Flydrive value from a cheap flight and car rental combo

As Air New Zealand and Jetstar slug it out in an all-out airfare war there couldn’t be a better time to head to Auckland for a bargain break.

The latest back and forth between the two rivals kicked off in late August when Jetstar announced it was flying to the largest towns in New Zealand starting with N – New Plymouth, Napier, Nelson and “North” Palmerston!

Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon said in an interview “we don’t lose to Australia at home”, referring to Jetstar’s Qantas parentage and summing up the competitive spirit perfectly in a rugby-ish sort of way.

In the weeks since, prices have hit rock bottom.

According to the New Zealand Herald, Jetstar sold 16,000 tickets on August 31^st at $9.  Air New Zealand matched the offer through its Grabaseat website and then kicked off Septemperature with flight prices to three domestic regions dictated by the destination’s daily 9am temperature.  Flights went as low as $3 to a chilly Dunedin.

And while most of the talk has been about travelling from Auckland to the left, right and centre of New Zealand, flying from the regions to the big smoke, when fares are so cheap, is an opportunity not to miss.

After all, the City of Sails has so much to offer you will be spoilt for choice, and then spoilt some more.

When you do make the trip north, here’s a taste of ten things to do in Auckland:

Dining out in New Zealand’s culinary capital

Auckland is the gastronomic heart of the country with hundreds of restaurants, from fine dining to high dining at the top of the Sky Tower, offering flavours from all corners of the globe.

The local source of all information on Auckland, Metro Magazine, has two of the best lists on where to eat and how much it will cost. The first is Metro Magazine’s Top 50 Restaurants – you might want to try one of these after saving on travel. The other is a list of places to go for meals under $20.  So whatever your tastes and budget, you can find a restaurant, café or bar to suit.

Auckland – the not so well-known centre of adventure

Move over Queenstown and Rotorua, in a country full of crazy fun activities, Auckland has not been spared and offers its own flavour of adrenalin rushes for thrill-seekers, usually involving height!

How about walking around the top of a building 192 metres above the City, at Skywalk Auckland.

If you’ve had enough of being up high and want to get down quickly, try the SkyJump, New Zealand’s highest and only Base Jump by wire, a 192 metre plummet to earth at up to 85km/h.

Auckland also has the country’s biggest bridge, and you can walk over this too, or bungy off it, with the legendary AJ Hackett Bungy!

To add to this cocktail of adventure for the non-vertigo challenged, how about skydiving – imagine a freefall reaching 200km/h above the rugged coastline and beaches of the West Coast.

Just 40 minutes north-west of the City is Skydive Auckland, a local expert in both tandem skydiving and skydiving training.  The choice of jumps includes 9,000, 13,000 and 16,500 feet, the last being the highest jump in New Zealand’s North Island.

Sailing in the City of Sails

With its numerous America’s Cup regattas, Volvo Ocean Races and a thriving domestic sailing scene Auckland has one of the best harbours in the world for getting out on the water.

To do this you can follow in the footsteps of our Team New Zealand heroes and take the helm of an America’s Cup yacht. With a professional crew you can either get involved in the action or just sit back and enjoy the ride.

For a more sedate sail try the Pride of Auckland, which even comes with a three course dinner so you can combine sailing as the sun goes down with a sumptuous meal supplied by Viaduct Harbour Restaurant, Snapdragon.

And if a beautiful classic yacht is the way you want to do it, Haparanda is one of the more elegant yachts moored in the Viaduct Harbour.  Built over 50 years ago, she has a real story to tell.

Going, going, gone fishing

While we are on the subject of being on the water, fishing in the beautiful waters off Auckland is also a great idea and there’s lots of charter vessels and even heli-fishing operators to choose from.

The first step is to find someone who knows the best fishing spots, so go online and look up “Fishing Charters Auckland” and an array of fishy names will appear like: Snapper Fishing Charters, Sea Genie, Megabites, Seahawk and Doctor Hook.

Heli-fishing from Auckland has to be one of those once in a lifetime experiences.

Starting with a spectacular helicopter ride over the islands you will spend hours fishing off the rocks at some of the country’s best and most isolated fishing spots on Great Barrier, the largest island in Hauraki Gulf.

Art, culture and museums

There are three “must-see” museums in Auckland providing three very different experiences.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum is the only place in the City where you can see a Maori cultural performance and it even has its own Marae inside the building (Maori meeting house).

The exhibitions change constantly but there are some stalwarts, including: New Zealand natural history, marine life, Polynesian history and an impressive display on the two World Wars and other conflicts involving New Zealand.

The building itself is imposing and the view from the front steps across the Hauraki Gulf to the islands beyond, has to be one of the best of any museum anywhere in the world.

The Auckland Art Gallery is a work of art in itself having undergone an extensive rebuild between 2007 and 2011 – it’s so impressive it’s won 17 architectural and six design-related awards in the last four years, including the World Architecture Festival’s 2013, World Building of the Year.

After being impressed by the exterior, take a peek inside at the 15,000 artworks, the largest collection in New Zealand, including some world famous New Zealand artists such as: Colin McCahon, Frances Hodgkins and C.F. Goldie.

The importance of Auckland’s maritime history is on display at the National Maritime Museum near the Viaduct Harbour.

From the Polynesian sailors to the most modern foiling catamarans of the America’s Cup if you are interested in maritime history, you should be warned; you can lose yourself in this small but jam-packed museum.

Sand, sun and beaches galore

You don’t have to go far to find a beach in Auckland.

Probably the most popular City beach is Mission Bay, just 7 kms east of the City.  It has a vibrant feel with a busy promenade and is full of activity from people roller blading to playing volley-ball and soccer.  It also has an array of water sports on offer, such as paddle boarding and sailing – or you can just lie around on the sand.

It’s billed as Auckland’s favourite beachside destination and comes complete with lively bars, cafés and restaurants, and even a boutique cinema.

If you want something a little quieter go around another headland to Kohimarama or St Heliers.

Try also heading across the harbour bridge to the beaches on the north shore, or take a ferry from downtown to Devonport, a quaint village by the sea.

Beaches nearby include Cheltenham, Narrow Neck and Takapuna, the closest surf beach to the City Centre.  The reef here is at the north end, has both left and right hand breaks and is good for surfers intermediate and up.

Surf’s Up

If you want a real surf adventure head to the West Coast, 40 kms from the City Centre.

There are three beaches to try here: Piha, Karekare and Muriwai, all being majestic black sand and pounded by Tasman surf whipped up constantly by the prevailing winds.

Piha is the most well-known and is 2.7 kms long, with Lion Rock dividing it in two – the surfing is at the southern end.

Always surf or swim in the lifeguard patrolled area and take your jandals (flip-flops), or sandals, as the black sand heats up in the sun!

Just south of Piha is Karekare Beach, famous for being the location of the opening scenes of the 1993 Oscar winning movie, The Piano.  A little more remote than Piha, it’s a bit of a trek to the beach.  If you are a surfing spectator you can have fun running up and down the enormous dunes.

The final one in the trio is Muriwai, 16 kms to the north along the coast and home to a gannet colony that’s growing so much it’s started to take over offshore islands.

Nature’s calling

Being a City almost surrounded by water there’s plenty of sea life to discover and the best way to find it is with a trip with Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari.

This is New Zealand’s only research based marine mammal experience so the crew know a lot about finding dolphins and whales.

Lucky for Auckland, the Hauraki Gulf marine park is home to a resident population of whales, dolphins and seabirds, and is visited by a staggering one third of all marine mammal species found on earth.

The research vessel Dolphin Explorer leaves at 12.30pm daily from the Viaduct Harbour on a 4.5 hour long excursion.  The catamaran finds dolphins on 90% of trips and whales on 70%.  Quite often different species will appear.  If you don’t see any marine mammals you get a free trip.

Back on land, if you are a bird-watcher, the Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre is just an hour’s drive south-east of the City. Here you will find many of the varied visiting or endemic bird species of New Zealand.

Migrant and vagrant bird species include: Bartailed Godwits, Red Knots, Marsh and Curlew Sandpipers, Whimbrels, Pacific Golden Plovers, Red-necked Stints and Turnstones.

New Zealand birds include: Wrybills, Banded and New Zealand Dotterels, South Island Pied and Variable Oystercatchers, Royal Spoonbills, Black Billed Gulls, Caspian and White Fronted Terns, Pied and Hybrid Black Stilts.

For families, or if you just want to see lots of animals in a short space of time, there are two fantastic options.

Auckland Zoo has New Zealand’s largest collection of exotic and native species (over 1,000 animals) spread over 17 hectares of lush parkland.  This is one of the best City zoos.

And if you want to get under the water Kelly Tarlton’s SeaLife Aquarium on Tamaki Drive is one of New Zealand’s top attractions and has the world’s largest Antarctic Penguin colony exhibit.  You can even get on the ice with the penguins or go diving with sharks!

Vineyard tours and wine

Auckland may be the largest city in New Zealand but it is also one of the best wine regions.

It doesn’t have the extensive vineyards of Hawkes Bay, Marlborough or Central Otago but it has famous names, some wonderful boutique vineyard locations and great restaurants.

You can head in any direction from Downtown and find a vineyard.

Head west to the town of Kumeu and you will be in Auckland’s Heritage Wine Region, an area steeped in history with wineries dating back to the 1930s and some vines going back to the 1900s.

Ranging in size they include boutique winemakers and well-known names, such as: Artisan Wines, Awa Valley, Babich, Coopers Creek, Kerr Farm, Kumeu River, Matua Valley, Nobilo, Soljans, Twin Totara and Westbrook.

To the north is the beautiful and now sought after town and region of Matakana, one of Auckland’s favourite weekend spots with its now famous Saturday market, potteries such as Morrison James and beaches galore like Tauwharanui, Goat Island and Pakiri.

Vineyards here include: Ransom Wines, Heron’s Flight, Hyperion Wines, Brick Bay Estate, Omaha Bay Wines, Mahurangi River Estate, Ascension Estate and Runner Duck.

And there are also some great restaurants such as The Glasshouse Kitchen Restaurant at Brick Bay, Plume Restaurant on the Runner Duck Estate, the Matakana Village Pub and the Matakana Market Kitchen.

To the south there are not as many vineyards although one of the country’s most famous names in wine, Villa Maria Estate, can be found in a quiet corner near Auckland International Airport.

This might be an unusual location for a vineyard but in March 2015, Villa Maria was named fourth most admired wine brand in the world by Drinks International, and was the only NZ winery to be in the top 10 list.

If you go east you are in for a treat but you will need to get a ferry to Waiheke Island, a 30 minute trip from downtown.

The long slim island of 19 kms has over 20 vineyards, many of which boast award winning vintages and some great restaurants.

Names include: Mudbrick, Stonyridge, Te Whau, Goldie, Cable Bay and Frenchman’s Hill Estate.

You can escape to Waiheke for a whole day, take in a wine tour and then walk off a long lunch along beautiful coastal walkways.  It may be close to Auckland but you will feel you have been to another country and back.

Auckland’s volcanoes

There are around 50 volcanic cones within 20 kms of the centre of Auckland that have erupted between 600 and 250,000 years ago.

Looking out over the City you will be able to see many protruding like monstrous molehills across the city scape.

Some are covered by parks (Albert Park), others have impressive buildings atop (the Auckland War Memorial Museum) and some have almost disappeared, quarried for road material.

If you want to get above the City for a fantastic view the closest one to town is Mount Eden or Maungawhau.

The best way to enjoy this sacred Maori place is to walk up, stopping regularly to see the view unveil before your eyes.  It will take you about 40 minutes.

Once back down, head to the quaint Mount Eden Village for a coffee or bite to eat at one of its wonderful cafes.

There’s one unmistakable volcano holding a special presence over the Hauraki Gulf; Rangitoto, just 10 kms offshore from downtown Auckland.

It’s the youngest and largest of all the volcanoes in the Auckland region and worth a visit.  You can walk up and enjoy the 360⁰ views, one of the best you will find in the whole country.

Ferries for Rangitoto leave from the downtown Ferry Terminal on Quay Street – there are up to four in the morning, with the last one leaving at 12.15pm.  But if you want a real adventure you can paddle to Rangitoto with Ferg’s Kayaks, returning at night!

Save even more with a cheap rental car

If you are saving money on airfares why would you then rent a car from one of the larger more expensive car rental companies?

At New Zealand Discount Car Rentals our cheap rental cars mean you can continue to save money on transport and end up with more money to spend on having fun – daily rates start at $14.95 for a short term rental.

This is even cheaper than taking a taxi or airport shuttle to downtown Auckland, especially if you are in a group – and having a car gives you the freedom to go wherever you want and when you want for the rest of your stay.

Enjoy your bargain break to Auckland as summer approaches and long may competition between Air New Zealand and Jetstar continue!