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 […]
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Onwards 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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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki
After two days of driving, we set yesterdayaside to explore the local area around Mount Taranaki and New Plymouth. We left our motel around mid-morning and drove about 30 kms to New Plymouth on the western coast. New Plymouth It is named after the English city of Plymouth, in Devon, UK from where the first […]
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