It's not often you will find me waxing lyrical about shopping, but the whole purpose of this particular blog entry is to tell you about a useful little town called Otaki which is just full of branded outlet shops. As you may remember, we had become enthused about Icebreaker clothing while we were in the South Island. We nearly splashed the cash again in Wellington when we found a 20% off sale at one store, but I'd discovered that there was an outlet shop just n...

We didn't have high expectation of Wellington after crappy Auckland, but decided to stay a few nights before heading up to my dad and Jan's wedding in the Bay of Islands as we wouldn't be going back down that far on our tour of the North Island. How wrong could we be. Wellington actually turned out to be a great laugh and a very enjoyable and memorable weekend. On Thursday afternoon as we disembarked the ferry from Picton to Wellington we overheard a conversat...

On our journey around New Zealand we have been noting down every campervan rental company which we have actually seen. With our time in the South Island at an end, we thought we would publish the full list below. Pride of place, however, should go to the Rental Car Village, from where we rented our own van, Blanche. Abell Rentals http://www.abell.co.nz/Abuzzy Motorhomes http://www.abuzzy.co.nz/Ace Rental Cars http://www.acerentalcars.co.nz/Adventure Vans http:...

Our route from Nelson took us east to Havelock for the sole purpose of eating the renowned local Green Lipped Mussels. Well, the plan was that I'd do the eating and Katy would hopefully find something other than a salad on the menu. En route, we saw many vintage cars, several of them being Rolls-Royces. We think there must have been some kind of event going on. The only other point of note on the journey was a stop at Pelorus Bridge. It was a very hot day an...

After Abel Tasman we went back to Nelson for a few days to do a spot of shopping and soak up the sun on the beach. Ever since buying an unusual necklace in Wanaka just before Christmas I'd been looking for a plain black t-shirt to wear with it. I know I'm not the type to wear jewellery but this necklace took my fancy as it was made from the bit you turn on a tap. Over the last month we'd looked in various shops for a black t-shirt but couldn't find one just rig...