(no subject)

[mamculuna]

My sister is retiring this year, and she's never traveled. I wanted to take a trip with her out of the country, maybe in the summer or fall. We considered France, and that may be what we wind up doing. I love France, and haven't seen all of it by any means, but we noticed an Air New Zealand flight from the west coast for $799--the travel should be in April or May and we can't go then, but wonder if we might manage a similar trip in September. I'm thinking that we can go to Europe at any age, but our thrill with long plane rides may wane as we grow older, and I really long to go to that part of the world.

Those of you who live in NZ or Australia (or have traveled there), how is the weather in those places in September? What about January or February? We live in the southern US and don't mind the heat if it's not brutal (averages between 20 and 33 C is fine with us, even 35, but lots of days hotter than that might be too much). In fact, we greatly prefer heat to cold. A very rainy time would not be good, though.

Also, when might we expect to find good deals on flights from San Francisco? Is $800 a really great price? It would be for China or Japan, and they're closer.

Comments

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

My two trips to New Zealand were in October and December, and while December on the North Island resembled summer in the Bay Area -- with a curtain of damp air hanging over Auckland clearing off to a Oaklandy eightyish inland near Rotorua, October on the South Island was more like the Pacific Northwest: although sunny through most of my week there (I spent one rainy day in a motel room huddled up against Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), it was always sweater weather. One day outside of Wanaka, I went white-water sledging, basically running rapids on an oversize boogie-board, and after spending a couple of hours immersed to my chest in forty-five degree water, it took a while to restore feeling to my lower extremities. Toes, people, toes.

I'd begrudgingly bite the bullet if that's the one-way fare and jump on it's the round-trip.

Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[angels-nibblet.livejournal.com]

$800 is probably a really good deal, I'm converting in my head though. This is me who is used to paying about NZ$2000 for international flights :-P Is flying to Japan or China actually that much shorter for you? surely flights to Asia and to Oceania would both be about 11 hours, the distance on a map looks about the same.

September is getting into Spring so it might be rainy, weather shouldn't be too cold though. January/February is probably the ideal time to come as it is the height of summer, there's a lot more on and a lot more you can do. Where I live temperatures rarely if ever get up to 30 C, but it would depends on where you were in the country.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to go, but kind of promised her I'd wait. So maybe January would be better...

45 degree water?! You're tougher than I am, even tougher than I want to be.

Re: Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I would have thought it would take longer to go south and west, over the equator than due west--but guess you're further east than I thought. Must look at a map...[googles quickly], hmm, I guess it's far western Australia that's due south of China and I see you're quite a bit east of Japan. And I'm sure you know the flight length!

Although I'll guess the fares won't be that great next winter, it might be worth it to get away from the cold here into some warmer weather there. And Australia's warmer and drier than you are, right?

But that $800 fare is tempting.

And can't tell you how much I do want to come there, ever since I had a roommate from Wellington, so very long ago I've lost track of her,sadly, but it really has been a long-time travel goal (even before The Piano and LoTR).

Re: Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[angels-nibblet.livejournal.com]

Yeah Australia's definitely a lot hotter, and extremely dry in a lot of places with the huge drought that they've got there at the moment. It depends on how hot and dry you want to go, I guess.

Getting to LA takes about 11 hours from Auckland, I've done that flight many times on my way to Europe, and going from here through Asia takes about the same amount of time.

Re: Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I will definitely get recommendations from you when we get organzied to go--and hopefully meet for lunch or a drink!

Re: Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

"Hmm, I would have thought it would take longer to go south and west, over the equator than due west"

Maybe it's that Great Circle route thing? Think I remembered that term right--it took long enough to come to mind, no idea how long it's been since last time I thought of it!

Re: Yes you should so come to NZ!!!!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wondered about Great Circle, but that would work for the nothern places, like Japan, not for NZ (unless you were coming from Chile, maybe).

[habibti.livejournal.com]

$800 is a great price - I used to fly for about $1500 from the East Coast to Australia so it's a very good deal.

Australia is about as big as the Lower 48 so expect a variation in weather. Tasmania (south) will have the same temperature range as New Zealand and the north of Australia is tropical. You probably don't want to be there in our summer Dec-Mar because not only is it terribly hot up there but also humid. It rains every day on the coast in northern Queenland at that time - that's why it's called the Big Wet. Kinda like you wouldn't go to Florida in July.

Further south - Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne should be more comfortable and if you live in a hot part of the US, you'll have no problems with our summers. Right now in Sydney, nights are averaging about 20C and days about 30C. We've had a few days hit up close to 40C but not many. Of course you always do get the odd bit of weather - the winds get really bad when there's a bushfire with all the ash in the air, which they're experiencing around Melbourne at the moment. September is a good time to come - Sydney had the Olympics in September in 2000 and the weather was apparently comfortable enough for all the athletes.

Let me know when you are coming to Sydney. I'd be happy to show you around, or meet up for a meal.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I'd love to meet you--hope this trip really happens. I wish we could go this spring with that cheap fare, but that really won't work for her. September is sounding really good, but getting away from here in January would be great, unless global warming moves along. Thanks for all the information, too.

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