Hello everyone! We do hope you are all well. We have now migrated to the South Island! We arrived yesterday after a VERY rough and windy crossing for 3 and a half hours on the BlueBridge ferry. We spent most of the time outside on the side of the ship watching the waves crashing and the ship bobbing up and down like a cork! Sitting inside was not a good plan.... the motion made both of us feel a bit ill! We did have a bit of a mare when trying to get off the f...

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! It is Christmas Day here with us, we are cooking Christmas lunch with all the trimmings... pigs in blankets and yorkshire puddings too (even though it's a chicken not beef that we're cooking!) it's really nice and hot here, probably 29 deg C, not a cloud in the sky and really quiet. We're going to head to the beach later to toast some marshmallows over a fire! Not exactly your average christmas day, but then it's not exactly snowing or ...

So, once we had a night at Lake Tutira (just north of Napier) it was now a sunday, and after the realisation that we had limited food supplies left, namely lots of noodles and pasta but nothing to go with them, we wondered whether NZ would be up to date with the times and have sunday opening hours. It was a hot sunny day as we drove into Napier and we parked up to have a look around. Napier, following massive earthquake that destroyed much of Napier and Hastings ...

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting a new blog. We've been out of internet access for over a week now but at least this means we have lots of news! Last time we posted a blog we had just seen a Kiwi bird in a Dept of Conservation (DOC) campsite near Dargaville. From there we drove back to Auckland, going back via a glorified shop called "Kauri Kingdom". We decided to stop as the Lonely Planet guide said that there was a staircase in there car...

Hello! We finally got a car after a week of searching in Auckland & drove out up to Waipu on Wed 18th. Car's an automatic so not so used to that! especially on hill starts! We discovered our first beach which was great and nice to get onto the sand. after a couple of days in and around waipu we headed up to whangerei. it was quite a big city so a bit of a change from waipu which was literally one street! we went to explore the caves and waterfalls and bought...