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Australia, New Zealand & Papa New Guinea

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craigollerton:
No photos yet, but next month I will be travelling across the globe to Australia for 3-days, New Zealand for 3-4 weeks, and Papa New Guinea (New Britain) for about a month. I have been to none of these places before and welcome any traveller experience/tips words of caution, and/or recommendations for my trip. I will be driving by car from the North of New Zealand to the South before flying back over to Cairns in Australia, and on to Papa New Guinea.

I will update the post on my return in August.

suepp:
wow - have a great time Craig!

My daughter went travelling last year and the main problem she had was that in Australia she could not get a balance on her bank account from any ATM. She took with her a "Caxton" card which is universal  that you can top up from your bank account before going and along the way, and we were able to top it up from our account  when she had the problem in Australia (she didn't want to risk going overdrawn)

DaveR:
Should be a very interesting trip, I'll look forward to seeing your reports on it.  ££$

hollins:
I have been a couple of times to those places except Papua New Guinea.
Unfortunately my last trip was probably about 15 years ago so any info would be out of date.
I think that the tripadvisor forums are quite useful to read to find out the latest do's don'ts, likes and dislikes.
My best trip was the New Zealand one. I took my mother. We started off in Christchurch (pre-eartquake) and travelled around the south island. The highlights being a helicopter trip in gorgeous weather which landed on the glacier on Mount Cook. Another favourite was tasting wine at Rippon vineyard on Lake Wanaka. What a beautiful spot that was!
We dropped one car off at Picton and picked up another the other side (Wellington) North Island.
We didn't like Wellington much. It was cold and windy when we were there. Then we drove to the Bay of Islands via all the usual sights. We thought the Bay of Islands the nicest part of the North Island but preferred overall the South Island.
Anyway, enough of my reminiscing. I hope you have a fabulous time!

Jack:
Hi Craig, I went to NZ a couple of years ago for three months.  I flew into Auckland hired a car from rent-a-dent for 12 weeks which as the name suggests was a bit of a wreck but it was covered by breakdown cover and to be fair it was mechanically sound and never let me down.  I bought a tent and camping eqpt very cheap and set off.  I covered 11, 000 km and explored both North and South Island.  As you won't have as long as that I recommend that on North Island you should visit Bay of Islands as it is the birthplace of modern NZ and very pretty, Roturua with the thermal activity and fascinating geysers and mud, Auckland itself especially the botanic gardens, museums and suburb of Devonport.  Wellington is quite interesting but Hollins is right it tends always to be blowing a gale and wet and cold.  I took the hirecar on the ferry to South Island which was quite expensive.  South Island is fantastic, highlights are Abel Tasman National Park and the area around Nelson and Picton; the glacier country around Fox and Franz Josef; Milford Sound; while both Dunedin and the Otago peninsula and Christchurch are great.  Finally I went whale watching off Kaikoura which was fantastic.  I recommend the 'LonelyPlanet' guide if you haven't already got it.  New Zealand is the most beautiful and friendly country on earth, the only two downsides are probably going to be the rain at this time of the year and the roads are often pretty rough and unsealed (not tarmacced) and some hire car companies tell you not to go on unsealed roads.  Also local drivers are pretty uncompromising and tailgate dangerously, I found it best to pull over and let them go on their way.  I've travelled Australia widely too but you don't say where you are going in that vast land.  I'm guessing Sydney in which case you will probably have chance to see opera house, bridge, the rocks, botanic gardens, national museum and a ferry trip to Manly! 

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