Ahipara in Northland sits on the Southern end of ninety mile beach, so named by the Kiwis as it’s short of ninety kilometres in length! When we got up we decided to head down to the beach, which actually is quite long, and pretty soon after getting out of the car I was aware of, yet […]
Read the rest of Thursday 9th October – Ahipara and its evil sand!
The first stop of the day was “Sheepworld” which I had read about as being a “sheep themed amusement park”. Although there wasn’t a wild sheep rollercoaster or bumper sheep the place didn’t disappoint. We had a brief look around prior to the “sheep show” which started at 11AM. The show started with a sheep […]
Read the rest of Wednesday 8th October – Wellsford to Ahipara
Having missed the geyser’s eruption the previous day we headed to a different geyser. This one had several other attractions with it and we decided it was too expensive and headed off. The weather was absolutely terrible with almost monsoon like rain. When we arrived at Waitomo caves there was little improvement and the activities that […]
Read the rest of Tuesday 7th October – Golden Springs to Wellsford
We woke up to crazy monsoon-like rain and carried on towards Taupo. In Taupo itself we went around the town and also a traveling fair. I mean traveling fair here in the sense of stalls selling various things and not rollercoasters and big wheels. Although they did have a stand where you could attempt to […]
Read the rest of Sunday 5th to Monday 6th October- Golden Springs, Taupo
So we left Moetueka and headed for Picton to get the Interislander ferry back to North Island. We went to a beach near the town which was very windy. There were a couple of ducks hanging around the car and I decided that they would appreciate the slightly skanky bread which was kicking around in […]
Read the rest of Saturday 4th October -Moetueka to Levin
After one night in Hanmer we got up for breakfast. Actually, I’m not sure I would have done but Lance managed to inform me that it was an hour earlier than it actually was when he got back from breakfast. When I got to the lounge I was confused that people kept arriving when breakfast […]
Read the rest of Friday 3rd October – Hanmer Springs to Moetuaka
On the Thursday we got up and headed towards Hanmer, one of the sites in New Zealand with natural goethermic springs. I was feeling slightly miserable as I was still thinking about the incident in Wanaka, the subsequent phone call and I also discovered a weird lump in my mouth. I’m pretty sure that this […]
Read the rest of Thursday 2nd October – Dunedin to Hanmer Springs
The Otago peninsular is famous for its wildlife, notably yellow-eyed penguins and albatrosses. We drove out there and stopped at an albatross breeding grounds. Unfortunately they all appeared to have already bred, or were working up to it and hence weren’t in the area. There were, however hundreds of gulls and also a large group […]
Read the rest of Wednesday 1st October – the Otago peninsular (Dunedin)
On the Tuesday we checked out of the motel and headed towards Dunedin. The roads were amazing cutting in and out of the mountains. I say this as the passenger of course and may have looked upon them slightly less favourably had I been driving. This area (Central Otago) is known as fruit country and […]
Read the rest of Tuesday 30th September – Glenorchy to Dunedin
So, after the previous night’s ordeal we arrived in Glenorchy at a silly time in the morning and slept in the car. When it was a reasonable hour, seven or so, we checked into a motel and slept. We woke up at around lunch time and explored the tiny town, had a gorgeous pub lunch […]
Read the rest of Sunday 28th to Monday 29th September – Glenorchy