Before even arriving in New Zealand, we had read about the Toast Martinborough Festival, held each November in the wine-producing region near the capital, Wellington. Unfortunately, the event sells out very quickly with only 10,000 tickets offered for sale. By the time we had heard about the festival and figured out that we would be [...]
We check out the creepy Napier Prison – New Zealand’s first – seeing more damage from the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake.
Our trip to sunny Napier on the North Island’s East Coast, home to delicious red wines and a very unique, preserved collection of Art Deco buildings.
Continuing south along the Thermal Explorer Highway, we arrive in Taupo, home to a number of interesting geothermal features and an enormous crater lake formed during one of the largest eruptions in the past 70,000 years.
We explore the bubbling, boiling, hissing, and steaming geothermal attractions in amazing Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island.
We pick up our Jucy rental car, which we used to travel all around New Zealand’s North and South Island for six weeks. First stop – the Waitomo glow worm caves just south of Auckland.
We ascend Auckland’s Sky Tower (the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere), meet up with Erik’s old friends, learn more about New Zealand’s maritime culture, and see a famous comedian in the country’s biggest city.
We had heard a lot of good things about the laid-back beach town of Byron Bay, and made sure to set aside enough time to properly enjoy our stay there. We ended up spending five days there – more than any other stop on our way down Australia’s East Coast – and could have easily [...]
We venture to Queensland’s super-touristy Gold Coast, skipping most of the usual attractions for the opportunity to spot more humpback whales.
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New Zealand’s Fantastic Sauvignon Blancs – Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand
Nursing our hangovers from Toast Martinborough, we woke up insanely early for our ferry journey through the Cook Strait to New Zealand’s South Island. I had never driven on a car ferry before, so this was a new experience for me. After a nice breakfast on board, we found a comfy couch and I settled [...]
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