We are actually sitting on the patio of an outdoor cafe in Hamilton eating breakfast before we continue on to Auckland.  I’m enjoying my french toast with caramelized bananas and bacon, Dan’s eating the ‘Backpackers Breakfast’, which is the usual affair of sausage, toast, eggs & hash browns. We had just left our little ‘home’… Continue reading Raglan, NZ (pt 3)

Day 4 started out great – we slept in until about 10am, which is completely out of the norm for me, since I’ve been waking up anywhere from 6:30am-7:30am. We had enjoyed an evening hanging out in the courtyard with people from Austria, Germany and the US. One traveller in particular, Patrick from California entertained… Continue reading Raglan, NZ (pt 2)

*** UPDATING:  March 12: 11:17am ***:   We are not in danger of getting hit by the tsunami.  It hit the US, but not us in Raglan.  For our worried parents who are emailing us, we’re safe. 🙂 As we approached Raglan I felt a little trepedition, as we had only the say-so of “Tim”,… Continue reading Raglan, NZ (pt 1)

We left fairly early today from Plimmerton, on our way to New Plymouth for a quick stopover before continuing on to Raglan. It was not a terribly stimulating drive, since we’re passing through mostly the kind of farmland and plains areas that constituted the “leftovers” that went unmentioned in our description of the more interesting… Continue reading New Plymouth, NZ

Ok, as I write this entry, I’m cheating a bit, because we’re now in New Plymouth, but we had a 2 nights stay in Plimmerton which is worth blogging all on its own. We had left Napier on a cool and rainy day to head towards the Wellington area.  This turned out to be a… Continue reading Plimmerton, NZ

It is much easier to feel like you’re on holiday when not rushing between one town and the next, so today felt like a holiday. We had a very restful night, since there was no nightlife to speak of at all last night when we went out. A quick lap around showed us empty streets… Continue reading Napier, NZ… cont’d

We are sitting in the common area of an old 30s era art deco hotel, previously called the “Criterion Hotel”, now operating as a hostel, called the Criterion Art Deco Backpackers hostel.  But first, we must take you back to Rotorua for the moment. We were greeted by the rain as we came into Rotorua,… Continue reading Napier, NZ

We’ve come a fair way south, having left Endless Summer and passed back through Auckland on our way to explore the south portion of the North Island. We left Ahipara and took the ferry across to Rawene, then followed HWY 12 through the Kauri Forest. The road through the forest was every bit as formidable… Continue reading Rotorua, NZ

We are now staying our 2nd night in Ahipara and had checked into the ‘Endless Summer’ hostel.  It’s right across the beach and Dan & I have been enjoying a relaxing afternoon reading on the front lawn.  Yesterday, we had arrived from Russell and had stayed at the Kiwi Holiday Park.  We finally had a… Continue reading Ahipara, NZ

Today we  took a pretty casual drive up from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. We had taken the Motorway 1 up to Whangarei (about 2 hours from Auckland), where we stopped for lunch at a charming Italian restaurant serving $10 lunches.  We also took the time to check out a used bookstore, where Dan… Continue reading Russell, NZ