We had a late-afternoon, direct flight out of Auckland back to California (into SFO not San Jose but close enough!) So we could do one thing in Auckland, just one thing… Go see a volcano (of course-duh!) From Mount Eden
Author: Byddi Lee
Bay of Islands – My Personal Favorite
The North and South Islands of New Zealand are often compared, many people claiming the South Island is better, but I beg to differ. True the scenery is spectacular on the South Island, but that can be said of the
The Amazing Coromandel, North Island, New Zealand
The Coromandel Peninsula is where the New Zealanders go on vacation. It’s not to far from Auckland and the coastline is spectacular. To get there from Rotarua we had to drive through Middle Earth! You can stop and do some
Holiday Towns in the Rain
Chris de Burgh said it best in his song Fatal Hesitation when he sang, ♫ There’s nothing quite like an out of season holiday town, In the rain, ♫ The weather in Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand was awful for
Rain Stops Play
So far on our trip in New Zealand we’d only spent one night in each place (apart from Christchurch.) In the North Island we decided to change that and to stay in fewer spots for longer. This meant that we’d
Playing on Super Volcanoes
Taupo Lake is the caldera of a super volcano. It has produced two of the world’s most violent eruptions in recent times, geologically speaking. It tends to go off every 900 or so years, yet hasn’t done so in 1700
Does the Nocturnal Bird Catch the Glow Worm?
It’s a one hour flight from Christchurch to Auckland in the North Island. Waitomo is only two hours south of Auckland by car so we were able to comfortably push on through to Waitamo without having to spend a night
Christchurch Five Years After the Quake
The road along the north east coast of the south Island runs most of the way right alongside the beach. We gazed for several hours at a palette of fresh blues and turquoises, each twist in the road bringing forth
Just One Click Away
I’m as far from being a soccer fan as you can get. I just don’t have the patience for it, but during Euro16 I have become a fan of the Irish Fans! It started when I saw hundreds of them
Sparking Moments of Magic
When I look at a map of New Zealand, I imagine that the South and North Islands have been torn apart. The northernmost tip of the sound Island looks like it’s fraying. The coastline line here is so recursively folded