So, the time had finally come for paradise and a small island called Raratonga in The Cook Islands, South Pacific and about 3.5 hours flight from New Zealand. The flight was really good on Air New Zealand - their entertainment system is great with so many films and so much music to listen to...as well as ice creams for dessert, the time flew by (get it?)...and we arrived to a blast of super hot air and a man called Jake playing the ukelele to say Kia Orana (welco...

The drive to Queenstown was lovely. Through mountains and by the side of beautiful lakes, and we stopped a long the Haast Pass to see the Blue Lakes. These are super clear glacier-fed deep azure blue pools. From here, we headed to Wanaka and had a lovely mooch around town, doing some shopping, eating yummy ice creams and sitting by the lake in the lovely sunshine. From here we made the longish journey, arriving in Queenstown in the early evening. We stayed in a l...

So after a stressful morning, Max managed to get his interislander ferry (3.5 hr crossing), $200 less in his pocket for the flipping car towing, and I got the 12 seater Soundsair flight (19 mins) which was actually not too bad, but the plane was like a ping pong ball in the air as we were landing at Picton airport (well a strip of land in between 2 farmhouses and some startled sheep) so I was glad when the wheels were on the ground. I hung around the info centre ...

From Waitomo, we drove to Rotorua, famous for its geothermal landscape - geysers, mineral pools, stinky hot mud pools. It has it all. In Maori legend, Rotorua owes its thermal attractions to the Te Arawa tribe leader who stood on Mt Tongaririo in order to claim the surrounding land. He almost died at the top from the icy wind and cold so to save himself, he sent a prayer to his sisters who responded by sending fire demons to his aid. These demons cut across the o...

We arrived in New Zealand and Auckland airport after a good 3 hour flight from Sydney and had the smoothest immigration, customs and luggage experience ever! We then headed to Jucy to pick up our hire car and after sorting all the paperwork, getting the ski rack on the roof and collecting the hundreds of free maps, we headed across Auckland to North Shore and Takapuna, where we stayed with Paul for a couple of days. We spent the first day on errands - money exch...