I thought I’d use my first post to provide a rough itinerary and some maps of where we’re planning to go.

We’re flying out on Air New Zealand from SFO on Friday, October 13th at about 10pm. The flight is 14 hours long and should arrive in Auckland, NZ very early in the morning on October 15th. The first 2 weeks of our trip will be spent on New Zealand’s North Island.

We’ll be spending the 15th of October in Auckland, checking into our hostel and doing some shopping for basic staples (food, bird books, and from what I hear the best long underwear you can buy on the planet). On the 16th we’ll be renting a car and driving up to Northland, and we’ll stay in Paihia at the Bay of Islands for a few days. Our plans up there include a catamaran trip to see dolphins and a bus tour of Cape Reinga. We’ll also be taking a ferry to Tiritiri Island, which is a bird sanctuary.

Next we’ll head back through Auckland and over to the Coromandel Peninsula. We’ve allotted several days for this, and plan to gradually make our way over to Tauranga. Once there we’ll head down through Rotorua and Te Urewera National Park. On the other side we’ll be staying in Napier, where we’ll be going to see a mainland Gannet colony.

Our next main destination is Kapiti Island, so we’ll be cutting across Southland and staying in a town right across from the island. Kapiti Island is also a bird sanctuary, and we’re taking a ferry over there for a day. When we get back we’re heading south to Wellington where we’ll drop off our rental car.

On November 1 we’re taking the Interislander Ferry across the strait to Picton, where we’ll be spending several days. Plans here include a birding tour and sea kayaking before heading over to Abel Tasman National Park. We’ll be moving a lot through the area, but plan to walk the Abel Tasman Coastal Track while we’re there - this is one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. It’ll take us 4 days to complete and it’s about 50 km long.

Next we rent another car and head south to Okarito, which isn’t a big tourist destination unless you’re into birds. We’ll be kayaking on the Okarito lagoon and looking at herons and spoonbills. Then we head through Wanaka and down to Queenstown, where we drop off our rental car. After a day in Queenstown we hop on a bus down to Te Anau.

Te Anau is definitely one of the most exciting destinations for us. We’ll be going on a kayaking tour of Milford Sound, a boat tour of the Te Anau Glowworm Caves, and another kayaking tour of Doubtful Sound. We’ll also be hiking the 4-day Milford Track, which is another of New Zealand’s Great Walks (and the most famous).

From Te Anau we head south to Invercargill, which is the southernmost city on the South Island. From there we take a ferry to Stewart Island, where we’ll be spending several days. Plans on the island include a great deal of hiking and bird watching, as well as a short jaunt to Ulva Island, another bird sanctuary.

Back on the mainland we’ve booked a bus tour of the Catlins, a forest park east of Invercargill. The bus takes us all the way up to Dunedin, where we’ll be staying for a day to see the penguins and the albatross colony. We’re then taking a very, very long bus ride from Dunedin up to Kaikoura in one day. In Kaikoura we’re going on two boat tours - one to see albatross and one to see sperm whales. Then we take a bus back to Christchurch, where we fly back to Auckland. After some final time there we’ll fly back to SFO on December 15th.