Well we couldn't stay in one place forever so it was back to the road with Tina. We drove up to the town of Napier, which was virtually destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 so most of the town was rebuilt with the popular Art Deco style of the times. We had just arrived one day late for the yearly Art Deco festival where people dress up in old fashions and dozens of classic cars make their way to town to cruise around. It was still a sight to see the old buildings ...

One thing that we wanted to do with our time in New Zealand was stay with a local family and work on a farm or garden. Leah especially was missing her beautiful garden back home, and having easy access to fresh vegetables. Leah contacted a family through a website that pairs people like us with a family, and it turned out to be almost a perfect match for us. We stayed with a couple who's family had lived in the small wine vineyard town of Martinborough for over ...

After all our train rides in New Zealand, as well as the buses and planes everywhere else we were ready to get our own wheels to explore the rest of the country. We picked up our stylishly understated 1.3 liter white Nissan station wagon that converts into a "micro campervan". We decided on the fitting name of Tina, and began our adventures on the wrong side of the road down under. We first explored the war zone that is downtown Christchurch still experiencing af...

A 7 day rail pass took us through some of New Zealand's spectacular back country as well as coastal areas that can't all be explored by car. Ride 1- We left Auckland at 7 am and travelled south to Wellington, a winding trip of 12 hours that stopped directly at the base of "Mt Doom" for a midday break. This train has only 4 passenger carriages with a cafe in one of the carriages and a little outdoor viewing deck in one of the other carriages. Very quaint, old tr...

Longest plane ride ever? Check. Longest of the trip? Not quite. First impression of New Zealand? Everyone is incredibly cheerful and nice especially considering our 5 am arrival time. Seeing signs and hearing people speak English seems confusing now, and like everything should be hard to understand. The main thing upon getting off the plane was understanding the coffee nomenclature of "long blacks" and "flat whites", and that ketchup is called tomato sauce. Eve...