After leaving the ship from Doubtful, we headed to Queenstown which sits in amongst the Southern Alps at the bend in Lake Wakatipu and a backdrop of the Remarkables. Everywhere you look there are peaks! Most of the locals we talked to had suggested that we stay outside of Queenstown in either Arrowtown, or Wanaka, as Queenstown is busy and expensive. We found a little town between Wanaka and Queenstown, named Cardrona, consisting of a hotel, a general store, an...

There are two things we have done consistently on our trip, we always stop at the “i-site” to get up to date information, book outings and pick up maps etc, and we have travelled the “scenic routes” of New Zealand which have taken us along the coastline for most of our trip. On two occasions we have taken the inland scenic highway...and either way all of it is scenic! We were told by locals that the South Island has the most spectacular landscape of Ne...

We arrived into Dunedin on a beautiful sunny day, and a day before the remnants of cyclone Gita (no worries mum...all good). Dunedin is a city with Maori and Scottish heritage. They say the Scottish took to it due to the rocky shore line and similar climate. The city has a large student population and a draw for those who enjoy the city centre and being close to nature’s wonders...you can experience both in a day as they are really only 10-20 minutes away fr...

Our travels from the west coast back to the east took us through Arthur’s Pass with beautiful landscapes and winding roads. We arrived in Christchurch to explore the surrounding areas and use the city as our home base. For those of you that remember the news in 2011 Christchurch experienced a series of earthquakes that devastated the downtown area. The city continues to rebuild and is slowly getting back on its feet. We walked the suggested route downtown t...

As we left the Nelson region we decided to stay one night in St. Arnaud, and complete a walking track on Mt. Robert. The track was a variety of switchbacks up the mountain and through some beech trees, across the top and then more switchbacks to complete the loop...all total 9.4km. It was a perfect day as the sun was high and the breeze cool. We checked out a couple of the huts along the route for overnight campers and met a DOC (department of conservation) vo...