New Zealand

So the time has come to wave goodbye to New Zealand. We've spent a wonderful year in the country but are now ready to move on to different shores. For our final blog post from NZ, we thought we'd share some of our highlights and lowlights of a year working and exploring. In no particular order:

Highlights

Digging our own personal hot tub at Hot Water Beach

A parental visit

The Wild West coast (of the South Island) and Okarito lookout

Lambs Tails

Winter camping

Pies!!

Kayaking on Milford Sound

Walking the Queenstown trail with Rodney the Fox Terrier

Olga the Mitsubishi Legnum

Huge trees and the meeting of the seas

Lowlights

Wwoofing in Arrowtown

A week spent in a tiny caravan in midwinter wasn't a pleasant experience. The ladies cooking caused illness too!

Kaitaia

Although we were there to earn money picking mandarins, we despised the people around us and despised the town. We always chuckle to ourselves when Kaitaia is mentioned on the news as its always to do with murder or drugs.

Auckland

We just don't like it, too many people.

Sandflies

I don't think I need to clarify.

The cost of living

£3 for a cucumber? No thank you!

We loved New Zealand, however, it was never quite how we imagined it to be before we arrived. The fields were green, which was as expected and the mountains were tall and snow capped, which was as expected but the towns and cities were all very drab, laid out on a grid system and modern, with the exception of Oamaru and Clyde. We'd expected small country villages and town, sort of like Arundel, but none ever really came anywhere close, which was a shame. But I don't want to end on a negative, we can't fault the scenery, from Cape Reinga in the north to Bluff in the south, natural New Zealand is stunning and well worth a look.

As far as the past 2 weeks goes, we've not done much to write home about. Just walks and work to pass the time before we finally depart for the sun and sand of Honolulu. We’ll miss Rodney but probably not for too long.

I have a grand plan for the blog from after Hawaii. As nobody knows our plan I thought it would be a bit of fun to play a little game using this blog. On our last post from Hawaii I will write the lyric of a song that features the name of the city or town that we will be visiting next, only I'll leave the lyric with the name out until the title of the next blog, so it keeps everyone guessing. Some will be easy peasy and some will be hard but you can either write in the comments or just guess to yourself for your own satisfaction. Actually, if the lyric turns out to be too hard, I may make it a quote instead.

James and Charlotte