It was a rather spontaneous trip. My parents wanted to bring Chassa to Melbourne to play snow and tot it was a good idea for the whole family to go, including Wendy & Matt. Wendy would rather go New Zealand so the planning began...
Air Tickets
Not many options to choose from as we only have time to tour south island, so we had to land in Christchurch. It was between SIA that flies direct but more expensive or Qantas that has a stop-over in Sydney. We decided on Qantas as SIA only had 4 tickets left. We considered splitting the group but decided to travel together.
Car Rental
This took the longest to confirm. After deciding on one vehicle instead of 2 cars, we scouted around for one that can take 8 of us plus all the luggage. We finally settled for a Toyota Hiace minibus. The search began for a good rental company that has the vehicle in automatic gear. The reliable ones had all their vehicles rented out and it was only until a week before the trip that we got confirmation from Rhodes that they have a 12-seater, automatic, diesel with luggage cage. We could pick it up at the airport and drop it off there.
Accommodation
This was fun to google. The choices were so wide and varied. The difficulty was coordinating accommodation with the itinerary. It took a while to plan out what we want to do. Finally we decided to spend the 1st night in Christchurch to rest before driving off, 2nd night at Mt Cook so we could have the buffet dinner, 4 nights in Queenstown and last 2 nights back in Christchurch.
We wanted to get some snow gear in Christchurch so we decided to put up near town centre. Roma on Riccarton is a very nice motel. We took 3 units which were very snug and clean. Just opposite the motel is a very nice cafe and a decent sushi place.
The Mt Cook Hermitage motel unit was much nicer than I remembered. We took 2 units. Each has a queen bed in the living room and another 2 single beds in a bedroom. The bathroom comes with dispensing bottles of soap, shampoo, conditioner and moisturiser. Very environmentally friendly. The hot cocoa and biscuits they provide were rather yummy :)
Our 4 nights at Queenstown were spent in a 2-storey house that sits on a hill. Called 45 South, it's located on Kerry Drive which is about a 10 min walk to town and a 20 min walk back becos it's real steep. It's the most expensive accommodation of the trip but we decided on it after they gave us a 4 nights for the price of 3 special. It's a beautiful house with 3 bedrooms (2 queen, 1 single with roll out bed), a bathroom and toilet on level 1 and on level 2, a master ensuite, kitchen, TV room, dining, living with fire-place, laundry, toilet and bathroom. The house has a garage but our vehicle was too high to fit in so we parked along the road. There's a patio out of the living room where you can have bbq but it was too cold when we were there. The view overlooking the mountains, lake and town centre was great.
Our last place was Chardonnay Motor Lodge near the Christchurch airport. We took the double storey townhouse which was basic and clean. The main drawback was that the place only has a bathroom, so 8 of us had to take turns to shower. There are 2 toilets, one upstairs and the other downstairs. Matt took the single bed in the living room. The rest of us took the 3 bedrooms upstairs (1 with 2 single beds, 1 with 1 queen and 1 with 1 queen and 1 single).
It was good that all our accommodation had heaters in the bathroom and rooms. Even the beds have heating but it tend to get too warm after a while.
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