Magic Bus

Chris and I had the dream to buy a van in either Oz or New Zealand and explore in this hippy fashion but alas, it was not to be. Our budget - both monetary and time-wise - will not allow for such adventures. Thus we were stuck with the problem of how to get around New Zealand, a country where trains do not run regularly nor to many places we wanted to visit, or so we'd heard. We couldn't afford a car rental for two whole months so we needed another option.

Luckily, there were a number of bus companies that seemed to offer exactly what we wanted in terms of destinations but would it be in our budget? It was in a Melbourne hostel where we were trying to swap our old, French Lonely Planet for Australia for a new guide book for New Zealand, that we discovered the most amazing deal at the travel agents downstairs. Both “Magic” and “Kiwi Discovery” bus companies were offering their tours of the South Island free when you bought the tour of the North. This sounded great to us as we definitely wanted to explore both islands and hadn’t any better option to do this so far. Hearing that the Magic Bus company was the slightly less 18-30s of the two, we decided to go with them. What a great deal - we ended up paying under 200 British pounds each for a year’s worth of travel around both islands of New Zealand! OK, so personally we can only use it for two months but the destinations it will take us to are pretty extensive and we can always add additional ones if we have the time.

All the places marked in red (aside from Paihia and Coromandel Town in the North Island which are no longer included) are compulsory stops on our tour. This means we will spend at least one night in these places but can choose to stay longer if we wish. As with the towns in black, we have the option to stop off at most of these if we wish. Chris and I will try to visit as many as we have time for and that we have access to with our particular ticket, but it all just depends on time really. Who knows at this stage….

Let the Magic Kiwi Adventure begin...