Month: February 2026
Visiting Te Papa Museum.
Yesterday was a lovely sunny day with almost no breeze. We decided to walk along the Wellington waterfront, past some historical cranes and cargo handling equipment, to Te Papa (the National Museum of New Zealand. The building has five floors – each with a different theme. On the ground floor was the section with a […]
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Our Return to Wellington
Our drive to Wellington (our last destination in this trip) would have only taken about an hour so we were looking for ways to fill in some time. Just up the road from our two-night stay at Martinborough is the town of Featherstone. It houses a museum for the Fell Locomotives (a type of cog […]
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Cape Palliser – The Most Southerly Point on NZ’s North Island
Cape Palliser is about 50 kilometres from Martinborough. The road takes you across farmland and then hugs the coast until yoou reach the lighthouse. The area of farmland is on a broad plain. It was here that a number of graziers initially met in the 1800s and combined their flocks of sheep to form New […]
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South to Martinborough’s Wine Region
Our 270 km drive from Napier to Martinborough took us through orchard country, grazing land and then vineyards. It was an interesting drive – nothing spectacular – but we did come across some interestig places. The Pekapeka swamp and wetlands, south of Napier, is all that is left of what was once a much larger […]
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Napier is Back in the 1930s
We really struck it lucky to arrive here in Napier when we did! We just worked our travel itinerary into a schedule that worked within our time frame and we accidentally arrived here at the height of the Art Deco Festival. It’s a wonderful event. Today, we sauntered back to the city from our motel […]
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On to Napier and its Jazz and Flappers
Our drive today was something of a frustration. There were so many scenic views but nowhere to pull over to photogrpah them. The highway from Gisborne to Napier has very narrow shoulders and stopping would have exposed us to the large number of heavy vehicles on the road. However, we did find some opportunities that […]
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The Long Way Around to Gisborne
Gisborne is a large city on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It’s known for its wineries and surf beaches. It is situated on the north side of Poverty Bay with its large stretch of coastline and white sand beaches that are popular for swimming and surfing.We arrived here yesterday after a long […]
Read MoreOnwards to Smelly Rotorua
Over the last two days, we have driven from Thames to eventually arrive in Rotorua. They have been two very different days – one travelling and the other visting scenic places around the city of Rotorua. Our road trip took us through lush dairy farm land with occassional orchards of kiwi fruït and avocados. Not […]
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Exploring the Coromandel Peninsula
We have stayed in the town of Thames for the last two nights. It is at the southern end of the Coromandel Peninsula which we explored in a clockwise direction yesterday. The long Main Street of the town looks like many other country towns – a long length of shops, pubs and businesses. However, when […]
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Wet Days But Still Things to See
On Friday we left Kaitia on a very humid and drizzling day . The temperature was 26C and the humidity was about 95%. The first few kilometres were easy driving but it poured with rain for some of the time. We came across the historic village of Kokokhu where we bought a coffee and a […]
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Our Drive to the Cape Reinga Lighthouse
Cape Reinga Lighthouse is one of New Zealand’s most iconic natural and cultural landmarks. It’s where an often visible clash of currents from the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean converge, often creating shifting lines and swirls in the water below. This natural phenomenon is both striking and symbolic. For us, the lighthouse provided an excellent […]
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Finding More of New Zealand’s History
We expected that today would be an easy drive from Whangarei to Kaitaia in Far North New Zealand. It was certainly an intersting day in which we spent lots of time at some special places along the way. We expected to arrive at or overnight destination by mid afternoon but we didn’t arrrive until after […]
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