New Zealand Road Trip

With all the time we've spent in New Zealand, there were still lots of things that we hadn't had a chance to see. As we got ready to leave once again, and since we aren't sure when we'll be back, we decided to take the time and do a big road trip up to Auckland. Gas prices are not cheap in New Zealand, and neither are hotels for that matter, so our plan was to save some money by camping (aka "sleeping in the car") for about half the nights on our road trip. That plan never quite panned out since it was pissing down rain for nearly the entire first week, plus it's dark by about 5pm that time of year. Who wants to sit in a car in the rain for 14 hours? On top of that, our friend Dan came along with us so we just sucked it up and stayed in hostels. You might be thinking that Steph would be happier about this than me, but actually I think she was more keen to camp. There aren't any bears in New Zealand. She's happy to camp so long as there are no bears. On to the road trip - we started in Queenstown and with a completely full car we headed North...

Drove up the west coast of the south island - this is one of the few times it wasn't raining

When visiting Franz Joseph glacier, I snagged some chunks of glacier out of the river! We used them in our cooler

Blue mushrooms. Thought it was cool

Okarito Lagoon

This is the best pic we can ever get of a fantail, my favorite bird in New Zealand. They never stop moving

We stopped at Punakaki so Dan could see the pancake rocks

Made it all the way up to Nelson. This was a really cool craft beer pub

Day trip to Abel Tasman National Park, where a tractor dragged our water taxi into the water

We saw split apple rock

Cowabunga, dudes

The water taxi dropped us off so the we could walk some of the trails. We missed low tide so had to wade thru some parts

This would have been filled with water an hour later

Found some cool tunnels on the beach

We did a cycling tour of the famous Marlborough area

Dan and I saw some seals while kayaking in the Marlborough Sounds

We took a ferry from Picton through Marlborough Sounds (above) to Wellington

Didn't take many pics in Wellington, but it was a cool city. This is the famous "bee-hive" where their government is housed

We visited the Te Papa Museum in Wellington where they had this amazing exhibit on WWI with huge life-like statues

We also got to try some virtual reality in the Air New Zealand exhibit

Further north we set off on "the best one-day hike in the world", the Tongariro Crossing

Because of the weather, we couldn't get a shuttle so instead walked half way before turning around

It is a volcanic, other-worldly place. The ground steams in places

About the half-way point, emerald lakes in background

Formerly active volcano, also Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings

At Lake Taupo we visited Huka Falls. Dan and I will one day run this on a board. One day.

Brief stop in Rotorua to see boiling mud, steaming water, etc.

The finish line was Tauranga, about 2 hours from Auckland, where we stayed with our friends Bjorn and Mel, who just moved there. Took a day trip to Hobbiton!

Bjorn came with. We got to visit all the little hobbit holes. I look like a giant in this picture.

Bilbo's house

Sam's house

inside the Green Dragon Inn

the green dragon

Ok, Hobbiton was pretty cool

That's it. We hung out in Tauranga for a few more days with Bjorn and Mel before packing as much stuff as we could squeeze into our 2 big bags and started the long 26-hour journey to Bangkok. Southeast Asia here we come!