Rakiura Track - Our Stewart Island Experience

Sometimes, our timing is just impeccable. Not only does it seem that we've picked the year for a really bad (wet, cold, windy) summer here in NZ, but, we managed to book our three-day tramp on the Rakiura Track smack-dab in the middle of an "explosive cyclogenesis" otherwise known as a "weather bomb"....

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Penguins and Sea Lions - Dunedin NZ

The same evening as our visit to the Royal Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula, near Dunedin NZ, we signed on for a nature tour to a private conservation area where we hoped to see rare yellow-eyed penguins and Hooker Sea Lions. It was a rare dry, golden evening when we arrived at the head where...

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Royal Albatross Centre - Dunedin NZ

When we visited Dunedin via cruise ship last November we discovered the existence of the Royal Albatross Centre http://albatross.org.nz/. It would have been expensive to visit as a cruise ship shore excursion. There wasn't going to be much bird activity in November anyway as incubation is just starting...

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Steampunk?

You'll have noticed in the last post that we were very impressed with the small town of Oamaru NZ. It wasn't only the tremendous architecture in the 'Victorian Precinct' that intrigued us, but, also the introduction to another new (to us) subculture, known as 'Steampunk'. What is it? The term was first...

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Oamaru NZ

We headed south from Christchurch, hugging the east coast, on our way to Dunedin. To be honest, it was a very flat and boring drive. Then, there was Oamaru. Lonely Planet briefly mentioned a 'Victorian Precinct' in the town. It was a good location to stop for the night. We thought we'd have a look....

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Christchurch NZ

We needed to get to Christchurch to pick up our 'new' van for the last three weeks of our NZ road trip. We'd been reading in the newspapers about how Christchurch has been 'rebuilding' and some of the many problems they are encountering with money, delays and politics. However, we weren't quite prepared...

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