We visited New Zealand from December 17 to December 30, traveling through Auckland, Queenstown, Taupo and Hamilton. We met again with my aunt after 30 years, visited Milford Sound, then caught a cold and stayed sick at our hotel for the remainder of the trip lol
Auckland
We arrived in Auckland on Friday morning, took the SkyDrive (a low cost shuttle bus to the Sky Dome Casino/Hotel in downtown), walked to Cowne Plaza Hotel 2 blocks away and checked in. The downtown area (central business district) around our hotel was very hilly. Almost 30 degree inclines in many blocks. Surprisingly, the hotel let us check in to our room immediately at 11am! It was nice to shower, unpack, and head out for lunch. That was a huge help.
We had lunch at Tony’s Original Steak & Seafood Restaurant. Auckland felt pretty cold considering that this was the height of summer. The restaurant was running a heater and it felt too hot. We found many stores in the area running heaters like this. I told a joke while Christine was drinking water, and she laughed so hard that she spit out water over the table, over me, and the back of a guy at the next table. He didn’t get upset, laughing with us.
We then went to scope out the harbor area in preparation for our boat ride the following day. I was slightly concerned that the harbor could prove to be a bit complex and time-consuming to navigate. Instead of building extra buffer time when heading to the harbor tomorrow, by having the area scoped out today, tomorrow we could choose to head out early or arrive just on time for the ferry departure. The harbor turned out to be pretty big with multiple docks spread across two piers assigned to passenger boats. Had we gone to the wrong pier, we could have spent over 7 minutes finding our dock.
My uncle’s family has been living in Auckland for over 30 years. I only met them briefly in Korea 35 years ago, and my nephew was a baby. We went to meet them at Hobsonville. We briefly caught up on how we were doing, and then joined them at church service the next day.
We went out early to our meeting place in Hobsonville and walked around the little market that pops up during Saturdays. It’s a nice little place with ~10 booths and a couple of permanent indoor stores.
Our first three nights were at the Crowne Plaza Auckland. We had to go buy new boots. I don’t usually wear boots, and keep a pair for rainy days or when traveling somewhere rainy. I brought my boots to the trip, but I realized that I hadn’t noticed that it had a hole in the soles.
It’s funny how travel forces practical errands on you; our boots had worn out so badly you could see the rubber sole, so we spent our first Sunday at the mall connected to the hotel buying new shoes. We spent a lot of time with my cousin, whom I had never actually met in person, and an aunt I hadn’t seen in 25 years. We joined them at their Christmas-themed outdoor church picnic and a “very authentic” Phở place for dinner. Cousin was insistent that this was the best pho and bahn mi in the area.
We also tried “The White Lady,” a local institution where I had my first burger with pickled beets. Christine didn’t really like the idea of beets in a burger.
Milford Sound
On Monday, we flew to Queenstown for a brief 3-day stay to tour Milford Sound. The geography there is dramatically rugged. Our hotel, Holiday Inn, faces the Remarkables Park. These are spiky rock mountains that are covered in snow during winter and stay eerily dark grey during the summer.
The tour to Milford Sound was a grueling 13-hour day, of which half is spent on the road between Queenstown and Milford Sound Harbor. Because of the mountains, the bus has to take a massive U-shaped detour. The bus was cramped and uncomfortable. We should have booked the slightly more expensive tour riding minivans. We also caught flu from the ride.
The cruise felt a bit anticlicmatic. We looked at each other and realized that this was a Fjord, just like the Fjords in Norway were. Not sure what we were expecting. The Fjord is much more impressive after rains, and although it rained a lot in the dayus prior, the day we went was very sunny. The smaller waterfalls had dried. There was a spot towards the end where a big waterfall is washed away with the wind, and that was impressive.
We had some excellent Asian food in Queenstown as well.
Taupō and Hobbiton
The day after the cruise, we flew from Queenstown to Wellington to Auckland and ending in Taupo. The final segment to Taupo was on a tiny turboprop airplane with just 40 passengers. We have never flown these airplanes before. We were very confused at first when they told us to wait before (not after) the security line until it was time to board. Turns out people flying the short regional flights undergo a very informal process. All passengers for the entire Terminal 1 wait in a common area that sits 200 people. Then 10 minutes before the flight, they call out the passengers and we tap our boarding pass as we enter security without a metal detector. And there is nothing beyond security – it’s just short outdoor walkways leading to each boarding area.
The transition to Taupō was pretty hard. To save about $300, I booked a Queenstown-Wellington-Auckland-Taupō flight using 16,000 Air Canada points and $100 in fees. We flew all day from 11am to 6pm. Our last segment to Taupō was in a tiny 40-passenger turboprop plane and neither of us had ever been in a commercial flight in an airplane so small. I was starting to feel sick by then, which made the seven-hour travel day even tougher. We stayed at the Hilton Taupō, where they gave us an upgrade to a Junior Suite with a balcony. Staying in the spacious suite was very helpful during our time being sick. We could walk around, eat at the table, watch TV in two rooms and vege out in the couch. I watched the entirety of the anime The Promised Neverland here.
Our main event in Taupō was Hobbiton. The guide explained the “forced perspective” tricks used in the movies. The tour highlight was walking through the new interior sets. Unlike the movie sets in Wellington, these were built for tourists to actually walk through and sit on the furniture. We capped it off with a “Second Breakfast” buffet—a spread of meat pies, croissants, and sausages that was easily the best meal of the trip.
Later, while walking along the shore of Lake Taupō, we noticed white objects floating in the water. It turns out they were pumice rocks—volcanic stones filled with air bubbles that actually float. We collected a bunch to bring back for our nephews.
Waitomo Glowworms
Our final major stop was the Waitomo Caves to see the glowworms. Our guide was hilarious and had a great storytelling style but had a New Zealand accent so thick I could barely understand her. She had us all lined up around the main entrance and then turned lights to reveal 100-foot drops and conical stairs, James Bond style. The glowworms were beautiful, though they were impossible to photograph with a standard camera.
We ended in Hamilton, which felt starkly different from Auckland. It had a “gritty,” industrial feel—like Detroit in the 90s—with old buildings and rain-stained paint running down the walls.
We stayed an extra night in Hamilton because our flight to Tahiti was delayed until midnight due to a mechanical issue. That final six-hour overnight flight was rough. We’ll continue to avoid by sticking to daytime flights whenever possible. I got us the largest room in the Ventura Inn, hoping that even though it’s a basic roadside hotel, at least their best rooms would be clean and well kept. Turned out that it was still dark and depressing.
A Strange Solitude
One thing that struck us throughout the trip—whether in Queenstown, Taupō, or Hamilton—was a persistent sense of solitude in the downtown areas. Coming from Los Angeles, it was surreal to find city centers virtually deserted by 8:00 or 9:00 PM. Even at “The White Lady” in Auckland, which is supposed to be an iconic institution, we were often some of the only people eating. This early-to-bed culture felt like a strange contrast to the vibrant, multi-layered cities we’re used to, leaving the streets feeling oddly abandoned just as we were looking for dinner.
Planning
This trip became a bit of a logistics challenge because we originally planned it out to be from Dec 12 to Dec 30, spanning 18 days. Since we had plenty of time for this trip, we had alloted 4 days to Auckland, 2 to Oamaru, 4 to Queenstown, 5 at Taupo and 1 in Hamilton, maximizing the “book 4 nights with points for the price of 3” type benefits of IHG and Hilton. A few months after booking, we pivoted to shorten it to spend a few more days at work. As our trip had now become only 13 days, we had to compress some itineraries while keeping key reservations. I decided to shorten it to 3 in Auckland, 2 in Queenstown, 5 in Taupo, and 1 in Hamilton. Normally I would have removed Queenstown and Hamilton, but we were set on visiting Milford Sound and also it was no longer possible to get 4 nights in Auckland for the same price.
To make the pivot I booked us a midnight economy flight from LAX. I was dreading how hard this flight will be on us and checked for alternatives every day, but all we could get was LAX-DFW-AKL on Premium Economy.
Costs
- $80 + 148k AA miles for LAX-DFW-AKL AA PE Flight
- $240 Flight Auckland-Queenstown Air New Zealand Y
- Return flight was a flight from Auckland to Tahiti to LAX, which is part of the Tahiti Trip’s costs
- $340 Two change fees for the Auckland-Queenstown Flight
- $100 + 16k AC miles for Flight ZQN-WLG-AKL-TPO Air New Zealand Y
- 64k IHG points Auckland 3 nights Crowne Plaza
- 69 IHG points Queenstown 2 nights Holiday Inn
- 160k Hilton points Taupo Hilton
- $260 Hamilton 2 nights Ventura Inn
- $640 Car Rental and Ground Transport
- $1,140 Food
- $620 Tours (Hobbiton, Milford Sound, Ruakuri)
- $140 New Zealand ETA Fees
- Total: $3,630 + 290k points
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