Christchurch

I would recommend staying as close to the centre as possible as public transport is scarce and finishes early, there is however a lack of hotel rooms after the earthquake so check out the usual booking sites such as www.booking.com or www.venere.com.

Queenstown

As befits Queenstown, home to the first bungy jump and now some of the most expensive real estate in the country, there is a wide range of accommodation from hostels to new luxury hotels.

We stayed at Absoloot Value Accommodation, www.absoloot.com.nz a hostel but with private en suite rooms including one with probably the best view of any accommodation in the town. Great staff, amazing location and reasonable prices.

If this doesn’t suit then check out the usual booking sites such as www.booking.com or www.venere.com .

Christchurch

Restaurants

We were only there for two days and found it difficult to find eating and drinking places, Victoria Street is reckoned to be the best area in the centre for places but early in the week we found many places shut or very quiet.

Cafes & Bars

As above for restaurants, Victoria Street and around is probably the best area.

Queenstown

Restaurants

Again as you would expect a huge range of eating and drinking options to suit all pockets, there were several standout places which are detailed below.

Rata, 43 Ballarat Street, is owned by Josh Emett a top NZ chef who has worked round the world for some of the best known chefs. He offers a three course lunch for a very reasonable price and the quality as you would expect was top notch. Top notch service and a lovely setting.

Bella Cucina, 6 Brecon Street, this was recommended to us and lived up to expectations, an excellent meal of Italian dishes with some small twists. The beef carpaccio to start was seriously top notch and both pasta mains were excellent.

Madam Woo, 5 The Mall, is also owned by Josh Emett and is his take on Vietnamese street food, we enjoyed the food but the prices are on the high side for “street food”.

Tanoshi, Cow Lane, was a real find, this small Japanese restaurant was excellent, lovely staff and atmosphere. As recent visitors to Japan we really rated the quality of the food and it is also reasonably priced.

Fergburger, 42 Shotover Street, is very well known for, no surprise here, its burgers and the queues sometimes are enormous. Go mid afternoon and you shouldn’t wait long and the burgers were worth the hype. It is licensed so you can get a beer or wine with your meal.

Cafes & Bars

Vudu Café & Larder, 16 Rees Street, is “the” place to go for breakfast, it is amazingly popular and the style of service can be described as irritating but it is good but also it is pricey.

Patagonia Ice Cream & chocolates, 50 Beach Street does amazing ice creams, portion are large.

The Empanada Kitchne, 60 Beach Street, is beside the very smart public toilets but don’t be put off, this small take way sells very good empanadas with an assortment of fillings.

The Bunker, Cow Lane, is a very smart bar and restaurant, stays open late and in the upstairs bar serves up excellent cocktails and wines, the coolest bar in town.

Perky’s Floating Bar, you cannot miss this moored on the lake, with a great setting and decently priced drinks, it is always busy but a must to visit.

The Winery, 14 Beach Street, is the place to sample wines, there are over 80 by the glass in varying sizes but since they are machine dispensed you have to be careful to check the prices as some are seriously top range. They also sell wine by the bottle, arrange tours and tastings.

Drink

The South Island’s most well known wine growing area is without doubt Marlborough, famed for its Sauvignon Blanc, and this area really put New Zealand on the wine growing map.

For a less well known area you should head around 900km south to Central Otago, New Zealand’s highest and the world’s most southerly wine growing region. It is also the country’s most spectacular wine region, ringed by mountains and interlaced with lakes and deep river gorges. Around 80% of the wine produced is Pinot Noir but there are also white wines such as Pinot Gris, Riesling and Chardonnay.

There are six main areas within the region and the first commercial wine was produced in 1987 by an Irish ex-journalist called Alan Brady at Gibbston Valley, in 1996 there were only 11 wineries, now there are over 120. The pinot noir produced at Gibbston Valley went on to win the world championship wine fourteen years later.

These days craft beer is also very popular, Speights from Dunedin is one of the larger brewers and also has a number of ale houses. Wanaka near Queenstown is home to three small craft brewers and there are several more around, give them a try.

Christchurch

A must is to wander round the centre and see what happened and how it is being rebuilt, there are many art installations that were put in place in the aftermath and an exhibition at Quake City. ReStart is a mall of shipping containers containing shops, bars, banks etc. and is fun to walk around and there is also a historic tram route.

The botanic gardens are really lovely and well worth a couple of hours exploration you can then walk along the banks of the River Avon and take a boat trip in a punt.

Queenstown

Famous of course for it’s adventure sports, there are dozens of places offering bungy, paragliding, jet boating, and dozens more, I cannot comment on any as we went for more sedate activities such as wine tasting and boat trips. We did however go and watch the original bungy site, now a major attraction and it is bad enough that they have to do it but having to smile and wave to the large audience must make it even worse.

A must is a visit to Milford Sound, often described as the eight wonder of the world, it can be done by a day trip from Queenstown although the journey takes between 5 and 6 hours. There are frequent stops to admire the amazing scenery at places such as Mirror Lake and of course a boat cruise on the lake as the highlight. There are options to fly back or even take a helicopter but these come at a price and due to the weather often don’t happen. We used Real Journeys and while there were gripes about late pick-ups the quality of the guide/driver soon made you forget about this. Given that it is supposed to be the second wettest place in the world,  be prepared for the weather.

I would suggest you use one of the hotel sites such as www.booking.com or www.venere.com, we did not stay anywhere that I would recommend and if you choose an apartment which we did I would check the reviews carefully as we stayed at one of the Waldorf apartment blocks and were really disappointed with the quality of the apartments and comments on many sites seem to say the same thing.

Restaurants

Depot, at Sky City, is in Federal Street and is a world apart from many of the places at Sky City, very popular and if you haven’t booked there is a heated terrace for a drink while you wait. The oysters are great and to follow share some of the small plates, the turbot sliders were top notch.

Cocos Cantina, 376 Karangahape Road “K Road”, was a real find, although I had read about it, they don’t take bookings and the restaurant is i two sections, the first was full, the second not although by the time we had ordered it was packed. They do Italian style cooking, really good, lovely staff and a great atmosphere.

O’Connel Street Bistro, O’Connell Street, this is where the movers and shakers of Auckland business life seem to lunch and dine, we went for a Saturday pre-theatre dinner and the whole experience was excellent, great food and first class service.

Dalmatia, 89 Tamak Drive, Mission Bay, owned by a nice guy whose family are originally from Croatia, hence the name. A good place for lunch in a stretch of road that has lots of places, we were very happy with our choice.

Manuka, 49 Victoria Road, Devonport, a lovely place to stop for lunch if you have popped over to explore the delights of this gem of a suburb across the bay from the city.

Longroom, 114 Ponsonby Road, we found refuge here from the torrential rain and after a refreshment decided to stay for lunch and had a good meal. There are loads of places in Ponsonby Road and this seems very busy in the evenings, a good sign.

Verona, 169 Karangahape Road “K Road”, is a gem of a café, bar and restaurant, found it by chance and didn’t want to leave, they also have live music and DJ’s, it is a really lovely place.

Bars

There are a lots of really good traditional bars around the city most of which also serve good food. During the week some can shut early if they are not too busy.

The Occidental, 6-8 Vulcan Lane, is part of a group of Belgian Beer Cafes and although the draft beers are all imported it is a good bar to visit with good bar food.

O’Connors in Vulcan Lane, seemed to be in the process of changing ownership but had a good range of NZ craft beers.

Right Track, 4 Fort Street, is a sports bar with a betting shop attached, but don’t let that put you off. It is a well run bar with great breakfast offers and pleasant staff.

Galbraiths Ale House, 2 Mount Eden Road, is definitely worth a visit, it brews several beers which are available in other bars in the city but the bar and building is worth going to, it has a large food menu.

The Windsor Castle, 144 Parnell Road, is one of the oldest bars in the city. It has been modernised and is a very popular haunt with excellent bar food and is great on days when there is a big sporting event.

The Patriot, 14 Victoria Road, Devonport, is another traditional bar popular with locals also doing food and with a nice upstairs terrace.

The Cavalier, 68 College Hill. Ponsonby, is another lovely building both outside and equally nice inside with a great terrace running the length of the building.

Imperial Lane, at 44 Queen Street, an excellent modern bar in a space between two streets, everything from breakfast to DJ’s in the evening, seek it out.

The Corner Store, corner of Mount Eden Road and Nikau Street, a real find, this is a quirky and buzzy bar with a mixed clientele.

Squid Row, Mount Eden Road, a gastro bar is how they describe themselves and it certainly seemed to be busy with people eating, we only tried a couple of small dishes which were fine, the place lacked atmosphere, however it was a wet and windy night.

Drink

New Zealand wines have become well known and popular in recent years particularly sauvignon blanc from Marlborough therefore many people think that most wine comes from the south island. In fact the north island has more wine regions than the south island and Auckland is at the heart of one of the regions and nearby Waiheke island produces some very highly rated wines. Both in the main specialise in cabernet based red wines although Auckland produces some good chardonnay whites.

A visit to some of Waiheke Island’s wineries is easy as it sits in the Hauraki Gulf a short ferry ride away from the CBD. You can visit some of the wineries on an organised tour or you can do it yourself with the help of the local buses which meet the ferries, walking and possibly a taxi back after lunch. Two we visited were Cable Bay which is very smart and modern and Mudbrick an older winery with lovely gardens and a terrace for lunch, both of which have excellent reputations. There is one other nearby, Jurassic which is a bit of a one man band, although apparently a very interesting one, sadly it was shut the day we were there.

Beer accounts for 63% of alcohol consumed in the country and most is produced by two giant brewers however there is an excellent craft beer scene in Auckland and many of the bars have a wide range of local beers.

Take the ferry across to Devonport on the northern shore which is a lovely suburb with many Victorian and Edwardian buildings. There is a leaflet that details a walk you can do to see the best of the buildings.

The Sky Tower is definitely worth a visit and you may be lucky enough to see the bungee jumpers flinging themselves from the top. Unusually for this type of place the bar is very reasonably priced and quiet, a place to relax and look at the views.

Not sure this should be in culture but it is part of Auckland life, the White lady Burger Van at the junction of Fort Street and Commerce Street, an institution with its own postcards and not forgetting excellent burgers.