A fitting end to our journey in New Zealand was a visit to the magical Waitmo Caves: one of natures greatest shows. Underneath the area lies a labyrinth of underground rivers that play home to thousands of tiny glow-worms that make this area world famous. We were lucky enough to have a local Maori guide [...]
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You can smell Roturua before you have even arrived, the pervasive eggy odour has given the city the nickname ‘Sulphur City’. Despite the smell, the sulphur-rich air of Rotorua ensures you get a taste of NZ’s most dynamic thermal area with spurting geysers, steaming hot springs and exploding mud pools. The Wai-O-Tapu thermal area is one of the [...]
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After 80 days on the road we finally came a cropper on the windy roads out of Wellington when our little van Ettie decided she wanted a night off and we broke down. All of a sudden all the dashboard lights lit up like the Trafalgar sq Christmas tree, so we pulled off the motorway!! [...]
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Our South Island adventure drew to a close as we crossed the Cook Straits by ferry into the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. In recent years the capital has become the centre of the movie world as the Lord of The Rings, King Kong & Avatar were all filmed here so we took the opportunity [...]
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Abel Tasman is located at the north of the South Island and is NZ’s smallest national park but size isn’t everything, as it’s a stunning lush forested area surrounded by beautiful turquoise sea and magical golden bays. It enjoys a bit of a micro-climate and has sun and relatively mild weather all year round. Not [...]
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The little township of Fox, on the western coast of NZ, is home to a unique glacier, where the flip flop explorers kicked off their sandals and donned big leather army boots with metal crampons for the day to scale the icy heights!
The glacier is 13km long and after a 2hour hike through lush rainforest [...]
All the stunning scenery, amazing wildlife and life-changing experiences of the South Island come at a price, we have discovered, in the form of the menacing Sandfly! On route to Milford Sound we began reading tales about plagues of these Dracula winged insects that are just waiting for fresh blood to get their teeth into!! [...]
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Queenstown is arguably the adrenaline activity capital of world so it was on top of our must visit places when we arrived in NZ. With so much to choose it was never going to be the easiest choice to decide what to do but Queenstown was made famous for not only bungy jumping but also [...]
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It wasn’t really a jump or a dive, I was kind of gently nudged over the ledge on the Kawarau Bridge bungy jump, the historic home of bungy, just outside Queenstown. At 43m it is pretty low compared to many others but let me tell you that it is a very long way to drop [...]
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We decided to get up close and personal with the far less accessible Doubtful Sound by having a full day on the lake with a kayak! We booked with a local company and we were a group of ten plus one guide. A 45 minute speedboat ride across the second biggest lake in NZ followed [...]
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