Another holiday in the South Island.
 

So this time I said to Mrs Buzzy -

"I am not going to spend another 2 weeks of my hard-earned annual leave sitting in your mother's front room watching the perpetual horizontal rain with a telly in the corner playing Coronation Street and going to the toilet for a change of scene. Can we do something different?"

So we did. We had a bit of a road trip, stayed with a few rellies in Rangiora, Christchurch and Waimate, then headed to Queenstown for a couple of days of wallet-emptying and then up the West Coast via a night in Fox Glacier to spend our final few days in my mother in laws front room watching perpetual horizontal rain and Coronation Street.

Here are some observations I made which I'm sure some people are going to disagree with strongly.

1. New Zealand is seriously expensive. I would say it is now up there with Singapore in some things. Yet the odd item is phenomenally cheap. Not sure how that works.
2. April in New Zealand is winter.
3. Speight's Ale House is the worst type of sh1t "restaurant". How a place that sells deep fried frozen crap can charge almost $200 for a meal for 4 people (including 2 kids who shared a main) amazes me. I could eat at a very very nice restaurant in Melbourne for that.
4. There are no New Zealanders working in tourism in New Zealand.
5. There are 100s more tourists than there used to be. I don't remember all the Indian tourists before, for instance. This must be good for the economy.
6. The mountains and lakes are seriously beautiful still. It is frustrating not to be able to take photos that do justice to what your eyes are looking at.
7. There are more prestige cars than there used to be. However the vast majority of cars in NZ are still 15 year old silver Toyotas or Nissans.
8. Life in New Zealand seems to be a series of natural disasters of varying severity.
9. It is much easier to speed in NZ than it is in Australia. My wife spent almost all the time at 120kph and was doing the same speed as the rest of the traffic. This is refreshing.
10. The $1 and $2 coins size in NZ is correctly proportional to their value, unlike Australia. I gave some shops too much money because of this.
11. Pak and Save is a great supermarket.
12. NZ pies are better than Australian pies.
13. Queenstown is rather too popular for its infrastructure. The traffic there is worse than in Melbourne. Not since I lived in London have I watched a traffic light change 5 times before I got to it.
14. Queenstown is very beautiful and an incredible tourist hub (see 13 above), rather like Sentosa island in Singapore you do have to shell out $50 - $100 multiple times a day there. Great fun though.
15. Visit Fox Glacier now. If you leave it another year it will have disappeared completely.
16. I like the design of new NZ houses better than new Aussie ones.
17. Many new houses have 3 garages. This is excellent. I consider it the minimum needed for modern living.
18. New Zealand is very very English compared to Australia. This is both a good and bad thing.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

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Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

lol Buzzy.
Can't argue against any of it.

I agree with No. 1 . It's become seriously expensive in the past decade.
I'd also go along with No. 8 after the past few years.

I wouldn't mind seeing Queenstown again but these days you have to queue to get in whilst paying an arm and a leg.

Fox glacier is an utter waste of time these years. It was not bad 20 odd years ago before it receded at the speed of light.

For those that don't know Buzzy. He was an NZ moderator in times past. He's married to a Kiwi and lived a highly exciting life on the West Coast of the SI. Not sure if you lived elsewhere Buzz. Perhaps Xch?
He finally bogged off to Melbourne as so many do.

... & Buzzy. I don't know how you can write that about Push and Shove. Loathe the place. :lol:

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

I can't argue with much either, I am always stunned by the cost of eating out here. We generally reckon on spending $100+ for a meal for two and that'll be nothing special - usually something with frozen chips and bit of side salad out of a bag, with dessert and a beer for him and a glass of wine for me.

Even just a fairly simple cafe breakfast or brunch with a coffee is going to set you back $50 or more.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

What did you think of Rangiora now though, it's such an exciting expanding town.
Nothing like the ghost town we visited in 2004. Tumbleweedy was my first impression back then but now it's vibrant and full of life.
I love that we chose to live near it although we are out in the surrounding sleepy sticks.
The earthquakes changed it and it's expanding so quickly it's amazing.
I would always recommend Rangiora as a place to come for new migrants, close to Christchurch, only 10 mins to the beach and only a few hours drive if you love to ski.
Very expensive shopping food bills but that's just NZ all over.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Maybe it's like that in Auckland!

We eat out every Saturday and normally spend between $55 and $85, that's for 2 adults meals and a kids meal and a beer for me and a soft drink for her. We don't have dessert. We are spoilt for choice here in Rangiora now for decent restaurants so our experience is different from yours :)

I agree with SSky - Rangiora is an awesome buzzing place now :)

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Did you go make the mistake and visit Pineacres for your Speights experience????
Next time visit the one at Tower Junction in Christchurch, oh the bbq ribs is something else :)

In fact I'd say the one at tower junction is the best Speights ale house in the South Island.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Well it couldn't be any worse than the deep fried overpriced pre-frozen sh1t served at the Timaru branch.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Makes no difference where it is, they all charge the same regardless of how flash or not the place is.

Nothing for much less than $20 on the breakfast menu even down your way it's pretty much like for like.

From the top of the pile in Auckland 's Orbit to the Railway Cafe in Rangiora. :rofl:

https://www.skycityauckland.co.nz/me...15-website.pdf

http://www.therangiorastation.co.nz/...pdf?v=24042017

At least at Orbit you get a free ride in the lift to the top if you spend $30

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

You need the bad food to take away the ghastly Speight's taste

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

The first time I went to New Zealand was 14 years ago, working in Wellington. One holiday I spent two weeks doing a circuit of the South Island.

Far fewer tourists then, though locals still thought of Queenstown as expensive. My theory is that long-haul travel is a lot more accessible now than it was even just 14 years ago, when it cost me $3,800 NZD round-trip to get from the US to NZ. Today you can get a round-trip fare from the US to Australia sometimes for three-figures USD. I went round-trip from Perth to Seattle three years ago for something like $1,500 AUD, actually less if I remember but I'm not going to go look up what I paid.

So it was a lot harder for backpackers etc to descend on the country like they do now just because of the cost of getting there. Some still did it of course but a lot of them just cut out NZ due to the cost of getting there and stopped in Southeast Asia. Now someone can save up the fare waiting tables for a few months and then get a WHV and work while they are there.

The other thing is it is a lot easier to get information and plan your trip now than it was even just 15 years ago, when your only resource might have been a Lonely Planet book, a few brochures from the travel agent down the street and a few sketchy Internet sites. Now in an afternoon I can plan a month-long itinerary from my dining room table.

Of course visiting a place is much different from living there.

The South Island is beautiful. It's not Switzerland meets Hawaii like some try to pitch it as (nor is it close), but it is nice.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

I live here, Its nice, if people dont like it....f**k em, dont bother coming back.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

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Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Triple car garaging

2 sections for storage
1 section for the car that leaks when it rains.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

A triple garage in Auckland, crikey that would soon be fitted out with half a dozen mouldy matresses on the floor and marketed as a 'home and income' - :lol:

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Nothing wrong with Pak N Save. Well, the Pak N Save in Whanganui anyway. The, 'floor show' unwittingly provided by the other customers could be entertaining which took the edge off an other wise mundane grocery shopping trip.

They upgraded the Whanganui store about 18months before we left NZ. The improvements did make the store better. Remember, you can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter !

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

:rofl:

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

I first saw NZ in 2001 and returned last year for several weeks. Loved the country. Was on SI most of the time.

Some of the comments I can echo. Far more tourists now. Queenstown is bigger and busier. Even little Wanaka seems busier. However, I never got the impression things were jam packed or overly crowded despite being there during peak travel (February into early March). I trekked the Routeburn and Kepler and there were a bit more people than I'd remembered from my 2001 Routeburn trek but still plenty of great open spaces. Perhaps I'm just comparing tourist crowds to tourist crowds in other popular places so by that measure NZ is still fairly uncrowded.

NZ was sort of expensive but not surprisingly expensive, even with a car hire. I found Australia noticeably more expensive. It seemed average for a western developed country. Truth be told, people everywhere worldwide are complaining about high costs, even in the UK and the US. When you are in your comfort zone (where you live) you know the prices and where to go for deals and what to avoid so it's easy to keep costs under control as if it was practically natural instinct. But when you leave your comfort zone such as travelling, you don't know where the places to go are and also travelling almost always makes you start spending a lot more money on a daily basis for food and accommodation and transportation, so everything suddenly starts seeming to cost more.

Can't wait till I return!

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Yeah, people get stuck in their own frame of reference, they complain about NZ but in many cases don't realise that exactly the same things are happening all over the world, especially in the desirable places.

I went to Italy last year, previously I went 7 years ago and the change in the number of tourists and busy-ness is phenomenal. It was horrible to be honest and if I ever go again it will be in mid-winter. Crowds on a scale NZ will never see. I see the same in most of Asia too - the Chinese and Indians are just swamping many tourist destinations, Koreans and SE Asians not far behind them. And some of this change is so rapid you don't realise it stuck back in NZ. The rate of change in places like Bangkok, Singapore is very quick.

I agree on Australia, it has cheaper housing with a lot of caveats, but the food and shopping is similar - touristy stuff can be more expensive like hotels, attractions and restaurants.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Agreed. There's no such thing as off season any more in places like Italy or popular destinations like Paris or London or New York. It's now always crowded and always expensive. The hordes have exploded :eek: and it's not just the Chinese. Many more Brazilians and middle class South Americans are flocking to Europe as their economies improve and the cost of international airfare declines. I remember a few years back I went to Kyrgyzstan, which is very much off the tourist path and the first two groups of other tourists I ran into were....Brazilians!

It's a bit sad. I still remember when places like Venice and Florence still had evident resident populations and everyday activities but now they're almost completely transformed into tourist traps.

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

Happy Birthday Simon (OP)

Did the wind keep you inside with the inlaws this past few days:lol:

Re: Another holiday in the South Island.
 

I wouldn't normally do touristy things being a local and all, but I had family from the UK staying with me last August (ie. winter). We took the kids all around the Auckland tourist spots and was amazed at how busy they all were with overseas tourists. Good for local businesses I guess. Wasn't a problem.