Following our relaxing stay in Havelock North, we drove one hundred and sixty miles to Whakapapa, based in the Tongariro National Park. The Tongariro National Park is home to the volcanic peaks of Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and Ruapehu and is ranked as one of the top ten day walks in the world. As we drove up to Whakapapa we were […]
Read more "Walking through an active volcanic zone"Following a relatively short fifty mile drive to Taupo, Rich and I were welcomed to the lakeside town with blue skies, fluffy white clouds and a cool breeze that offset the heat from the sun. We only had one night in Taupo and when we arrived we wished we had booked more. It’s a beautiful […]
Read more "Play Time"If there is ever be a time when you should be grateful that scratch and sniff computer screens haven’t been invented yet, the time is now. If it weren’t for the fact that Rich and I are skinflints and had paid for two nights in a backpackers in Rotorua, we might have carried on driving straight […]
Read more "Reeking Rotorua"As Rich I and I drove away from Paihia, our sadness about leaving was mirrored by the sad weather. The sky was cloudy and the rain fell during our two hundred and sixty mile, six hour drive to the Coromandel peninsula. We were headed to Whitianga on the east coast of the peninsula and the town […]
Read more "Cloudy Coromandel"Our South Island adventure finished on a high swimming with dolphins. We’d had a fantastic five weeks exploring the quiet wilderness of it but now we were excited to see what the North Island had in store for us. Following a quick pit stop in Christchurch to return our trusty hire car we flew up to […]
Read more "Aye aye captain"Home to vast underwater canyons, Kaikoura is a sea animal lovers paradise. The deep canyons provide nutrient rich water that attracts the smallest and largest of sea life. Rich and I headed to Kaikoura in anticipation of swimming with wild dusky dolphins and we were not disappointed. We arrived at Dusky Lodge Backpackers early in […]
Read more "A surprise in Kaikoura"As we left Motueka the rain began to fall and the journey to our next stop in Nelson was somewhat blighted by it. Infact our whole stay in Nelson was blighted by the rain. We spent the day at the backpackers either playing games, doing puzzles (Rich) or blogging (me). We hoped for clear skies the follow […]
Read more "Water & Wine"Rich and I were both really looking forward to our heli-hike experience on the Franz Josef glacier. When the morning arrived we stepped out of our hostel and looked up at the glacier, with bright blue skies and barely a breath of wind, we couldn’t have picked a better day for our glacier adventure. “Our […]
Read more "Franz Josef Glacier Hiking"Rich couldn’t wait to get to Wanaka as this was the place that he had booked a flying lesson. Luckily for me, a passenger got to go in the plane for free during the lesson. Like I said, lucky me! I didn’t tell Rich that the last time I was in a small plane, during […]
Read more "Flying high in Wanaka"Imagine clear blue skies with a cool morning breeze passing over a huge expanse of water, with snow covered mountains reaching up into the sky and their reflection reaching down into a lake. This was our morning view. The sight of the Southern Alps mountain range, with Mount Cook soaring three thousand seven hundred and twenty four metres […]
Read more "Majestic Mount Cook"
Lambs on the loose 