New Zealand: the Last Two Weeks

The past few weeks have passed by in a flurry. This is an exceedingly belated entry written by the poolside in Fiji. These are more notes to myself I suppose, notes so I don’t forget. I spent some of today reading the handwritten drafts that eventually become my blogs. It reminds me to get my [...]

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Maori Madness

The only issue I have with Stray is the constant early mornings. At least with the car you can dictate when you want to get up… 7:30am every day when you are on holiday is not always the most fun. But Stray is all about getting you “out there” and that generally means longer drives [...]

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Stray bus!

I said I wouldn’t. After travelling with my own car for ages, watching tour bus upon tour bus descend on our pristine sights, I said I wouldn’t. But I have. I’ve joined the Stray bus. And frankly, I couldn’t be happier about it. Don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned Sunny (our rental car) completely – he [...]

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From Beach to Sun-drenched Beach

Coastal drives seem to be the thing to do in NZ. All the North Island Kiwis we’ve met up with (some of whom have put us up for the night – thanks Mike and Jodi!) say “South Island has the mountains, but we have the beaches.” This is a claim we are willing to research [...]

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NZ Catch-up, Part One

Wellington is a beautiful anomaly – bright blue sky one minute and stormy clouds the next. The single constant is the wind. It’s the one place I’ve been in the world where you can watch the weather change in front of your eyes. Looking up at the clouds, you can see them getting buffeted by [...]

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We are all made of stars…

It does feel very strange to be without Sarah after basically living inside her pocket for the past 5 months. Our separation took place in Dunedin, but not without a few last minute jaunts. Along with my new travel buddy Lofty, we hit up the Otago peninsular and watched an albatross soar through the air; we [...]

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Middle Earth (aka New Zealand): Part One

It’s the books. It has always been about the books. But when you can’t step into the pages and see the world for yourself, you have to settle for the movie. I always knew I would hunt for Lord of the Rings scenery when I reached New Zealand. It started when I reached Queenstown…
The Fellowship [...]

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Cooking up a storm!

I am now back in Queenstown, after a short detour around the bottom end of the South Island. Since Sarah is going to be leaving the South Island on the 28th, we wanted to make sure she got in as much as possible beforehand. The result was a loop up to Mount Cook and Lake [...]

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Windy & Windy Roads

Sarah and I have become Queens of the highways. With Sunny as our chariot and our tent “Castle II,” we have journeyed along some of New Zealand’s most scenic routes. And, being royalty of rad roadtrips, it only makes sense that our first stop is…
Queenstown
The screams from the bungi jumpers (skydivers/jetboaters/paragliders) can be heard frmo [...]

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Feels like home…

The sight of Franz Josef glacier crawling down into the rainforest is unreal. We are sitting at the base of it, and from this close it looks like a jumble of rocks and debris rather than a huge sheet of ice. That view is soon about to change. Our guide, Cliff (no pun intended… that [...]

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