After leaving Franz Josef (the town and the glacier) we stopped in to see the nearby Fox Glacier. Along with Franz Josef, it is unique in descending 13 kms from the Southern Alps to less than 300 metres (980 ft) above sea level, amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest. Although retreating for most of the last hundred years, both have been advancing since the mid 80's but we won't be getting into a global warming debate here. DH had sati...

Concerned that I am not as enthused as I need to be wrt the stunning landscapes that NZ offers up, DH takes back the pen.Early the next day, and a big left-side drive day for Vic. We are very appreciative of the nice weather that is back with us. I love the mornings here particularly. The sun coming up over the mountains onto the fields of cows and sheep, and the sparkling coastal glimpses. To me its " God, it's great to be alive" scenery. Maybe I am a litt...

As our mission to find a reasonably priced item or activity in New Zealand continued, we left the Rotorua area and headed south with brief stops in Taupo (the Skydiving Capital of New Zealand), Taihape (the Gumboot Capital of New Zealand- really… the best symbol this town could identify with was a rubber boot?), Bulls (the Bull Capital of New Zealand- this town was very enthusiastic about using ‘Bull’ as a descriptor, and, no bull, their sister ...

As a note of caution, if you are prone to nightmares after hearing stories involving very expensive food, accommodation, activities, etc. you might want to quickly skim over this blog entry (and most of the other New Zealand entries). Since entering NZ airspace we've had emails from a number of friends who list this country high on their bucket list- nothing wrong with that- there's lot's of spectacular vistas here- but you might want to re-mortgage y...

Apparently learning to surf is not an activity you should be leaving to your life of retirement- something about flexible joints and the ability to jump from the prone position to upright without using a sand dial to time the jump. Nonetheless DH sees herself as something of a surfer dudette who has just not had the opportunity to ‘hang ten’ (or in our case, 'hang two'), so after our visits with the rel’ees in the Auckland area we drove,...