Backpacking New Zealand

Great Sites #2 trustedtravelblogs.com

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:23:45 +0000

http://www.trustedtravelblogs.com/ is a network of high quality peer reviewed travel blogs. You can probably loose yourself in there for a few months and get lots of inspiration.

Winters on its way

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:53:19 +0000

looks like winter 2009 is on it’s way in – theres a little over 2 months left before the first fields open and the season gets underway.

If you are going to spend the 2009 Ski season in New Zealand, theres quite a large number of options for you. Most of the big Commercial fields are hiring assuming that you can get there late May / early June, everyones selling season passes for vastly different sums of money and of course you will need gear.

So thats the subject of some new articles and posts to come on this site.

First off, heres the major resorts and opening dates (depends on the weather gods), plus current season pass prices:

North Island

Mountain	Opens	Season Pass
Whakapapa / Turoa	20/06/2009	$385 until 30/04/2009

South Island

Mountain	Opens	Season Pass
Mt Hutt	13/06/2009	$879 until 05/06/2009
Cardrona	26/06/2009	$690 until 30/04/2009
Coronet Peak	06/06/2009	$999 until 05/06/2009
The Remarkables	20/06/2009	Uses Coronet pass
Treble Cone	27/06/2009	$1.5k until 15/05/2009
Ohau	28/06/2009	$499 until 30/04/2009

Both Islands / Combos

Mountain	Opens	Season Pass
Whakapapa / Turoa / Cardrona	Varies	$755 until 30/04/2009
Hutt / Remarks / Coronet	Varies	$1199 until 05/06/2009

The North Island passes are the best value by far – but many will want to stay in Queenstown / Wanaka. Treble Cone Priced itself out of the market today – leaving the Remarks / Coronet or Cardrona. Difficult choice – do your homework! It should be mentioned that Ohau is $85 as an add-on to and Hut / Remarks / Coronet pass, and if you get Cardrona you shoudl really pay the extra $65 and add Whaka / Turoa on – it’s less than the cost of a day pass and they are among the best slopes in the country.

Stay tuned for job news, resort info and more over the next couple of weeks. If you are already there, head north, get some sun and get ready .

Alpkit Gourdon 20

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:41:16 +0000

The alpkit Gourdon 20 might be the ideal day pack. Its light, durable and cheap. But the main thing is that it is waterproof. Alpkit have taken a 20 litre dry bag and added a decent suspension system to it – padde shoulder straps along with a chest and waist strap. The bag also features 2 mesh pockets which will accomodate water bottles. a bungy system for securing extra clothing and a removable back pad / hydration pack area.

If you are unfamiliar with dry bags, you simply roll the top down 2-3 turns and clip the straps together. This style of bag is popular amongst divers and kayakers – they can usually stand total immersion and therefore should cope with New Zealand’s West Coast .

For £17.50 I feel this represents a bargain and totally beats the usual daysacks you see (like the integrated one on the ever popular karrimor rucksaks). Its around 600gm so could easily pack away inside your main pack as well.

Alpkit also do 25 and 30l versions, but these as yet do not have the mesh pockets and Bungee on them.

Its great to be able to walk around in the rain without worrying about cameras, phones etc etc.

Grab one here – Alpkit Gourdon 20

Site Hacked

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:29:37 +0000

To anyone who visited in the last week: The links present on the front page of this site were not put there by me. I was running an out of date WordPress install and paid the price. Its now secured … Continue reading →

2 Weeks till Big Day Out 2008

admin — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:20:33 +0000

Back Home

mark — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:11:32 +0000

Alas, I am now back home after 12 months in New Zealand. In a nutshell, yes, you should go! Over the next couple of months I will be adding lots more content into this site – it was too busy when I was travelling. All the seasonal fruit work and viticulture is go go go at the moment, so head on out to Keri Keri, Hawkes Bay or Marlbourgh for immediate work.

Mark

Whoops

admin — Sat, 05 May 2007 07:44:08 +0000

In the process of traveling round New Zealand, I seem to have neglected this site badly. I arrived in New Zealand with my backpack 6 months ago and I have travelled most of the country – Northland, Auckland, down the North island via Taupo, Waitomo, Rotorua, round the East Cape with a month in Napier, then down to Wellington and over to the South Island – where I have been to Picton, Nelson, all the way down the West Coast, Wanaka and finally to where I live now – Queenstown. From here I have seen the south coast, Invercargill, Stewart Island and Dunedin.

Activity wise, theres been tramping in Tongariro, Queen Charlotte Sound, Abel Tasman and Stewart Island, Quad Biking, Rafting, Mountain Biking, Luging, Sandboarding and more. Soon the Ski Season starts down here.
Lots of stuff to write about then!

Queenstown is quiet, so I plan to do some writing on this site and try to make it what it should have been from the start.

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Magic Bus reduced fares for next 6 days

admin — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 13:43:56 +0000

Magic Bus have fares that look pretty good – but only for the next 6 days. They go up on Novemeber 1st as the new high season approaches.

Personally I am going to book the North and South trip – at $459 (~£160) to do the highlights of both islands it looks top value. I will probably then fly back to Auckland – fares are as low as $90 (~£35), which is cheap considering returning by bus would incur another ferry charge.

So my plan now is to kick back, relax and treat the first month as a holiday, see the sights and then decide on where to go back to, whether to buy a car etc etc.

See the special fares here

Travel Bloggers #2 – ScottWoz

admin — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:49:07 +0000

Another Travel Pod Fouding Member, ScottWoz has written an excellent blog so far. Hes been in New Zealand for over 2 years now, and is about to move onto Oz…

Highlights inlcude many excellent tramping posts, wonderfull photos and more. Just beware that its a very long blog with over 200 entries so far!
Read his Travel Pod here

Travel Bloggers #1 – Life is Short and the World is Wide

admin — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 08:59:40 +0000

Life is Short and the World is Wide is written by a regular poster to the backpackerboard.co.nz site – Rich.

Rich was in New Zealand from Feb 17, 2005 to Feb 27, 2006, with some trips to Oz along the way.

This is one of the best travel blogs to read if you want to get an idea of what it is like to travel round NZ. Rich writes well and supplements his writing with a lot of pictures. Reading this has given me a good list of things to so and hostels to stay in. Rich did a lot of walks / tramps as well, which are of particular interest to me.
Visit his site on Travel Pod here – Life is Short and the World is Wide. He has now got the travel bug, having benn to Norway since returning from NZ and is planning to travel to Japan next.