We finished our New Zealand trip making our way back up the west coast of the North Island.  We explored the coast line once again as well as Mt. Taranaki, on a bit of an overcast day. We crossed paths with a High School group on a hiking trip for 3 days and while they looked a bit beaten down I took the opportunity to remind them to soak it in...they are very lucky. Our final stop before arriving back in Auckland was Raglan, an “artsy/bohemian” town as t...

Our final stop on the South Island was Kaikoura. From Franz Josef we had a brief stop in Reefton, a small town on the Lewis pass known for its mining history. Then onward to Kaikoura, a small tourist town just north of Christchurch, that made international news in 2016 after a 7.8 earthquake. The town continues to rebuild and the road between Kaikoura and Picton only recently opened. Kaikoura is well known for its marine life. Sperm whales and dusky dolphins...

Our drive up to Franz Josef was a bit of a mixed bag of weather. Leaving Wanaka we had beautiful sunshine and as we headed over the pass we started into heavy rain. We geared up for a short walk to the Blue Pools, along the scenic highway, to find that they were now green due to all the rain. As we continued on to Haast and through to Franz Josef we continued to be met by rain and low lying cloud. We had a tour of the glacier booked but it was cancelled to du...

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...