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Rangitoto Island: Our Final Day in New Zealand

Rangitoto Island: Our Final Day in New Zealand
It’s over a year since I left New Zealand and I have no idea where the time has gone. In some respects it feels like only yesterday that we were backpacking around the two islands and seeing some incredible sights, but it also feels like a lifetime ago. There’s still one very special story from my time in New Zealand that I haven’t shared yet, and so here it is just over one year on. View Post

Travelling with Kiwi Experience

Travelling with Kiwi Experience
Since we’ve come back from our backpacking trip in New Zealand one of the things I have been asked most frequently is how we travelled around. The simple answer is by bus; more specifically the Kiwi Experience bus which we discovered in the STA travel brochure. Initially we liked the idea of travelling in a camper van but a bit of research suggested it was going to be much more expensive for just two of us and whilst in some ways we would have more flexibility, in other ways we would have less. Kiwi Experience is very much what you make of it and I feel like we learned more about it on the trip than we had done in advance. View Post

Top 10 New Zealand Experiences

Top 10 New Zealand Experiences
I wrote a lot of posts about New Zealand whilst we were away, and each place that we visited contained new highlights and things that I’ll remember forever. When people ask what my favourite things to do and places to see were, I have some obvious memorable moments. However, the more I think about a certain place, the more I remember and usually end up decided that that was a highlight to. So, to make things a little easier. Here’s my New Zealand top ten that I’d recommend to anyone travelling there. View Post

Finally seeing a Kiwi

Finally seeing a Kiwi
Kiwi birds are the national symbol of New Zealand so it’s pretty natural to want to see one while you are here but they are notoriously difficult to see in the wild. They are nocturnal, easily scared and there’s not that many of them left. As a result we weren’t really expecting to see them in the wild but just as our trip was coming to an end and we were beginning to wonder if Kiwis were a myth, we managed to see some in captivity. View Post

Wellington

Wellington
I’ve heard Wellington described in a few places as the “coolest little capital in the world”. I’ve been to quite a few capitals I’d describe as cool so I’m not entirely sure how true this claim is but I did really enjoy Wellington and, like the majority of places I’ve visited in New Zealand, could easily have stayed for longer. View Post