Blogs from Mount Ruapehu, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

After breakfast I suggested we take a walk in the reserve before we started our long drive. I'd imagined an interesting woodland walk and it turned out to be intetesting, but not quite for the reasons I'd imagined. The mild arachnophobia and herpetophobia of Ed and Cas was soon stimulated by all the curved vines, strange noises, dropping leaves and cobwebs strung across the pathway! Three of us were quite pleased to be out of the jungle. Tiger Lily Jones, who had been out wood guide and led us from the front throughout, seemed quite oblivious to the tension in the rear ranks. We've travelled about two thirds of the way down the North Island and, given that we have about seven days left, we decided to start heading north again. It was our longest day ... read more

Made it back to ohakune for 10 days. Then headed to the South island. Nelsen, Abel Tasman, Nelson lakes then worked our way down the west coast and on in to Queenstown.... read more

After staying with James in Auckland for a couple of nights a was due to get the bus down to National Park for the ski season at around 8am. Unfortunately we had been a bit mashed the night before and when I got ready to go, I found out that I was locked in the house and couldn't find a key for the front door. I couldn't wake James up and thought I was going to miss my bus but luckily I managed to get a key off one of his flat mates and blag a lift down to the bus station. I slept the majority of the 8 hour journey (4 hours in a car!) which involved two changes; one in Rotorua and one in Turangi. I finally arrived at the lodge and settled into ... read more

November 3, 2009 I spent the first two weeks of my time here in New Zealand being a tour guide for my Mom and Aunt Betty, as we put 4500 km (about 2500 miles) on a rental car trying to see as much of the country as possible. It was a great time, but by the end of it, I was looking forward to getting off the roads and into the wilderness. After dropping off my Mom and Aunt at the airport in Auckland, I met up with Eric at Nigel and Tamara’s house- friends we met during our last trip. We spent two nights with them, hanging around the city, getting haircuts on the deck, and enjoying fantastic hospitality. Then, yesterday morning, we caught a bus out of the city to get to Turangi, a ... read more