Travel blog

Wicked fun In Ashburton parts of the river bed are dry leaving plenty of room for playing in 4x4s, traversing the shallower (or deep if you’re Steve) parts of the river as you go. The morning, as I’d imagine any river racing experience, didn’t go without its mishaps. Steve managed … Read More

Driving from Ashburton along the West coast towards Dunedin we left behind the flats of the Canterbury planes and the scenery became more and more spectacular. Our first stop was the Moeraki Boulders. A bizarre phenomena. Spherical boulders with honeycomb like centre resting on a beach. Some of these boulders … Read More

Our morning in Dunedin was spent on the Taieri Gorge Railway, billed as ‘One of the world’s great train trips’. The journey took us through the rugged mountain interior of central Otago. The scenery was stunning, the carriages old style and very comfortable with sliding windows, perfect for taking pictures … Read More

In one word … QUIET. Ashburton is like a ghost town. Nothing on the road, nobody wandering around town, just a whole lot of quietness. Soooo different to home. Nice, but I’m not sure I could live with all the quietness. On New Years Day we headed out to the … Read More

Our last morning in Auckland and we were back at the Sky Tower. Today Andy was going to launch himself from a platform 192 metres up the building and land on his feet at the bottom – the Sky Jump. I’d done the jump last time I was in Auckland … Read More

The last time I posted I was in America. It’s now seven months later. I have a ‘real’ job and I’m in New Zealand – for a month. I have a new way of blogging – much shorter posts. That way maybe I’ll get most of this trip on here … Read More

My first trip with a boyfriend. This could be interesting! I’ve never so much as been on holiday with a boyfriend before. Will we still be friends when we get back? – I hope so. So far it’s been great. After an uncomfortable plane ride we arrived in Auckland on … Read More

Today was the day I’d been dreading but looking forward to at the same time. Still getting over the jet-lag we were up extra early. Andy had turned to me at 1am and woke me up excitedly saying: “Babe, babe, we’re in New Zealand.” “Go back to sleep it’s the … Read More

We left the Whitsundays behind and moved on to Agnes Water and Town of 1770 (what a cool name for a town). This was a mammoth drive so along the way we stopped at an Aboriginal culture centre in Rockhampton. Here we learnt how to throw a boomerang were given … Read More

Whitsunday Island is hailed by the Lonely Planet as: “Food for the soul.” It’s enduring image Whitehaven Beach, stretching over six kilometers of pristine white sands, is described as the longest and “finest” beach in Australia. This was the destination of today’s excursion. Accompanied by a potentially annoying gaggle of … Read More

Time to get back to my Australian adventure… Our first mammoth travelling day began with a false start. We’d intended to drive the short distance to Mission Beach and spend some time snorkeling and enjoying the nearby Dunk Island. But we arrived in the pouring rain to find a storm … Read More

Universal studios was much more a park for adults, a pleasant change from Disney. But we arrived late because Dad and Naomi went to a time-share meeting to get cheap tickets so we had to rush it a bit. We brought fast queue passes so we didn’t have to wait … Read More