Blogs from Taupo, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

My, this travelling on long flights gets harder every year for this old man. We set off from Taupo to Auckland, NZ, early on the Tuesday morning of 6th June. About an hours flight. We meet up with Benita, who was traveling to England to attend the same wedding we were going to. After a wait of 3 hours we boarded our Air NZ flight to Shanghai and were very pleased to find that the flight was not to full and we both were able to claim 3 seats each. This made the fight of 12 hours so much easier as we could stretch out and I could actually get some sleep, which is unusual for me. I 'm not good at sleeping on flights. When we reached Shanghai the move to the transfer area was ... read more

Loved the place so much we decided to stay for another day. The marina is an investment area … 142 moorings (called allotments) only … there are NO fees … the boat owner OWNS the allotment … current price per allotment $500 000. Definitely a wealthy person’s area. A further 1 000 blocks are being developed in the countryside around Kinloch, however the number of moorings will remain at 142 … supply and demand … drives the price up. We’ve researched the Hicks Bay to Gisborne to Napier to Hastings road conditions … infrastructure damage … e.g. bridges swept away … property damage etc … absolute destruction in sections … Landslips, washaways, rivers broken banks … so will reassess our routes in 2-3 days’ time depending on road openings. Jane is reluctant, I am waiting on ... read more

Sorry! I have been so busy doing nothing that I didn't get around to completing my story of our travels to Norway and England. As we have been home for 4 months I will try to remember what where and when we did things. After spending our 4 weeks with Pete and Helen in Corsham we traveled by bus up to London where we took up residence in the St Giles Hotel situated close to the world famous London shopping street, Oxford St. We were joined at the Hotel by our friends, Lydia and Michael, from NZ and were very lucky to have their company for our 4 days in London. Lydia and Michael were in London to visit their daughter and her new twin daughters. Great excitement for them as they had been hanging out ... read more

Well, Hello Again. After about 5 months of no blog I feel it is time to outline some big changes in our life. There have been some exciting happenings over the last half year. But at the present time the most exciting news is that we are going to leave NZ for a few weeks to travel to Norway once again, to see our family after not being able to travel since October 2019 due to Govid. So excited to be able to catch up with Chris, Hege, Lilly and Stella in person, rather than relying on Snap Chats, Skype etc. To be able to physically hug everyone will be amazing. To be able to see how much the girls have grown since our last visit, to watch their sport, to walk in the hills, and ... read more

Taupo has always stuck in our minds as a beautiful place, the North Island's equivalent of Queenstown - the latter dubbed as the adventure capital of NZ and the former a smaller version of in many ways. A typical lakeside town with restaurants and cafes along the front and snow capped mountains in the distant views, except these were nowhere to be seen. Couple with the rain of course are many a cloud that hang around the peaks, obscuring the vistas. We had doubted our memory on arrival as only small hills were visible, but the next day's sunshine brought clearer skies and our freedom campsite, backed up to the lakefront, looked directly into Mount Tongariro, the volcanic icon of Tongariro National Park. After the wet day on arrival, and still lacking our full outdoor waterproofs, ... read more