December 28, 2023 – February 6, 2024

In summary, except for the issue I had with my hip, I don’t think the trip could have gone any better.  As we work our way through our concluding posts, we’ll examine our costs, logistics and explain the logic of our decisions, subject by subject. 

Lodging

For this trip, and for us lately, camping was out of the question and thus we have come to rely more on short hotel stays (1-2 days) and for longer ones, Airbnb as the longer one stays, it reduces the impact of the fixed charges (Cleaning and the Airbnb Service Fee) that get laid on top of the rental charge.  Since the wind down of Covid, rates for hotels have gone up to the point where in the we could count on a few night stays at under $100, now those properties tend to run from $125 to $150 per day.  With our group of five any hotel stay would have required two rooms pretty much pushing us into the arms of Airbnb (or for many of you, VRBO). 

Lodging Costs (Least Expensive to Most)
City	Description	Cost Per Night ($)	Cost Per Person ($)
Sydney	Airbnb- Annandale	96	19
Christchurch	Airbnb – Christchurch Central Townhouse	140	28
Whanganui	Airbnb – Saint Hill Street	155	31
Cairns	Airbnb – Spacious 3BRM house	180	36
Picton	AAA Marlin Motel	128	43
Wellington	Airbnb – Adstock House	217	43
Queenstown	Airbnb – Maha Peaks	299	60
Melbourne	Airbnb – Docklands	314	63
Auckland	Airbnb – Beautiful Central City Sanctuary	358	72

With the exception of our stays in Sydney and Wellington, all the Airbnb’s were either a stand-alone house (Whanganui, Christchurch, Queenstown, and Cairns), an attached condo (Auckland), or an apartment in a high-rise (Melbourne).  Our two in-home stays were pleasant but different, with the folks in Wellington (lovely to interact with and not obtrusive) a contrast to Guy in Sydney, who was a steady presence that sometimes bordered on annoying, at least to me.  The others in our party may have a different perspective on it. 

For trips of longer duration, one key advantage of an Airbnb is the often availability of a washer and dryer, saving time and effort.  Who wants to waste valuable tourist time at a local laundromat when they can do laundry at their convenience at their lodging.  It’s also cheaper and often soap and softener is available for your use.  Another bonus is that if your itinerary is set and you know you will have access to in-home laundry, you can pack a little less clothing knowing you can wash them every 3-4 days instead of every 7-10. 

Transportation

The second major decision came early as we decided not to rent a car and this worked out well, both from an expense perspective as well as a safety one, as we weren’t comfortable with the idea of driving on the other side of the road.  Given what would have been an expensive rental, that is one large enough to accommodate five bodies and luggage, the cost of expensive gasoline, a potential penalty for one way drop-off and likely the difficulty in finding an agency that would allow us to drive from the north island to the south, I believe we came out on the plus side. 

Outside of that one rough bus ride to Whanganui, all our transportation choices (bus, ferry, and train) went smoothly and were generally enjoyable, as long as you can tolerate longer days in somewhat crowded conditions.  New Zealand’s bus system, Intercity, while efficient and very reasonably priced, did not have the amenities we’d come to expect from our bus trips in Mexico and Europe, that is few if any power outlets, no Wi-Fi, and perhaps not a downside, no onboard bathroom.  Also, unlike in Mexico one didn’t ride from dedicated bus station to bus station, often getting picked up or dropped of at a city bus stop. 

As for fares, Intercity does offer, in addition to point to point single trip fares, a FlexiPass and a TravelPass.  We opted not to use either as the Flexi requires you to know about how many hours you think you will be traveling and the Travel Pass has specific itineraries, and thus, we just found it easier to book single trips.  It’s pretty easy to book at the main landing page by entering your starting point and destination and date(s) of travel and the site will give you your options.  It appears that only NZ citizens qualify for any of the discounted fares, but our fare from Auckland to Tauranga (our first leg of the trip was just 38NZ ($23).  Our average bus fare worked out to be 52NZ ($34), a very inexpensive way to travel around the country. 

Outside of using busses we went with two other options, one borne of necessity and one for esthetic reasons.  The first of these was the need to travel from the North Island to the South Island (Wellington to Picton) and here one has two choices, fly or take the ferry.  And really, who doesn’t love a ferry ride?  Sailing time would run about three and a half hours and cost us $39 apiece.  Our only concern was that the crossing would be a rough one, but fortunately we had smooth conditions and enjoyed the views as well as being able to get up and walk around on a whim. 

The second deviation from busses was booking the Coastal Pacific train from Picton to Christchurch through The Great Journeys of New Zealand site.  This five-hour journey down the east coastline of the South Island offered us scenery up the Yazoo, comfortable seats, freedom to move around, and access to food and drink, all for an initial cost of $108 (fares since seem to have gone up).  More expensive than the bus would have been, but the additional cost was well worth the money. 

Great Journeys offers two other scenic trains, The Northern Explorer from Auckland to Wellington and the TranzAlpine from Christchurch to Greymouth.  We briefly considered burning a day in Christchurch to take this trip, but it would have meant spending ten hours round trip.  I’m sure the scenery is spectacular though and perhaps we can do should we visit again.

A few days after booking I received an email offering us an upgraded experience to Scenic Plus for 204NZ ($130) which would include:

• Paddock to Plate regionally inspired food menu 
• Paired drinks menu & complimentary beer and wine
• Personalized table service & storytelling 
• Exclusive Scenic Plus carriage
• Priority check-in & boarding

Without hesitation we jumped on the offer and were really looking forward to the experience (come on, complimentary alcohol? They obviously don’t know us) when the day before I received an email advising us that “Due to a fault with our Kitchen carriage on our Scenic Plus from Picton to Christchurch 14 January 2024 our dining service will not be operating.”  This was disappointing but on the plus side, we got to keep our seating in the “Exclusive Seating Plus carriage” and they refunded the entire up charge.  So, we kind of came out ahead.  Then again, we did spend a chunk of change on bottled wine from the dining car. 

Because we didn’t have a car, in the cities we heavily utilized Uber (Lyft doesn’t operate there) which were usually plentiful to access, priced lower than we’ve gotten used to in the states, and generally timely and reliable.  We used this service a total of 52 times, more times by me because of the hip for a total of $713 or about $14 a ride.  We rarely had to wait for a ride, the drivers ranged from chatty to monk like silence and it ended up being a good option for us.  And having a universal app to book with not having to deal with different taxi companies in each city. 

Our three flights in country were also reasonable and two of them were on the low budget carrier Jet Star, which is owned by Qantas.  Given the shorter distances we would be traveling by air, we flew exclusively on Airbus 320’s.  Short here is relative though as these trips would have taken us multiple days on the ground and flying was the only sensible choice.  And as a bonus, all three allowed us one checked bag apiece, an anomaly these days with most carriers.  Our three flights were:

Carrier	Origination	Destination	Duration (Hours)	Cost Per Person ($)
Virgin Australia	Queenstown	Melbourne	3-1/2	250
Jetstar	Melbourne	Cairns	3-1/3	130
Jetstar	Cairns	Sydney	3	150

This wraps up part one of the conclusion.  Stay tuned for more to follow as we wrap up this oh so memorable trip. 

Links

Intercity: https://www.intercity.co.nz/

Great Journeys of New Zealand: https://www.greatjourneysnz.com/