Category: New Zealand

We started our day with a trip downtown to Cathedral Square. We boarded the tram and set off to visit the city sites. Our first stop was the Avon River for a beautiful tranquil punt along the river with lovely fauna and weeping willows.5939 5950 Similar to San Antonio, Christchurch has…

Our day began horribly…first as we checked out of our hotel, Capital One declined our charge; this has been the second time during our trip that Capital One “fraud” department has been overzealous in questiong charges. We were ticked because we’ve now called them about 4 times (at our expense)…

We experienced our first full rainy day, the only thing I can compare it to is the fall weather in Seattle. It became wet and dreary all day long but we still managed to get in some good sites. Every day up to today had clear blue skies and fair…

After breakfast we headed over to Queen’s Wharf to take a ferry over to Matiu/Somes Island. The island is a wildlife sanctuary with unique fauna and animal life. The view from the top, like almost everywhere else, was breathtaking. 52295240 We had a snack picnic at the summit on the…

We left lake Taupo around 9:00 a.m. to drive down to Wellington. We stopped at a small charming town about half way down called Levine. The kids had to eat at McDonalds and as we drove through the small center of town looking at all the charming little shops; I…

Our day started at 9:00 a.m. with a fishing trip scheduled 30 minutes prior. We wanted to take the kids fishing but had neglected to pre-book anything. We were getting worried after our second call had no availability and some fisherman wouldn’t take kids under 10. Luckily, we were referred…

We left Auckland early Wednesday morning for a 4 hour drive down to Lake Taupo. We stopped in Rotorua along the way and visited various sites. You can view a picture here of us in the Gondola in Rotorua ( enter code SKRT65312540 ) – spectacular view of the lake…

On Tuesday, our plan was to visit Rainbow’s End and let the kids have fun riding all the amusements. Unfortunately, we found out that the park operates on a “schedule” which means that only certain rides are open at certain times. The problem compounded itself even more by the fact…

After plopping down $90 NZD for breakfast (more on this later) at our Hotel, we headed down to the harbour to take a ferry out to Rangitoto Island. This island is an old volcano that erupted a few hundred years ago and created the “new” island. The ferry ride was…

After resting at the hotel and getting a bit refreshed, we proceeded to do a “walkabout.” We headed to Albert Park where I took some amazing shots for the floral growing here during the “winter”. I’ve posted some pics at https://sahifu.net/pac80 After the park visit, we headed off to Sky…