Travelling 2014

I am currently in the early stages of planning a trip for 2014. I went to South East Asia for 4 months at the start of this year and have just got the bug to do a bit more backpacking. As some of you on here seem well travelled I thought you might be able to give me some tips on what to do and see. My plan so far is to leave the UK at the start of May and fly to Beijing China. The plan is to spend 4-6 weeks in china and the main areas and attractions I would like to visit include, The great wall, Terracotta army, Shanghai and also Guilin maybe more depending on time.

After China I am flying to New Zealand where I will be on a working holiday visa. I have no plans for New Zealand I just want to get some temporary work maybe fruit picking or something similar and then just try and see as much of the country as possible. I plan to arrive back in the UK for xmas 2014 so this will give me a good 6 months in New Zealand.

Any tips or Recommendations would be appreciated.

Bay of Islands in the North of the North Island amazing and Queenstown is great

Not been to NZ, but gut feel is a six month stay there might be a tad long (in the same way that anything longer than about three days in Singapore is) when Oz is relatively just up the road. Would be a shame IMHO to got all that way and not see some of it.

I will be working whilst I am in New Zealand so I will probably only be travelling around for 2-3 months of the time that I am over there. I have been backpacking in Australia before so that's my reason for going to New Zealand this time. I totally get what you mean about Singapore though, I had 5 days there and it was far too much time. I will do some research into Bay of Islands and see what I think.

Thanks for all the info