Jul 2
Back in March we shot up to New Plymouth for a family thing. With fairly low expectations for getting out and about outside of that, the weekend delivered way more than I thought it would. For one thing, I had no idea this unassuming coastal city contains a treasure trove of street art. Read more
When friends of yours have a place in the Coromandel, one of the country’s best loved holiday destinations, the obvious thing to do is arrange a group weekend away. Logistics were a bit tricky but where there’s a will there’s always a way! Read more
It sounded stormy. I peeked out the curtains and saw that it was. Goodie. Read more
While we were having a relaxed couple of days on the beautiful Tutukaka coast, others were scurrying around completing last minute wedding preparations and trying to second guess what impact the cyclone was going to have. Read more
A family wedding in March meant we ‘had’ to take a long weekend in Northland, aka the Winterless North. With expectations of sunshine, sparkling waters, a fancy event and the chance to see a new part of the country, we’d been looking forward to it for months. Read more
It’s a bit shameful that it took me until last summer to complete one of the best day hikes in NZ if not the world. But with its stunning landscapes and enough challenge to make me feel like I’d conquered something, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing was well worth the wait. Read more
An interruption to the China series for something a little more topical. Hello from my hometown of Helensville (technically, the small adjacent settlement of Parakai) where I’ve spent Christmas with my parents and grandmother. Christmas nowadays gets shared between Wellington and Auckland in a mixture of new and old traditions. Read more
Finishing off this series is a gallery of our Gisborne explorations in the snippets of time between family gathering stuff. Read more
We’d just finished blasting around the East Cape but the main point of us being in the region was a family gathering in Gisborne over the weekend. Read more
We were on the downhill run now to Gisborne but the car detoured off again, this time to Tokomaru Bay. Originally named for sandflies, there’s a bit more going for it these days – in the East Cape sense at least. Read more
tall tales 