Well, not quite, but almost. We are starting in the right direction for the first time on our trip. Ever since we left home we've been getting further and further away from it, all the way to New Zealand, the nation furthest away from us. Leaving it in any direction, save heading to Antarctica, means going towards home! We still have plenty to see and do though with almost eighty more days to go. Thus, I'll be writing these excessively long entries for a while st...

We had a great stay at Waikite Valley Thermal Pools, using all of the facilities they provided to the fullest. We soaked in the pools three times, even in the morning before starting to pack our things. They had checkout at noon, which is two hours later than what we've used to and we stayed until then trying to dry our clothes with our car's 2000W heater. We had hand-washed them the night before and left them in the provided drying room, but come morning they we...

I have to start by admitting that this is in no way my invention, but I've found that it's a useful thing for a traveler, so I'm spreading the idea here. I picked this up from http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Roaches , they have other useful information too. My last "Travel Innovations" post was about how to make a wine glass out of two empty plastic bottles. Since we got through a shameful amounts of water bottles each day in Asia I felt compelled to think o...

We left Wellington after a night of some very steep sleep. The parking lot at Rowena's Lodge was on a hill and so was our campervan while we slept in it, luckily it didn't bother us too much. We took to following the SH1 north to make our way all the way to Tongariro National Park, famous for its three volcanoes and the fact that it played a crucial role in the Lord of the Rings movies as Mordor. It was a long drive, the longest we've done on the trip yet, but we...

We took the Interislander ferry from Picton in the south island to Wellington in the north. It was a bit of an investment but one that had to be done, the two of us paid $55 each for the passing with the 5.0 meters long campervan costing another $153. Oh well… We got to the port at about 9.15 a.m., half an hour earlier than the last check in time for the 10.45 ferry. We were directed to a line of other campervans to wait for an hour and a half since the load...