September diving is great, though expect much cooler water than you would have in Aus at that time. Water temperature will vary from around 14 degC in the north, to down around 6 degC in the south. It is essentially the coldest month of the year as far as water goes.
What floats your boat when it comes to diving? We are blessed with a lot of variety.
The Poor Knights Islands are always worth a dive, with plenty of charter operations to choose from offering both day trips and liveaboard options. Certainly, a liveaboard is the best way to see a lot of dive sites in a short period of time - have a look at Pacific Hideaway (
Scuba dive the Poor Knights New Zealand.Scuba diving with Pacific Hideaway NZ) and Ocean Blue (
OceanBlue Adventures- Scuba Dive Poor Knights Islands with Oceanblue Adventures). Day trips cost about NZ$130 and there are more charters than you can shake a stick at, each with their relative merits. Liveaboards may be hard to arrange from overseas, the local diveshops tend to book Pacific Hideaway months in advance. Oceanblue tend to be a little less in demand, as it's a smaller boat - but Kev and Janine who run it are awesome. We could easily book something with them and you guys could slot it, just PM if you are keen.
The other "must visit" site is White Island, which is an active volcano... WI itself is an ok dive, but the nearby Volkner Rocks is quite simply the best (naturalist) dive site in the country. Day trips are fickle, though there are a number of operators working out of Whakatane. The best option by far here is a liveaboard trip with John Baker off his boat "Ma Cherie" (
Baker Marine Charters). John is a great skipper, and will take you to Volkner Rocks when many other skippers won't.
This video clip shows what the diving is like at Volkners:
Te Paepae o Aotea (Volkner Rocks): Protecting our seas DVD
If you are into wrecks, then the Mikhial Lermontov has got to be on the list of sites to visit - it's a Russian cruise liner that sank in the Marlborough Sounds (top of the south island) and is just a great dive. There's also the Rainbow Warrior in the far north, as well as some purpose sunk wrecks around Tutukaka.
Not to put too fine a point on it, there is good diving everywhere! You could almost plan a trip on what else you want to see - then choose which diving suits. Chances are, though, that you will probably fly into Auckland which depending on how long you have may limit you somewhat in how far you can spread yourself in your trip.
Certainly do-able, though, would be combining a visit to both the Poor Knights and White Island.
Happy to help organise if you need it - drop me a PM and I'll give you my email address. Also worth checking out the local NZ forums, the two main ones are
www.scubadive.net.nz • Index page and
sods :: Index.
