The Cook Strait separates the North Island from the South, and can be a wild and rough passage.
We drove straight through from Rotorua southward to Wellington, at the southern tip of the North Island; although it was a cloudy and drizzly day I did get some nice photos. We stopped to meet an old friend for dinner, in the little town of Featherston a bit north of Wellington. Read on for our ferry ride across the Cook Strait.
New Zealand and New Hampshire are the same latitude!
I have always understood that New Zealand is south of the equator, but I’ve never really recognized how it compares with familiar places north of the equator. Thanks to my friend Troy Baisden, who supplied this handy graphic, it’s easy to see that New Zealand spans roughly the same latitudes as North Carolina to Maine, and even a bit of Canada.
Coincidentally, Aoraki (Mt. Cook) is almost exactly as far south of the equator as Dartmouth is north of the equator. Dartmouth (Baker Tower) is at approximately 43.7 degrees north; Aoraki is at approximately 43.6 degrees south [map].
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2021, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
The northeast coast of the South Island is ruggedly beautiful.
An overnight in Blenheim, near the northeast corner of the south island, placed us smack in the middle of the Marlborough wine country [location]. This fertile flat floodplain is home to some of the best wines in New Zealand, and that’s saying something. Read on!
Rotorua, a town of geysers, hot springs, and a pervasive odor of sulfur.
“Daddy, it stinks here!” The kids were none to happy when we pulled into Rotorua, a large town in the center of the North Island [location]. It is full of geothermal activity, with geysers, hot springs, and bubbling mud everywhere – and as a result, a persistent smell of sulfur (aka rotten eggs). Read on!
We spent our first day in New Zealand, a glorious sunny day, hiking up the harbor volcano called Rangitoto.
Kia ora! We are now in New Zealand, after a pleasant flight from Sydney. We had a fantastic first day, Sunday, with warm weather and sunny skies. We took the ferry out to Rangitoto island, a small volcano which popped up out of the harbor only 600 years ago. Read on!
A surprising find in the backpack.
The dog sniffed around the kids’ roll-on bag. And sniffed some more. The dog’s handler, a customs/biosecurity agent, asked whether we had any food items inside the bag. No, we assured her, we did not – but she was welcome to look inside. Read on to see what she found!
The Great Ocean Road along the South Ocean coast west of Melbourne.
From Kangaroo Island and South Australia we headed east along the coast. After an overnight in Portland, we hugged the coastline along the Great Ocean Road [map location]. This 243km road hugs the rugged limestone coastline of South Australia and Victoria, connecting the seashore villages along the Southern Ocean coast west of Melbourne. Read on!
We drove through parts of South Australia from Adelaide down to Kangaroo Island, then eastward to Victoria and the Great Ocean Road.
We drove the Fleurileu Peninsula from Adelaide down to Cape Jarvis for the ferry to Kangaroo Island, and then after returning from the ferry back up the peninsula and around the jagged coastline toward the state of Victoria. The rolling hills of this part of South Australia are all farmland, mostly sheep and cattle but as you go east there is one vineyard after another. We stopped at the oldest vineyard, Bleasdale, for some samples and soon came away with several bottles of their excellent Malbec.
I could not begin to capture the grandeur of such a big landscape, but I put a few photos in an album.
This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2021, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.
We spent two days but should have spent a week!
Kangaroo Island is a large island off the coast of South Australia, roughly south of Adelaide [location]. It has small villages – perhaps 4,500 year-round residents farming, working in the national parks, or in the tourist industry – and a lot of wildlife. We saw kangaroos, fur seals, sea lions, koalas, birds, and a lot of beautiful bushland. Read on and check out the photos!
We spent a lot of time with the animals in Adelaide.
Qantas Airlines took us across the corner of the continent from Sydney to Adelaide, a pretty city in the center of the southern coast [location]. It is winter now, of course, and so the weather is cool and rainy. The upside is that everything is green and lovely; otherwise, they’ve had a drought for several years and everything was brown. For the most part, the rain hasn’t dampened our activities. Read on, and see the photos.
David Kotz 