Morning at Lake Opua, the geese flying again, magpies, seagulls, herons, ducks, a bittern (?) and others I wasn’t sure about. It is a great campsite for free camping. The fish were jumping too. On the way out we stopped at a cafe on the main road (Farm Barn maybe) which had an excellent location […]

Round Bush Camp was still mozzie central so after breakfast we went to Twizel, the Hydro Cafe and Twizel Bookshop, where else? Having finished 16 Trees of the Somme I’m now reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers. After that we headed over to Lake Benmore and had more or less given up when Hania found this […]

What next and where to go? We read about Maniapouri but it’s half a day there and another back, with a few days left it didn’t seem worth it. We headed out to Twizel again for coffee and cake at Hydro Cafe. Also popped into the Twizel Bookshop (shout out – fabulous microbookstore). Umm, the […]

A walk in the gardens of Oamaru. I can’t believe they have 12 grass tennis courts here, must be a lot of upkeep. We headed up to Timaru to see old friends Judd, Jenny and Graham. A great lunch and an afternoon of lively conversation and, we must admit, a little gossip. The garden was […]

Aramoana, a dark name in Kiwi history, but we survived the night and drove to Port Chalmers and the back road to Waitati. We had coffee at Karitane which has a nice sandy beach with rollers coming in from the southern ocean. After this it was mostly SH1 with a lunch stop at Moeraki Village […]

This morning my intention was to walk to Sandfly Bay. We drove to the path, a good road in fact, and I walked as far as the viewpoint. However the track goes by the dunes at the back and walkers are asked not to go onto the beach as penguins might be disturbed. They are […]

At break of day (ok 11am) we headed to Pukekura (red hill) to the Royal Albatross Centre. The guided tour was well worth the money – which also helps fund the centre. There were four chicks in residence. While we watched a male parent landed and fed one of the chicks.

In the morning I took a walk to Cannibal Bay about 6km there and back. There were a few inhabitants about. We then drove pretty quickly to the Otago Peninsula via the South coast and a bit of South Dunedin. Around lunchtime we arrived in Portabelo. We plan to stay a day or two and […]

We left Waikawa late this morning, last ones to leave actually. Then drove to Kaka Point and Nugget Point. The latter is awesome. We also paused at Roaring Bay on the other side of the point. There was a hide for viewing Yellow-eyed penguins but it was a bit too early for them to be […]

Today we drove straight to the entrance to the Caitlins at Fortrose where we stopped for coffee and to fill up with relatively cheap diesel at the cafe. I bought Hania a possum fur. She will be glad of it next week I’m thinking. Then a short drive to Curio Bay where there are fossil […]