But, as with everything, good times have to end. We arrived back in Queenstown in the early evening, in time for a beautiful sunset and a final dinner with new friends. It has truly been an amazing trip and I think New Zealand has jumped up to be our favorite place on the planet! The…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand From Queenstown, we were off to visit one of the South Island’s Crown Jewels — Milford Sound and Fjordland National Park. The drive takes about 5 hours, especially with all the photo stops. In order to get there by car, you have to drive through the…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand Our next stop would be Queenstown, the “adrenaline capital of the world.” It was another long day on the road, with a few stops for impromptu cattle and sheep drives, a stop along the river for lunch (where the blowflies drove us out within about 5…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand The next day was a long day of driving. Of course, by this time, everyone had gotten to know each other pretty well and, with three women and one man in the van, the conversations would inevitably turn to how men screw over women. In this…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand While the East Coast of the South Island is pretty genteel, the West Coast is wild and wooly. If you want adventure, you’ve come to the right place! And one of the things to see around here is caves. This part of the coast is honeycombed…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand From the very laid back Kaikoura, we made our way to Christchurch, the most English of New Zealand’s cities. Settled in the mid-1800s on the banks of the Avon River, the original plan was to create a model Church of England community. While it was originally…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand As we headed south, we spent a few days in the seaside town of Kaikoura, New Zealand’s marine life center. It is nestled between the Kaikoura Ranges and the ocean. In fact, it is notable for how narrow the coastal plain actually is. One of the…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand Today, we got a very early start, getting on the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sound to New Zealand’s South Island. After a spectacular sunrise, we enjoyed a very calm transit of about 3.5 hours enroute to Picton. Some of our group…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand As we headed south towards Wellington, we increasingly left the isolated, natural beauty behind for things more aligned with civilization and culture. Our first stop was outside Waihi at the Martha Mine. As I noted in an earlier post, hard rock mining had largely waned in…
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This is part of a series called New Zealand After spending a quick evening in Auckland, we headed out to the Coromandel Peninsula, one of the most scenic coastlines in New Zealand. The Coromandel has nearly 250 miles of coastline to explore and around 100 offshore islands to admire. For many years, the industry on…
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