Blog

A few of the feathered friends of note below: New Zealand This was the only albatross we saw in New Zealand, spotted during the ferry ride across the Cook Strait. Unfortunately, we missed out seeing the Royal Albatross. The banded … Read More

Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, is hotter than **** in February. After the mild temperatures throughout New Zealand, it was a sudden shock to wake up to a heat index of 107°F, with humidity similar to that … Read More

After a rather exhausting day of travel, we finally made it to our first destination in Australia – Cairns! With about five days left in New Zealand, the only definitive plans we had made for our tour of Oz included … Read More

WHAT WE DID: Rented a campervan (28 days, one-way rental) through Euro Campers (2 + 1 berth, self-contained with camping toilet) Stayed at powered and non-powered camp sites Made the majority of meals in the campervan to cut down on … Read More

Several of our stops along the North Island were short little day or half-day trips to scenic areas and cities. Though we are kind of lumping them together here, due to their brevity, it doesn’t mean we enjoyed them any … Read More

On our way back south to Auckland, we stopped about an hour and a half from the city at Bream Bay, after hearing it was a lovely beach area. We hopped over the dunes and were met with an expansive … Read More

Okay, so how many of you were afraid to click on this one? That’s what I thought – get your minds out of the gutter. On our last morning in the Bay of Islands, we decided to do a short … Read More

After spending a day wandering around Auckland, we decided to head about 3.5 hours north to the Bay of Islands, a pristine coastal region situated on the eastern coast of the far northern region of New Zealand’s North Island. Captain … Read More

One of the more famous fixtures of New Zealand is its glowworm caves – more specifically, the Waitomo glowworm caves. While not as off-the-beaten-path as we usually like, we could not pass through the country without visiting such an interesting … Read More

After spending only a few days on the North Island, and having completed our Tongariro Alpine Crossing sooner than we really expected (due to the gorgeous weather), we were left kind of adrift with our plans for the rest of … Read More

Considered by many to be the greatest day hike in the country, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing has been atop my New Zealand must-do list for quite some time. So much so that I told Stephan I was prepared to park … Read More

In between the hiking, we went looking for areas to seek out new birds. We had identified 3 places to check out: the Manawatu Estuary, the Whanganui Estuary, and Bushy Park – the last being a site recommended by the … Read More

In order to get our campervan from the South Island to the North Island, we had to take the ferry. Jenn had concerns about this trip, since the ferry rides through the Cook Strait are famously unpredictable and can be … Read More

Naturally, there could be no travel without trying foreign beers. While driving to Abel Tasman, we found ourselves driving through hundreds of acres of lush, green hop plants, and we found out that Nelson and the surrounding region is the … Read More

While doing some reading about Abel Tasman National Park, we stumbled across a photograph of a bay – an ostensibly serene, isolated cove called Te Pukatea. ‘That’s our beach,’ I declared. We read that the beach could be accessed by … Read More