January 23, 2015 | talktraveltome | Leave a comment Welcome to the second installment of our Bi-Weekly Bucket List! Next up: New Zealand New Zealand is a country we have both been dying to travel to and it is the second stop on our round the world adventure! To make the most of our time in New Zealand we have created a bucket list of everything we want to do and see. Travel Dates: January 29th – March 7th Great Walks While in New Zealand we will be lacing up our hiking boots and spending a large portion of our time exploring some of New Zealand‘s Great Walks. For a small country New Zealand is made up of very diverse landscapes, and we plan on hiking up volcanoes, canoeing down rivers and trekking through forests. North Island: Tongariro Northern Circuit: For those of you that are Lord of the Rings fans, the Tongariro Northern Circuit is home of Mount Ngauruhoe which appeared as Mt Doom in the movie. So basically we will be hiking through Modor! The hike will take 3-days to complete and we will be able to see the famous emerald lakes. Whanganui Journey: We are probably most excited for this Great Walk, because it is something we have never done before. The Whanganui Journey is a 3-5 day trip down the Whanganui River. We will be doing the the 3-day option from Whakahoro to Pipiriki, were we will canoe down the river and camp outside under the stars! Fingers crossed we fit in our two person tent. South Island: Abel Tasman: Once we get to the South Island of New Zealand we will doing a shorter version of our third great walk. Although we’d love to do the 3 day hike we are doing the one day option. We are only in New Zealand for so long so we have to make some sacrifices in order to still have time to explore the beaches of New Zealand. Fiordland National Park: This national park is home to three Great Walks; Milford, Kepler and Routeburn. As of right now we plan on doing a day hike of the Milford Sound, since it is already fully booked! We are bummed we can’t do the full Milford Track, but will make up for it by doing one of the other hikes available. But to go back to the Milford Sound, has anyone visited this place before?! If not, Google it now….it looks incredible and we can’t wait! Fox Glacier We’ve seen over and over again that the Fox Glacier is a “must-do” when visiting New Zealand. Located on the west coast of New Zealand’s southern Island, this 13km glacier has been melting rapidly due to global warming so we plan on taking a trip to check it out while we can. Lord of the Rings Filming Sights Now don’t judge us, but while in New Zealand we plan on visiting some of the areas that they filmed Lord of the Rings. We are going to be one with the hobbits while we visit the village of Hobbiton located in Matamata. New Zealand Wine Country While traveling through the North and South island we also plan on checking out some of the local wineries. There are 10 major wine growing regions and we plan on tasting as much as we can! As Robert Baratheon would say, “More Wine!”. We also plan on attending The Winery Tour, which is a series of outdoor concerts held on wineries throughout New Zealand. Sledging A while back I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and saw a post from one of my favorite New Zealand blogs, Stoked for Saturday, about something called Sledging. What is sledging? From the photos it looks somewhat similar to boogie boarding expect you’re going white water rafting head first. Wish us luck! Lake Wanaka Region This region of New Zealand is filled with tons of outdoor activities, incredible landscapes and beautiful scenery. If you’ve never heard of it or seen pictures of it before, check out this list of the Top 10 Reasons to Visit the Lake Wanaka Region. We plan on crossing a few of these off our list while in New Zealand. So there you have it, our second Bi-Weekly Bucket List and our second stop on our RTW trip. Hopefully we can check everything off and even add a few more things to our list! Comments comments