Debriefing: Inland Travel Costs

Time to review the budget for the last trip, starting with local travel costs. Here’s the table, with booking dates in addition to travel dates for the InterCity bus bookings, as I will make clear in the notes.

Travel Date	Booked on	Route	Cost ($NZ)
Feb 9, Apr 7	Jan 26	SkyBus (airport – downtown)	32.00
Feb, Apr	Feb 9	AT HOP card with $30 topup	40.00
Feb 12	Dec 30	Auckland – Ohakune (InterCity)	38.99
Feb 21		Track transport (RMT – Dempsey’s)	50.00
Feb 24	Feb 12	Ohakune – Whanganui (InterCity)	19.99
Feb 28	Feb 19	Whanganui – Manutahi (InterCity)	15.99
Mar 1	Feb 10	Manutahi – Trains Track (East Taranaki)	250.00
Mar 5	Feb 25	Tieke Kainga – Pipiriki (jetboat)	80.00
Mar 6	Feb 25	Pipiriki – Whanganui (mailrun)	30.00
Mar 8	Feb 26	Whanganui – New Plymouth (InterCity)	22.99
Mar 11	Mar 9	New Plymouth – North Taranaki/AMC (Taranaki Mountain Shuttle)	45.00
Mar 16		Taxi (New Plymouth)	10.00
Mar 16	Mar 9	New Plymouth – Taupo (InterCity)	31.99
Mar 19	Mar 10	Taupo – Rotorua (InterCity)	17.99
Mar 20-21		City buses, Rotorua	11.20
Mar 23	Mar 17	Rotorua – Paihia (InterCity)	87.99
Mar 23		Taxi (Paihia)	10.00
Apr 1	Mar 24	Paihia – Whangarei (InterCity)	17.99
Apr 2	Apr 1	Te Whara (Trail Drop)	40.00
Apr 4	Mar 25	Whangarei – Auckland (InterCity)	34.99
Apr 4		InterCity Rewards redeemed	-15.62
Apr 9		InterCity remainder	-2.20
Apr 9		AT HOP remainder	-3.60
Total ($NZ)			$865.69
Total (€, @ $NZ 1.00 = € 0.6177)			€534.74

Travel in Auckland. SkyBus is necessary for travel to and from the airport. This can be paid for with an AT HOP card (available at the i-site at the airport), but is $1 cheaper if prebooked on the web; image of the QR code on a phone or other device is sufficient. Once downtown, any further travel by bus should be with the AT HOP card ($10), as trips involving changing buses are very much more expensive if each section has to be paid individually. I found that $30 was sufficient for about a week’s travel around Auckland.

InterCity buses. These were the method of choice for long distance travel, as long as the bookings were made at least one week in advance, and the booking was immutable. Online registration here meant that Rewards could be collected (approximate value as a discount of 5%) and most of the discount could be redeemed on the last trip. The only thing I might have done differently was the trip from Rotorua to Paihia. On the bus this takes the whole day, and by the time I came to look at flights they were already more than $300. However, flights can be had for less than $100, if a booking is made about two months in advance (the earlier the better). Two further factors would make the flying more expensive, though: The need to book extra luggage (Air New Zealand only allows 20 kg), and the trip from the airport at Kerikeri would have to be included as well. However, for two hours in the air and 50 minutes wait in Auckland, that would be worth it.

Track transport. This was the largest expense subcategory at just under $500 (€300, just over both figures if the bus ride to Manutahi is included). Still, worth every penny. All of the transport, except for East Taranaki’s Trains Track transport (Waitotara Road end) was on a per person basis; East Taranaki was per trip, i.e. the cost per person depends on how many people are in the vehicle (for two people the price goes down to $125 per person; at four it’s $62.5). Also another point to take into account is that they will pick you up from Whanganui for an extra $50. The logistics of that walk, however, requires at least two vehicles if you want to try and do this without outside help. I was quite happy about the way it all worked out. Finally, both Taranaki Mountain Shuttle and Trail Drop charged an extra $10 for a single passenger.

Not so happy was I with Dempsey’s Buses and their no-show for the return trip. I don’t know how many times you have to remind the driver to come and pick you up, ask whether it’s going to be the same driver, or what. I stung them for quite a bit afterwards, but that was their own fault.

All in all, not a great deal of money was spent on inland travel (less than $15/just over €9 a day), and indeed not much travelling was done. Again, I can see that investing in a car or camper means that you want to get the most out of it, and there were some times (Orakei Korako) where I would have liked a car. In the end I sort of regret not having hired a car for that, because the cost would not have been exorbitant, even for just one day.