Overseas Travel
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 […]
Read More
Our Lazy Day Around the Harbour and to the Waterfall
After eight days on the road, we decided that today would be a lazy day. There is not a real lot to do around Whangareii so it didn’t matter if we spent some time this morning doing personal tasks such as lying in bed and doing some washing. Eventually, we decided to head around the […]
Read More
Travelling North Along The Coast
Yesterday, we were reminded of the value of getting off the highway and following minor roads. We found some nice beaches and lovely scenery away from the Motorway and instead, along the original highway to the north of New Zealand. We left Auckland on the motorway that crosses the harbor bridge in quite dense traffic […]
Read More
Sightseeing in Auckland
Auckland is a large, world class metropolitan city, with an urban population of about 1,547,000 – about 1/3 of New Zealand’s total population. More people live in this city than the whole of the South Island. The Auckland landscape is dotted with 53 volcanic sites. This area was first settled in around 1350 and was […]
Read More
Some History on Waitangi Day
Today is Waitangi Day. It commemorates a very important event where a treaty was signed between the British Crown and Maori Tribes to create the founding document that essentially created New Zealand as a nation. Our travels today didn’t provide for much exploring but by accident, we came across three sites that were important for […]
Read More
Along the Forgotten World Highway
We left Stratford early this morning yesterday after visting ther local Woollworths store to pick up some sandwiches for lunch as we knew that there wouldn’t be any place to buy food along the way. A quick look in the rearview mirror showed that Mt Taranaki was free of cloud so we sought a viewpoint […]
Read More
Our First Day of Touring in NZ
Yesterday was a grey day with drizzle, interspersed with frequent heavy showers and very occasional patches of blue in the sky. There aren’t a great number of interesting sights in Palmerston North but before leaving, we scouted out the extensive, and quite beautiful, parklands and the city square with its tall clocktower. In the mid-19th […]
Read More
We’ve Begun a New Driving Tour of New Zealand.
Yesterday, we left for our next driving tour of New Zealand. This time to the North Island. We’ve planned our route with a view of maximizing scenery, and optimizing, driving times and distances. We may deviate from this route, as we go, depending on our whims, the weather and the available scenery but this is […]
Read More
Activities Around The Turn of the 20th Century – Part One
It’s another hot day (44C) with strong winds and many bush fires burning throughout the state. It seems a bit surreal checking my emergency app and listening to the radio messages telling people to evacuate from many places. I’m keeping cool again with the air-con on and following up my post of Old Mebourne with […]
Read More
My Milford Sound Photos are Recovered
I was extremely disappointed to find the my camera card was corrupt on the day that we drove to Milford Sound from Te Anau. This is one of the most scenic areas of New Zealand. However, patience has its virtues. When I discovered that there were no images on the memory card, I immediately removed […]
Read More
Christchurch – Our Last Days in New Zealand
On Tuesday 22 February 2011, Christchurch was badly damaged by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, which killed 185 people and injured several thousand. The earthquake epicentre was just 10 kilometres south-east of Christchurch’s central business district, only a few months after a previous quake in September 2010 . This was just a few months after our […]
Read More
Back to Christchurch
Saturday was the last of our long driving days as we returned to Christchurch. Our trip also completed the central loop of our ’figure eight’ tour of New Zealand’s south island – a driving trip of 4,250 kilometres. We started the day by driving down the west coast from Punakaiki through Greymouth to Kumera Junction […]
Read More