I’ve spent 8 days in the North Island of New Zealand – all but two were rainy. Our Auckland stay was spread over two weeks, we started with an unexpected day in Auckland because we missed our connecting flight – hop on/hop off bus around town in the rain (with a midday trip back to... Continue Reading →

Because of the rain, we had to set up the plans on a daily basis for the following day (which looked like a complete washout in the morning and maybe dry in the afternoon south of Auckland), so we planned on visiting some caves in the morning and Hobbiton in the afternoon. Glowworm Caves On... Continue Reading →

Auckland I am posting this from the Auckland Airport – checked in having accomplished the primary objective on this trip – leaving on time. Except for the day down the Waitomo Caves and Rotorua, I stayed local in Auckland. Auckland is a major city – larger than I was expecting. Auckland is much closer in... Continue Reading →

My trip to New Zealand morphed a bit over time, originally it was going to be a week stop over as I was moving back to the USA and I plotted out a week long bike ride on the South Island hitting some places I had been and new ones too. Between no takers on... Continue Reading →

The day started in Lake Tenaka watching the Rugby World Cup – 8am local start time with New Zealand and South Africa. We watched from our AirBNB as we were sure where to go in this little town – we found out later we could have gone pretty much anywhere and the game was on... Continue Reading →

Continuing our drive to Mt. Cook (Aoraki historical indigenous name), we passed Lake Puluski which had an incredible blue color (from the glacier tailings) and the initial views of Mt. Cook. We had bright blue sky all day and actually concerned about sunburn. Mt. Cook is about 13,000 feet and the relief is over 10,000... Continue Reading →

After the day at Milford Sound, we took the bus back to Queenstown and got some more spectacular views that we missed on outbound trip earlier in the day due to snow. Got some great sky by Lake Wakatipu at sunset before our feast at The Flame. Drive back to Queenstown from Milford Sound -... Continue Reading →

We took an extended weekend to the south island of New Zealand – we flew into Queenstown and out of Christchurch. Weather in early spring in New Zealand is sketchy, so a couple of days before the trip the weather forecast was 90% rain for the entire trip. When we landed in Queesntown, it was... Continue Reading →