Walter Peak station
Our day off in Queenstown was vewy vewy kwiet (Elmer Fudd voice). We’d been on the road for a while by now, with mostly very full days. Peter and I had done the gondola ride up to the lookout last … Continued
Our day off in Queenstown was vewy vewy kwiet (Elmer Fudd voice). We’d been on the road for a while by now, with mostly very full days. Peter and I had done the gondola ride up to the lookout last … Continued
The morning dawned bright and relatively clear. Fresh snow had fallen on the mountains overnight and there was a chance the fliers would be able to go up to the glaciers. Unfortunately, the conditions have to be just right and … Continued
We left Christchurch heading over the Southern Alps to the west coast via Arthur’s Pass. If we’d been in town on a different day we would have caught the famous Trans-Alpine train from a station in Christchurch, Linda would have … Continued
We waved goodbye to Kaikoura as we headed south toward the South Island’s largest town, Christchurch. As we drove through the beautiful countryside, Linda told us about the 2010/11 earthquakes which – you guessed it – devastated the city. I’ve … Continued
It was time to catch the inter island ferry. Linda dropped us off at the terminal, gave us our tickets, and went to load the bus on the ship. It’s hardly necessary to say we weren’t the only ones waiting; … Continued
The Gallipoli exhibition at Wellington’s Te Papa gallery is hands down the best such presentation I have ever seen. Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) troops, along with British, Indian, and French soldiers, landed on beaches along the Dardanelles … Continued
From Napier our Ultimate coach took us south to Wellington, our last stop on the North Island. The city is New Zealand’s capital and has been since 1865, supplanting Auckland in that role. In Australia, Canberra was created halfway between … Continued
We had breakfast in that award-winning restaurant at the Regent the morning after our long day in Rotorua. Most hotels offered buffet breakfasts but this one was a la carte. Which is fine if management and staff have some plan … Continued
No trip to Rotorua is complete without a visit to the geysers. After we’d finished our wonderful show at the Agrodome we went to the Māori Cultural Centre at Te Puia where we met a lovely young lady who was … Continued
Everybody has heard of Rotorua, land of bubbling mud and steaming geysers. But I didn’t know there was a Lake Rotorua. It formed in the caldera of a volcano that erupted about two hundred thousand years ago. The town of … Continued