Let the travels begin

Four weeks seems like a good length of time to travel, until you open a New Zealand guidebook. Although I’ve been around most of the North Island and parts of the South Island over the last year, there are still far too many places to try and fit in before I go.

Now that I’ve finished my year of work, I’ve set off on my travels and I’m so excited about everything I’ll get to see.

South Island

I’ve started by taking my car across the Cook Straight to the South Island. 

The ferry crossing was nice and smooth and I had a long chat with a farmer based in Marlborough and her sister about life in New Zealand.

I will spend the first two days hiking and kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park. Then start driving down the West Coast. Mid-week I’ll be spending the day walking on the Franz Josef Glacier.

Carrying on down the West Coast, I drop into a town called Wanaka for a night before meeting up with my friend Emily in Queenstown. We’re going to head out to Milford Sound and probably fit in some extreme activities, which are a big part of the draw of Queenstown for tourists.

After Em flies back to Wellington, I’ll start heading back North. I hope to fit in a bit of surfing and a night at Hamner Springs before taking the ferry back across to Wellington.

North Island

After a day catching up with people, a group of us are off to Taranaki, which my Mum and I visited while she was out here. We plan to climb to the summit. I’ll then carry on up and spend some time surfing at Raglan and maybe visit Lake Taupo in the centre of the North Island.

Home

Assuming I survive all of that, I fly over to Sydney for a couple of days before finally flying back to England towards the end of March.

If that itinerary hasn’t left you thoroughly sick of hearing about my travels, I’ll try and blog and upload photos regularly so check back here over the next few weeks.

The drive from the ferry up to Motueka this afternoon has already provided the first few photo opportunities.