New Zealand Travel Blogs

Packing the fish...
Sep 12, 2005

... it was a nice surprise to find a Japanese girl up on Wednesday night. Rie speaks quite good English considering she's only been in New Zealand for 2 months, and I helped her with the CV that she was writing. She said I was a good teacher! She was preparing ...

Lake Taupo Road Trip
Jul 13, 2004 (5 photos)

... of Thomas' parents. We had a great night, with a few glasses of wine and hearing lots of stories about their time in New Zealand. Thomas enjoyed getting to catch up with them and talk 'shop' with Sav. We spent the night in their guest house which is ...

Kaikoura Whale Watching
Sep 5, 2004 (14 photos)

In July we headed down to Kaikoura for a weekend away and to get out on the whale watching boat. We caught the Bluebridge ferry from Wellington to Picton at the very sociable hour of 3am and tried to convince ourselves that the humming and vibrating of ...

Arrival In New Zealand
Jan 13, 2006 (4 photos)

Our actually day started on Wednesday January 11, 2006 back in Los Angeles as we rushed to get everything done before we took off. The day was filled with packing, shopping, getting pictures taken, giving instructions to the Coveys on what still needed ...

Penguin spotting...and rain!
Nov 21, 2005 (3 photos)

To say that it rained on Sunday would be a massive understatement. I'd not seen rain like it since the floodings in Mount Maunganui. I blame Mum, as once again she declared that "it was brightening up a bit" after a cloudy start to our journey. Soon ...

Home made Yorkshire puddings!
Nov 24, 2005 (11 photos)

... some nice places for the proceeding nights (Hilltop in Papatowai and Freestone Backpackers in Manapouri) so that they'd continue to enjoy the New Zealand experience without me. As for me, I had to pack my things together ahead of my latest jaunt to Oz, ...

Roughing it is an expression, Not a Necessity
May 3, 2007

With the weather against us again, we didn't have much enticing us to stop anywhere and Manchester United were playing AC Milan in the Champions League Semi Final the following morning, Paul was adamant that we find a campsite with Sky television, so we ...

Nature on the Otago Peninsula
Dec 8, 2005 (13 photos)

... walking towards a seal colony, where pups were being born daily. I've certainly seen my fair share of seals since arriving in New Zealand, but these pups were the smallest ones I'd encountered. It was lovely to see a mother sleeping on the rocks with her ...

Kayaking an icon
Jan 4, 2007 (14 photos)

... and another playing in the shallows near our kayaks. We paddled up to the bottom of the Bowen Falls, amongst the highest in New Zealand, but appearing dwarfed by the enormous mountains behind it. We got close enough that I could feel the spray in my hair. ...

Tongariro Crossing
Mar 21, 2005 (5 photos)

The Tongariro Crossing is widely regarded as the best one day walk in New Zealand, and Richard from Wellington had also recommended it to me, and so I decided to give it a shot. Coincidentally, when I went to pay for the bus ticket at Reception the ...

Stunning views of Aoraki
Dec 12, 2005 (19 photos)

... . I had the luxury of 3 days surrounded by such awesome scenery, and I was itching to do some walking while you could see New Zealand's highest mountain in all its glory. We arrived at the YHA at midday and it seemed like a lovely place, with spacious ...

A whale's tail
Dec 22, 2006 (14 photos)

The summer holidays had arrived. With a spring in my step I boarded the Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Christchurch. I gazed out of the plane window at the velvety blue sea, the warm and shining arc of Golden Bay, the long tongue of sand ...

Windy Wellington
Aug 30, 2004 (4 photos)

Well, I've made it to Wellington via train. I travelled with Brian, a guy from my dorm in Auckland. The trip was nice, but long. Picture twelve hours of rolling hills, sheep, and cows. We had the sudden change of weather which I guess I'll be taking ...

Hogmanay on Waiheke Island
Dec 31, 2004 (9 photos)

... Waiheke Island, just out of Auckland. We stocked up on the beers and a bottle of Jack and started drinking in the New Year, an evening that involved smashing oysters open with hammer and chisel, midnight swimming, and putting a plastered joshy woshy (and ...

Sting rays and stone fish
Jan 19, 2007

... by scuba gear I had no chance of following it, but it was magical; I was very lucky as they are a rare visitor to New Zealand.   The following day we returned to the Tutukaka coast. This time we were beach hopping. We drove through to Sandy Bay, a ...

Doubtful Today
Sep 22, 2004 (9 photos)

I'm back online, but not for long. I got up early this morning and headed to Manapouri. What's in Manapouri? Not much. Lake Manapouri is the starting point for trips to Doubtful Sound. I took the Real Journeys bus in and headed across Lake Manapouri, ...

Teachers in Japan...
Dec 29, 2005

... much holiday I should receive and lots of other things that I have stored in the memory bank. At the moment, I'm obviously still in New Zealand so I am still thinking about that, but as soon as I get home I will switch my attention to Japan and do some ...

Dusky Dolphins
Nov 11, 2005 (11 photos)

... , so after a scenic 2 hour drive, we stopped at Hanmer Springs. Thankfully Stu had forgotten to bring his 'trunks' to New Zealand, so he'd bought some altogether more fashionable swim shorts the previous day. We paid just $10 each and proceeded to have ...

Straight off of 90210
Nov 8, 2004 (3 photos)

... them away quickly. Last night I went to work for the old man. In Bailiez we had a wine taste testing for for the new menus and I was "researching". Of course my "research" was obstructed by the fact that we didn't have anything to spit the wine into. ...

Around the South
Apr 9, 2005 (9 photos)

... ", how could I not stop? I saved two trees myself. It's interesting that in Australia the possum is endangered while in New Zealand they're trying to wipe them out completely. The possum is extremely harmful for the native forest and I wouldn't mind ...

Playing games with Rie!
Sep 19, 2005

... my journey to the bottom of the South Island will begin, stopping briefly in Christchurch to see Yumi one last time before she leaves on Friday. So, I've had an enjoyable 4 weeks in Nelson, but I'm now ready to explore some other areas of New Zealand...

Friends - Old and New
May 3, 2005 (2 photos)

... library and read a biography of Buddy Holly in no time at all...I've become pretty much addicted to his music since I arrived in New Zealand! My latest book is about World War II, as I've decided that I really don't know enough about history in general. I ...

In Hot Water
Dec 29, 2004 (6 photos)

... the shore in torturously twisty fashion, and gives amazing views of isloated beaches, rolling surf and flowering pohutukawas- the New Zealand Christmas tree which bursts into crimson splendour for December and January. It reminded me of Cornwall- with the ...

Overnight fishing trip
Jan 8, 2006 (10 photos)

Ann was impressed with the boardwalk that Graeme and me had made - it meant that a walk to the boat was no longer a hardship. I was surprised to hear that they'd not been out fishing for a whole year, and Graeme attributed it in part to the unavoidable ...

New Zealands own Giants Causeway
Apr 25, 2007 (3 photos)

... happy that we had made the journey. But before I go into this lets go on a side note again. To look at on a map, New Zealand looks to be quite a small country, just a bit bigger than Britain. However when driving along the coast you realize that as the ...

Golden Bay
Jul 3, 2005 (8 photos)

... wind and the sea was very rough, but it was great to be surrounded by vast amounts of untouched sand. For a relatively small country, New Zealand has such diverse scenery. That evening, we drove to the Mussel Inn to watch a Celtic/Pacific band play. I ...

Swing bridge fun
Nov 18, 2005 (10 photos)

... a browse around town the next morning as the sun had made an overdue appearance. As Hokitika is 'the greenstone capital of New Zealand,' I took Mum and Stu inside one of the greenstone factories. We spent ages looking at the different designs, and they ...

Cricket!
Feb 26, 2005 (3 photos)

I spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the New Zealand v Australia ODI Cricket match and it turned out to be a great experience! Despite my love of the game of cricket, I had never been to a match before and so I was delighted to wake up to glorious ...

Whitianga, Coromandel
Jan 2, 2005 (5 photos)

After a day of recovery on the 1st January it was another bus ride to Whitianga in the Coromandel region for a few days of camping. The tent and camping gear had become a bit of a burden by this point but we determined to at least get some use out of it ...

Paihia...
Mar 2, 2005 (2 photos)

... good one. As I might have mentioned before, I used the website www.backpackerboard.co.nz for a number of months before I came to New Zealand. Well there is a superb message board on there with a lot of like minded people, and one of the people was a girl ...