Down Under 2025 - Introduction

Penrith, UK. 05-February-2025.

Work in progress. Updates to follow.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Introduction, 05-February-2025
• Sydney, 06/09-February-2025
• Cromwell, 09/12-February-2025
• Fox Glacier, 12/14-February-2025 
• Christchurch, 14/16-February-2025 
• Blenheim, 16/19-February-2025 
• Wellington / Martinborough, 19/23-February-2025 
• Napier, 23/26-February-2025 
• Taupo, 26/27-February-2025 
• Auckland, 27-February/03-March-2025
• Sydney, 03/05-March-2025

Wednesday 05: Mary’s cunning plan had to been to run away to New Zealand for her big birthday for the number that must not be named. British Airways do not fly to New Zealand, but we had enough BA miles to get us one business class ticket to Sydney and, with an Amex two-for-one voucher, get us two business class flights to Sydney. We would then pay for the short haul flights across to New Zealand. 

There are limited reward seats on the long haul flights and you can only book up to a year in advance. That means that you can’t book the outbound flight until the return flights are available. As a result the outbound flights that we wanted were snapped before the returns were available. In the end we were able to snag both outbound and return flights a couple of weeks later than the original plan.

So Mary had 11 months to plan our itinerary. The plan was, following advice from friends, to start at the south island and work our way north. There were too many options so she narrowed it down using two criteria: 1) Every Saturday had to have a parkrun and 2) We have to visit as many of the major wine regions as possible.

The most common question we got asked was “Are you hiring a camper van?” “No, we are using home exchange for most of our accommodation and travelling about by a combination of car hire and train”. The most common comment we got was “You will love it, it’s fantastic!” This is Mary’s planning spreadsheet with location, travel / events and accommodation. 

All in place, and travel visas completed online in advance, we headed down to London the day before our flight to ensure no danger of train delays impacting our ability to catch the evening flight. It gave us a chance to meet up with my siblings and partners for a pre-flight meal in Skylon restaurant in the south bank.

Thursday 06. We mooched about during the day and then headed to LHR T5 to drop off our hold luggage at the earliest opportunity. We then killed a couple of hours in the Executive Lounge drinking and only eating a few nibbles as we knew there would be a full meal once we were in the air.

Next: Sydney, 06/09-February-2025