Skip to main content

Travel to NZ - Some Ideas

This post is about some ideas that may possibly be useful when someone is traveling to Queenstown and plan to do snowboarding or skiing.

1. Flights

We used Air New Zealand and it's a really good service. At the time I searched for direct flights from Sydney to Queenstown they were the only company that has got direct flights. All others were via Christchurch which wasn't an option for us.
Their Web site is easy to use and I like the design of the flight selection and the calculations and the process of buying tickets is pretty straightforward.

I traveled with Air New Zealand in 2008 also. Will use them next time I go to NZ for sure.

 2. Car Hire

I have reviewed the following companies:
2.1. Hertz
2.2. Budget
2.3. Avis
2.4. Thrifty

Budget seemed to have a better price deals at that time.

I think car rental is a good option, but you can easily travel in New Zealand without a car. Depending on your travel plans of course and what places you would like to visit.

3. Transport

Great options to travel between Queenstown and airport/hotels are:
3.1. Connectabus
3.2. Green Cabs

For mountains there is:
3.3. NZSki Snowline
The only inconvenience with Snowline is that you have to buy tickets only from the Queenstown Snow Centre or from some hotels. We purchased tickets at Shotover Lodge and Coronet Peak Hotel for Coronet Peak direction, because there were no tickets at the place where we stayed.
You also need to call them prior to departure and confirm they have got enough seats for your group or just yourself.

4. Accomodation

We stayed at the Shotover Top 10 Holiday Park in a self-contained unit. It's very convenient and we really enjoyed the service. It is not far from Coronet Peak and from the wonderful natural sights.
Even some walk around the area is a great adventure.

NZSki Snowline bus stops near the park, but you would need to buy the tickets prior and confirm the seats available by phone.
Connectabus travels regularly to/from the park. There is a bus stop.

5. Snowboarding/skiing

We were only at the Coronet Peak this time, because it was my first ever snowboarding experience and it was a lot of space to practice.

I bought a group lesson on the first day which was 2 hours and then spent the entire next day on my own practicing and improving what I have learn't.

From the gear I have got only clothes. Rented the snowboard and boots from the base.
It's very convenient and we didn't need to carry all the stuff with us.
But if you do have your own boards, boots etc. then the buses are still good way to get to the mountain.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wine - 2011 Brown Brothers Crouchen Riesling

Very nice wine with fruity taste - peach and pear: Consumed with Hungarian salami. Tasting notes .
Post a Comment
Read more

Scrum - Team Culture and Wall Manifesto

In the Scrum framework one of the key components is the wall and daily stand-up. In some organisations I worked with the whole concept of the wall is not accepted by many developers, because of the stand-up necessity and "time waste". Very often all that methodology is used for the sake of methodology and not to achieve what we actually do - adding or creating value to our customer (usually called "The Business"). I can understand frustration that is caused by the wall and stand-up process. From the software developer perspective it is really a waste of time for the following reasons: 1. In 95% of cases developers are head down working like hell delivering valuable outcomes that they are accountable for. Extra effort to go to the wall, staying there for 15-30 minutes and listening or not listening to what others were doing yesterday and will be doing tomorrow is annoying for them; 2. The mere fact of having to do something mandatory to do that looks like...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mastering The Multitasking

There is usually two distinct perspectives on multi-tasking: 1. Multitasking is counterproductive. We get distracted by multiple tasks that all get our way and fight for our scarce attention, time and resources. This leads to a common fallacy that if you do multiple activities “at a time” you are not doing good work in any of those. 2. Multitasking is a way of getting many things done in a short period of time or in a long run. Indeed it can be either a disaster or a great helper depending on how it is used and practiced. Most recent research shows that we don’t do multiple tasks purely in parallel or simultaneously. That means we don’t purely multi-task, but switch between tasks and execute them one at a time, but by spending very small timeframes on each task. A good example from the history is a story about Julius Caesar capabilities in that area. Plutarch writes, “Caesar disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from on horseback, and to give directi...
1 comment
Read more