MOVING MOUNTAINS

It’s weird to think that our 7-month trip around New Zealand is almost coming to an end. I guess the cliché is true; time sure does fly when you’re having fun.

POSTCARDS FROM NEW ZEALAND

Wanaka and Queenstown (and around) were probably the places we were most excited about when we came to the South Island. According to Kiwi’s though, you’re supposed to prefer either or. To be honest, I’m not ready for that kind of commitment so I’m going to let you guys do the judging by this post.

#BIRDNERD

DAY 148 – Justin is slowly but surely transitioning into a massive bird nerd. Nothing will stop him from capturing these feathered creatures on his camera. Send help.

To be fair, you don’t just travel to New Zealand and nót become a bird nerd.

SOUTH WE GO

I’m writing this as we’re (Justin is) driving along the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, FINALLY we’re here!
The last weeks were mostly filled with the holidays, family time, cruising around towns and places I’ve written about before (Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Rotorua mostly), and sadly also dealing with a stomach bug for a bit.
But! We’re back on the road now and boy are we excited to be on the South Island.

VITAMIN SEA

I can’t believe we’ve been in New Zealand for over 3 months now. I don’t want to say it, but time sure does fly when you’re having fun (that’s all the cheesy sayings I will be using in this post).

We’ve been spending the last few months discovering the North Island, which to some may seem like a long time, considering other people go for trips around the entire country in just 3 weeks. But we’ve actually still not seen everything we want to see on this part of New Zealand.

THE BIRDS

 

As we’re still waiting for it to get a bit warmer before we head off to go diving/snorkelling/boating and other summery things, we decided we’d go on a little trip to Auckland.

We’ll probably do a bunch more Auckland trips as there’s just so much to see and do over there.

DRIVING THROUGH MORDOR

If there’s one thing about New Zealand that never ceases to amaze me, it’s how quickly the weather and landscape can change. One moment we’re standing on a beach in t-shirts, and the other bundled up on a mountain throwing snowballs.

We’ve driven past beaches, over bridges, through gorges and even across what looked like lunar landscapes.

During our last roadtrip we saw all of the above within a timeframe of 72 hours.

WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN

It’s been some time since my last update on here, and that mainly has to do with the weather in New Zealand at the moment. It has been raining for weeks now and that means we haven’t been able to do much exploring. We knew August/September is rain season here, but we really didn’t want to wait any longer to go on our trip, so we’ll just have to grin and bear it!

MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING

I don’t really work out. Sometimes I try doing it for a week (two days) and then it sort of just stops. Needless to say I was a bit worried about our next adventure; making our way to the top of the Pinnacles.

UP IN THE TREES

If there’s one thing I remember about Rotorua, it’s that lovely, penetrating rotten egg smell. However, after having a look around all Rotorua has to offer, that smell quickly disappears to the background (well.. to a certain extent).

Nicknamed ‘Sulphur City’, Rotorua’s distinctive smell comes from the hydrogen sulphide emissions in the area. I learned that because of this, people sometimes also refer to it as ‘rotten-rua’. The more you know..

CHASING SECRET WATERFALLS

I think it’s safe to say that the last few days in NZ have been our most eventful yet. Which I know isn’t that surprising since we’ve only been here a little over 2 weeks. Though I’m pretty sure we’ve had quite the once-in-a-lifetime-experience this week!

MOUNT MAUNGA-WHO-EY?

I figured you all must be (im)patiently waiting for my next post, so here’s some photo’s and an update from our first week in New Zealand.