Blogs from Russell, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

Nous voici décidés à acheter une voiture pour visiter le pays. De nombreux choix s'offrent à nous, des voitures Japonaises, Chinoises, Australiennes ou encore Allemandes. Après avoir visité plusieurs concessions dans notre budget, les voitures sont plus qu'usées (180 000 kilomètres). Le vendeur nous conseille alors le solution miracle: une voiture Française (Renault Scénic). Pour avoir une autre vision du marché nous avons poussé la porte de Porsche et d'Aston Martin, malheureusement notre budget ne correspond pas du tout (mais elles sont si belles). Après de nombreuses recherches sur internet, des pots de yaourts en passant par les vieux tacots, voilà notre coup de coeur: Volkswagen 1997 (la même voiture de collection que Papa Jans pour ceux qui connaissent ^^). Une fois la voiture achetée, les documents administratifs remplis, nous profitons d'un week end allongé (fête ... read more

Well, it’s all over but the packing…all reservations are made, calendars filled, kilos lost in anticipation of the upcoming trip…we had a couple of hiccups tho, which was to be expected. Just when we thought it was safe to mentally settle into our apartment in the the Marais in Paris, we got a notification that the plumbing had crapped out (...sorry about that….) and we had to find other accomodation….during the busiest week of the year for tourism…..one month out….. Let your fingers do the walking, I always say….I found a hotel by Les Invalides for less than the apartment and booked it immediately. WWW.Booking.com is wonderful as most of the reservations do not require payment until arrival, and free cancellation up until 48 hours before. This was our backup, in case we couldn’t get an ... read more

The Best Button Of All GPS's have made a remarkable difference to self guided touring.... both for the worse and for the better. Picking up my campervan this morning, and with little to no idea of where I was going to end up but knowing that I was wanting to head north, I plugged in the name of Orewa into the GPS. This little seaside town to the north of Auckland allowed me to negotiate traffic and motorways safely to the other side of the Auckland Bridge and then depart the motorway as soon as possible. Her's where GPS's are bad.... they take the adventure out of trying to drive, hold an unfolded map, and instinctively know which lane you need to be in. Here's where they're brilliant.... Once in Orewa and the nerves of driving ... read more

Tramping continues to be one of our favourite activities since it affords us an opportunity to experience great vistas and to get off the beaten track. The most challenging tramp we have done so far was the Kauaeranga Track located on the southern part of the Coromandel Peninsula, southeast of Auckland. The origins of this track go back to the 1860s when it was used to bring in supplies by pack horse to those logging large Kauri trees high up and deep in the bush. This tramp proved to be the longest in terms of time - about 8.5 hours - as well as the steepest. There were sections requiring ladders, clambering up and over boulders, and to reach the top of the pinnacles, pulling ourselves up by iron rungs embedded in the rock. The effort ... read more

The Tumbleweed is blowing through the empty camps of the home nations teams and a second rate France team is on their way to getting stuffed in the Final game. The referee for the Wales/France game is hiring Salmon Rushdie’s bodyguard team and the Kiwi’s are all smiles now. Anyway Roy, Orbison will soon be singing “its over” and we can all go home, or in our case head north to Oz. Earlier, on the road up from Wellington on our way to Auckland we stopped at Whangeria where the minor road that follows the river is constantly being washed out due to the rain leeching away the sandy soil taking the road with it. There is a permanent team who work at keeping the route clear, with part of the road being a gravel track ... read more