We also thought about taking a 7-day-pass. Did you make the whole trip in 7 days? Hamitlon – Greymouth? We have a few stops we’re planing, but not every city. How is the train from Wellington to Auckland? Are there any stops you recommend?
On the driving – did you always get a car with a child seat? I heard that in high season, it’s sometime hard to get one. And, one last question: how long was you’re trip altogether? We’re planning 3 weeks (no longer possible).
Yes, we did Hamilton-Greymouth in 7 days. First we drove by car from Auckland to Rotorua (there’s no train to rotorua) and drove all nearby in the North Island especially around Mt Tongariro and Lake Taupo for a couple days. Then we started the 7 day rail trip, so we had done some amount of sight-seeing beforehand in North Island. The we drove to Hamilton, returned our rental car, and took the train to Wellington, stayed there a day, and then the ferry to Picton and then train to Christchurch. There are really great hikes around Mt. Tongariro in North Island, but it didn’t seem feasible with our toddler. But if you want to linger in North Island, then the 7-day pass might be less.
We spent more time in Wellington, but not much in Christchurch. A lot of time was spent on the train, but the view is beautiful. The 7-day pass includes the ferry ride as well and the Tranzalpine is lovely.