Waitomo is famous for its caves and glowworms, so we had to check it out! We again seemed to be driving for longer than our GPS initially told us, so I found the number for Glowing Adventures and gave them a call to let them know we might be late for our caving tour. “No … More NZ:Waitomo

This morning I woke up to the sun gently seeping through our tent canopy, birds singing…. and a jack hammer being used for road construction on some nearby highway. There it is – my dose of reality. The evening before, we arrived in Raglan at our next stopping point: Solscape; a hippy’s paradise. I booked … More NZ: Solscape & My Birthday

How could you visit New Zealand and not stop for a cider in the Shire? Unfortunately, I woke up congested… assuming that I picked it up from all the people in my room that were coughing and blowing their noses. Another downside of staying in a hostel. We all dragged ourselves out of bed as … More NZ: Hobbiton

Diving at Tutukaka Today, we all woke up around 4AM and packed up to head to Tutukaka for diving. It’s a little less than a 4 hour drive from Auckland and our tour took off around 8:00… so it was an early morning! Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s (a renowned oceanographer) listed The Poor Knight’s Islands among the top … More NZ: Bay of Islands

I’ve decided to organize my NZ posts by location, which means that this first post includes our first day AND our last day since we started in Auckland and drove south only to return via a domestic flight from Wellington. DAY 1 We arrived in Auckland around 8:30AM after a long 10.5 hour flight from … More NZ: Auckland