day 1: Arrive Christchurch, see Christchurch.
day 2: Drive to Lake Tekapo (~3 hours). Climb Mt. John for 360 degree views of the Southern Alps. Have a cup of hot chocolate at the Observatory Cafe. Gaze out over the awesome blue colors of the Lake. Eat Carbonara Pizza at Pepe's.
day 3: Stay in Lake Tekapo, because dagnabbit, it's that good. Hike to Cowan's Hill, take a helicopter flight over the Southern Alps complete with glacier landing (if the weather is good), or just relax and do more lake-gazing. Alternatively if there's no clouds, drive to Mt. Cook village (~1 hour), have lunch on the balcony of the Hermitage with great views of Mt. Cook, and maybe do some hiking (Hooker Valley track is great).
day 4: Drive to Queenstown (~4 hours). Stop for lunch at Mt. Cook (~1 hour detour) if you didn't do so the day before.
day 5: Do a daytrip to Milford Sound. Take the bus; this day is loooong (12 hours) and you don't want to drive it yourself; you'd only be stuck behind those busses anyway.
day 6: Recover from the day before and see Queenstown.
day 7: Drive to Fox and Franz Josef Glacier (~5 hours). Be sure to stop at the various waterfalls along Haast Pass.
day 8: See the glaciers. Be sure to gaze at Peter's Pool at Franz Josef Glacier, and maybe hike a bit of the Roberts Point track for gorgeous rainforest surroundings. Also, if you helicopter flight didn't work out at Lake Tekapo, you have another opportunity here.
day 9: Long drive to Picton (~8 hours). At least you have gorgeous west coast scenery to keep you company. If the timing works out, try to be at Punakaiki around high tide for awesome blow holes. (Look up the time in advance, it's worth it!)
day 10: Ferry to Wellington. See Wellington.
day 11: Drive to Tongariro National Park (~5 hours).
day 12: Hike in Tongariro National Park. If the weather is really good, consider doing the Tongariro Crossing. (Not giving you much chance of this in May, though.)
day 13: Drive to Auckland (~5 hours). If you have the energy, drive via Rotorua to see a bit of the thermal environment around there. Wai-o-tapu is best. (Should be an hour extra driving time, plus maybe 2 hours wandering around there?)
day 14: See Auckland.
That's a pretty full but doable itinerary. Since you didn't say anything about what kind of things you'd like to see or do, nor what interests you, I tailored it to my specific tastes (which focuses on hiking and gorgeous scenery). If that isn't your thing, you could do things like swap out Tongariro National Park in favour of Napier, or take days off the glaciers or Lake Tekapo in favour of Queenstown. (Though I'd recommend against this latter, as you'll be really grateful of those rest days.) If you have an extra day, spend it in Auckland - it deserves it. If you have to extra days, spend the second one somewhere halfway as a rest day. Do not try to do more than this itinerary - you'll be too tired to appreciate any of it. (I speak from experience. This one is crammed to the brink as it is already.)
[ Edit: Edited on 01-Feb-2009, at 14:16 by Sander ]
