Thursday, December 20, 2007

Coromandel Peninsula



Happy Holidays! We've heard of the wintery weather everyone's getting and, although it doesn't feel like Xmas season here, we are not jealous at all.


The last week we spent exploring the Coromandel peninsula staying at several campsites along the way.


The first stop was Kauranga valley. We stayed in this area a few days and did a bunch of hiking. At the end of the 3 days we both had dozens of sand fly bites on our ankles that itched for days.





From there we drove north to Fantail Bay campsite and stayed the night where we saw an amazing sunset. I unsuccessfully fished for hours, but almost hooked a squid.







From there we drove all the way up to the top of Coromandel and stayed for several days at Fletcher's Bay. In the picture below you can see our van just to the left of the beach.








We needed to stop back in Auckland to swap out our fridge in the van and we decided to get a hotel room dowtown and explore Auckland. It was great to get a hot shower and sleep in a real bed. So the last stop in Auckland was the Manukau library to post on this blog.

















Friday, December 7, 2007

More Pics

Hey all, we are in Katai just south of 90 mile beach.
Yesterday we drove up to Cape Reinga the northernmost point in NZ that we could drive to....not much of a road up there but we made it.
The last few days have been quite windy and rainy. We are heading south in search of sun.
I've uploaded more pics to http://picasaweb.google.com/stearnr/NZ1

Monday, December 3, 2007





Been Awhile

Hello all.
We made it to NZ with no problems. Rented a car and drove around to find a campervan.
We met some people and ended up staying at their house for a week and also bought a van from them. It's a 1989 Toyota Hiace 2.4l diesel and she run's like a dream.


They took us out to a friends farm and we went offroading on some pretty beautiful terrain.


We left their house a few days ago and have been staying a different campsites on the way to the top of the north island.