Australia & New Zealand
 

Has anyone here ever been to Australia and/or New Zealand? My fiance & I are about to book our honeymoon there for 3 weeks in May. I am looking for ideas for what to do. I know that May is the end of autum there but we are OK with that (in other words, we are not beach people).

Also, we want to fly into Sydney. Would it be a better idea to go to New Zealand in the middle of the trip and fly back home from Sydney or go to NZ at the end of the trip and fly back from there?

Thanks for any suggestions!

I went for 3 weeks in high school doing everything on the East Coast (Cairns/GB Reef, Magnetic Island, Whitsunday Islands, Surfer's Paradise, Byron Bay, Sydney, etc.) and I lived in Perth for 6 months in college. My 6 month stint included 7 weeks traveling to Melbourne, Tasmania, the entire East Coast again, and a week in NZ.

It doesn't really matter if you do NZ first or last. Just see what's cheapest. I'd probably break it up a week in NZ and 2 in Australia. With just 1 week in NZ, pick an island. They both offer so much and are extremely different. I've only done the north island (with the exception of flying out of Christchurch) so I only know things to do there (Auckland, glow worm caves, mud pools and Maori tribes at Rotorua, zorbing).

As for what to do in Australia, you could easily spend a week in Sydney, but I wouldn't recommend that if you only have 2 weeks in the country. See a show and tour the Opera House, take a harbor cruise, spend some time in the park, look around Darling Harbor, etc. The Blue Mountains are gorgeous, too. If you don't want to fly anywhere else, the Great Barrier Reef would be out since the most common point for taking off is Cairns. My favorite place in Australia is Magnetic Island, followed closely by the Whitsunday Islands, but both are fairly far north. Those are warm year-round.

If you don't want to venture that far north, I'd suggest going to Melbourne (I only spent 2 days there and did the Great Ocean Road tour, including a helicopter ride - gorgeous) and Tasmania (incredibly gorgeous, lots of awesome terrain, and the Cadbury factory). I never made it to Adelaide, so I can't speak to that, but Kangaroo Island is supposed to be fun.

Let me know if you have other questions. I'm currently planning a trip for around 20 high schoolers for 2013, so I've been doing a lot of research!

I was there ages ago, and the point was to visit the pen pal I've had since we were 12 (and we're still corresponding), and I was fairly young and broke, so just seeing anything was fine by me. But a work colleague who was an aficionado of opera* asked Kiri Te Kanawa what I should visit in NZ, and she recommended Rotorua Hot Springs. I wasn't able to, because it would have been too much time off work for my pen pal, but advice from a native who's an international celebrity must be pretty good.

*At least in those days (1980s), apparently it was common for fans to be able to rub elbows with opera stars.

We currently have an exchange student from southern Australia! I can ask her anything that you might want to know about that area.

Here's one to consider. You can take a cruise that circumnavigates Australia and goes to New Zealand. Both are very coastal countries so you can see a lot through shore excursions. PM me if you want details.

My sister and her family lives on Waiheke Island in New Zealand part of the year. Tons of wineries and the best beach in New Zealand is there. It's a 30 minute or so ferry ride from Auckland - either people only ferry or car ferry - and good for a day tour.

Oh, fly Air New Zealand. They serve wine with dinner. Lots of it...

Agree. It's by far my favorite airline. Qantas is nice, but I just love ANZ.

Virtually all international airlines serve wine with dinner. My suggestion would be fly business class if at all possible. I'd even shorten the trip a bit to accommodate that into your budget.

I lived in Australia for 5 months and saw Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.