A month in New Zealand

Thu 6 Mar 2025 Less and less to report as we head home! After a slightly shoddy stay at the Ibis Budget Hotel near Auckland Airport, we caught our flight back with a change at Singapore. Singapore is a nice airport to stop over at, which is lucky as we were there for around six hours. It has a cactus garden and lily garden. We spotted a tiny lizard in the cactus garden - you can just make it out in our attempted picture. The last leg, getting us into Heathrow over 36 hours after we left our hotel. It was good to drop into Susheel's parents for some respite, trying to drag out staying awake until the evening to get ourselves into the right time zone!

  Wed 5 Mar 2025 We fly out tomorrow, so we've had some last moments strolling around Wynyard marina near where we were staying. We did notice that there were various painted sculptures of Kiwis around, much like Bristol has had with Gromits and Gorillas.

Tue 4 Mar 2025 After a lazier start, thinking about heading to packing down for our flight in a couple of days, we strolled the slightly more bohemian K Road end of the city. We had a coffee in the Kelvin Arcade which had lovely views overlooking the Myers Park and the Sky Tower. We then went out for possibly the best and most flavoursome meal at Java, an Indonesian restaurant. You can find excellent Southeast Asian here in Auckland - we ate SO MUCH!  

Mon 3 Mar 2025 In the morning, we strolled over to the Sky Tower for views across Auckland. There is a platform where you can stand on thick glass with nothing below you - Bert and Ernie feared they were falling to the ground. During the afternoon, we headed by bus along the lovely Tamaki Drive. En route, we got view across to Auckland before arriving at Mission Bay beach for what is likely to be our final seaside swim of the holiday. We also made sure we went to the fresh fish and seafood market around the corner from the apartment, and made ourselves a meal using scallops and giant prawns.  

Sun 2 Mar 2025 Today we said goodbye to Wellington and took the scenic "luxury" Northern Explorer train to Auckland. Unfortunately, the kitchen carriage had broken down, so the experience wasn't quite what it should have been though the approach of the service staff rescued the experience somewhat.

Sat 1 Mar 2025 Wellington, the capital city, has a faster pace of life than we've been used to. It's not as new and fresh feeling as other places we've been to, though there was a brand new looking St Mary of the Angels church. There was also a dragon boat race on today that made us think of Bristol.  We spent the morning at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum. The exhibits about the Māori people, other original indigenous peoples of the pacific region, and the history of their journeys, were very enlightening. There were also some beautifully carved artefacts.  In the afternoon, we went to see the Wētā Workshop who make props, prosthetics and models for big budget movies such as Lord of the Rings and Avatar. Some items are even made from kitchen foil and then the final layer completed afterwards. Activities included handling hobbit feet and big guns.

Fri 28 Feb 2025 Today we boarded the scenic Coastal Pacific train to Picton, where we will retrace our ferry ride back to Wellington on North Island. This included some pink salt lakes (salterns). So it was goodbye to Kaikōura, which had been a very nice town to stay in.

Thu 27 Feb 2025 Today was a day for wildlife.  Getting up at 6am, and catching a sunrise, we took a boat off the coast of Kaikōura to go whale watching. We weren't disappointed as we had three sightings (two of the same whale and one of another). Below should give you an idea of the scale of whale to boat (the whale scale), and you can see here a video of the whales in action. We were also luck enough to see a pod of 30-50 dolphins swimming playfully, as well as some albatross - see here for a video of some of the dolphins. In the afternoon, we went on a seal kayak tour, to get up close to fur seals. They are incredibly cute - click here for a video of a playful seal updating its waterproofing! We finished with an amazing dinner at the Craypot - Kaikōura roughly translates to meaning the eating of crayfish, which are abundant here. We shared a whole crayfish and a platter of other excellent seafood. 

  Wed 26 Feb 2025 We say goodbye to Christchurch, which as served us well. Our lovely apartment had an enclosed balcony to enjoy meals.  It was opposite the picturesque Hagley Park. Though the mornings provided a misty challenge for Stu  when navigating his dawn run, it was sunny during the day and was a good place for Stu and I to relax with our luggage ahead of check in when we first arrived! We're now in Kaikoura and had fish and chips. Look out for updates tomorrow on whale watching and kayaking with seals (the seals will be in the sea, not actually kayaking with us).

Tue 25 Feb 2025 Today we took some time to get to know Christchurch a bit better. We started with Willowbank wildlife reserve, which included a section on creatures native to New Zealand. Though we weren't allowed to take pictures of Kiwi in their "Nocturnal House", we saw many other creatures.  Christchurch was devastated and is still recovering from two major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, it is re-emerging renewed with some memories of the past there in remnants. A very nicely designed city centre in which to spend time is juxtaposed against what was there before and what is missing. Quake City provided poignant exhibits, sharing the experiences of the human impact of the earthquakes - the anniversary only three days ago. This included personal stories, CCTV footage, and photographs of the aftermath. There was also information about the "liquefaction" caused by the ground conditions in Christchurch, which causes solid ground under buildings and roads to become...

Mon 24 Feb 2025 It was definitely worth the wait to take a hot air balloon for astonishing views across the Canterbury region that Christchurch sits in. Every second of this experience was magical. Being thirteen hours ahead of the UK, we were some of the first people in the world (even before those at ground level in Christchurch) to see today's sunrise as the atmospheric mists cleared. It was an intimate trip shared with only Jessica (our other paying guest) and Nick (our pilot). We hope that the pictures of this experience speak for themselves.  Watch this video here for a sense of the serenity, punctuated by the burner. The experience also involved the setting up and taking down of the balloon for flight. Though are at the other side of the world, the balloons are made by Cameron Balloons in our home city of Bristol (shout out to Maggie Cameron)! After this, we handed over the campervan and headed in to stay in a Christchurch apartment for a couple of nights, thus entering a n...

Sun 23 Feb 2025 There was a party group at our campsite last night that disrupted many people's sleep - I guess it was a Saturday night! Today, the campsite was mostly vacated with lots of green space for us. After a morning run and a big breakfast, we started to pack down the van, as tonight will be our last night. Tomorrow morning we have a very early start as the weather looks perfect for ballooning! So it will be a tight window before dropping the van off in Christchurch. We befriended one of our neighbours, Sandy, a fellow noise sufferer last night. She had an amazing story of bringing back to life a caravan that belonged to her parents, that was stolen and re-found, that has been in the family for 43 years!  Once we knew the balloons were on, we went for a river stroll then jumped in the campervan to do a wild camping night on the grounds of the "Ballooning Canterbury" hangar, ready to wake up at 5:15am.

Sat 22 Feb 2025 After hearing last night that our balloon ride on Sunday morning was at risk due to the weather, we heard today that it was a "no go", with the option to move to Monday morning instead. We've been rejigging our camping sites, and aren't freedom camping tonight, but have got permission to wild camp at the site of the balloon launch so we can tumble out of bed in time for the 6am start!  In the mean time, we've headed to Glentunnel, which is nearer to where we need to be. As we were retracing some of the original route we took to the Southlands, we were delighted that the weather today afforded us the opportunity to enjoy a stop to look at Aoraki / Mount Cook, the tallest (3724m) mountain in New Zealand. It had been obscured by clouds when had done the glacier tour earlier in our trip. Our view was from Lake Pukaki, where we were able to pick up some sashimi, as well as a zingy salmon spread for our sandwiches. This is very fresh from the salmon in t...

Fri 21 Feb 2025 Today we headed part way back our existing route and then onto Ōmarama - a very tiny "town" surrounded by dry mountains. If you're interested in our progress, here it is: The route was, as always, scenic. On arrival, we went for a run amongst the lovely backdrop.   This was topped off by a super clear starry night: