The Forgotten World Highway is one of New Zealand's well-known drives that traverses 148km as State Highway 43 from Stratford to Taumarunui. It offers beautiful views as the road passes various saddles, goes through a tunnel or two, stops at…
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Egmont National Park is tucked away on the west coast of the North Island on a peninsula sticking out in the region of Taranaki. The crowning glory of this region? Mount Taranaki is an active stratovolcano home to plenty of…
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Pouakai Tarns is one of the most well-known hikes of the Mount Taranaki region in Egmont National Park. If you do a quick Google search, you'll see incredible photos of Mount Taranaki reflected in the tarns at all hours of…
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We arrived in Apia from Auckland after a most event-filled 24 hours of travel (read about that adventure here). So similar to the other Pacific Islands I have visited, Samoa is a land of palm trees gently waving in the…
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With the end date of Nico's visa quickly approaching, we had plans to head out of New Zealand for a ten-day trip to Samoa, so that by the time we returned we could get Nico a new visitor visa upon…
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Savai'i - the untouched neighbour of Upolu, the second of the main islands of Samoa. There is no airport here and just one road encircles the island. It's hot, sticky, slow, sunny and wonderful. We enjoyed Upolu, with the bustling Apia,…
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What happens when a pandemic threatens to tear across the world and you're about to go traveling? With every news outlet churning out coronavirus updates all day long, we're plagued with warnings sounding the alarm bells. You can’t go far…
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Wellington is New Zealand's capital city, tucked on the southernmost point of the North Island. It sits on the Cook Strait and is connected to the South Island with regular ferry crossings to Picton. A compact and bustling place, there…
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Since we purchased our beautiful little van, Bongo, we've been taking her out at every opportunity to escape the city of Wellington and go exploring in the surrounding regions. A few weekends ago, we went up to Castle Point on…
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Original plans for 2019 saw me hopping on a one-way flight to Australia via China. I anticipated spending about three months traipsing my way around Australia, seeing as much as possible, before heading back to Vancouver. Things don't always go…
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We recently bought a van! We're thrilled to be living the true #VanLife dream in New Zealand now that we are the proud new owners of a cute Mazda Bongo. We thought long and hard about a unique name and…
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Mount Victoria is the classic fan favourite for a local Wellington hike, but if it's glorious 360 views across the Skyline, the South Island, the Eastern Harbour and Wellington that you're after, then Mount Kaukau is the one to do.…
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There seems to be no end of wonderful things to do in Wellington, the windy capital of New Zealand situated on the southernmost tip of the North Island. We live in Wellington at the moment and returned in early January…
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Well, this is certainly a different sort of post that I'm used to compiling, but hey, it's 2020 and this is my creative space to...be creative in. I've struggled - especially while backpacking with a minimal amount of 'stuff' and…
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