The reason why I need to write these travel blogs is that I forget the names of just about everywhere I've visited within an instant, and half of the things I've done. The place where the picture to the left was taken from was called "reflection point". I'm sure you can figure out why it's called that. I think (but I'm not 100% sure) that it was Westland national park where we saw some quite spectacular views of the Fox glacier. This Glacier hasn't g...

This place seemed like a little Austrian ski resort. Franz Josef relies solely on tourists, and although it's a 10/15minute ride to the glacier, you can see the top of it from almost anywhere in the little village/town. It's quite surreal that for days we pass all this green scenery on the south Island, and then just in this little town is a 'lump of ice'. I'm good with the technical terms of all this glacier stuff as you can see. Pictures are the best way to...

Named after the Dutch explorer that founded New Zealand, Abel Tasman national park was pretty nice. We didn't do that much there though as it the weather was pretty miserable. I just did a fairly moderate walk, and took in the fairly nice landscape. It was similar to a lot of places we've stayed really, in that the hostel/campsite lodges were in the middle of nowhere, and the usual typical NZ activities were on offer, such as kayaking, sky diving, and the not a...

Right, where did I leave you hanging in my essay on the Auckland blog? So you want to know about Rotorua? "Rotorua has a nickname sulphur city due to its hydrogen sulphide emissions, which gives the city a "rotten eggs" smell". Regards Wikipedia. We visited Rotorua where I had planned on staying for a day or two, but as it was raining and there wasn't much to do if you don't want to do activities such as Zorbing (rolling down the hill in a...

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand, but it is minuscule in comparison to cities like Melbourne or Sydney. I arrived in Auckland on St Patricks day so all the beer gardens were packed at around 6pm with everyone pretending they were Irish. It made me chuckle when there was a Japanese lad in the hostel going around with his face painted in an Irish flag. There is a harbour which is very quiet compared to the Sydney one, but walking around, you still get ...