My last stop was a few days in Auckland, basically just waiting for my flight home. I hadn’t originally planned on spending any time there, but the only day that the flight was cheap was a few days earlier than I wanted. I had the impression Auckland was kind of lame from Matt and Dan, [...]

I had a flight from Christchurch up to Auckland so it was my last stop on the trip around the south island. Dan and Matt are still in New Zealand now, taking a couple weeks to sell their bikes and prepare to go home. Christchurch was fairly uneventful but I snapped a few nice pics [...]

After the Catlins, we planned on stopping on the way to do some more camping but didn’t really find anything cool so we drove straight through to Dunedin, the south island’s college town. We met up with Steven’s other 2 kids, Abe and Ellie. Abe’s wife Deb is in med school and so he’s currently [...]

Originally, we had intended to spend a few days going to Milford Sounds and Fiordland, but a huge storm was coming in and the road out there is notoriously difficult to drive on. Its supposed to be insanely windy, and the weather can change within minutes since its a rainforest. Lots of wet turny roads [...]

Next up was Invercargill, one of the southernmost cities in the world. We happened to stumble upon a really sweet backpacker’s (hostel) run by a really awesome guy named Sparky. He was a total character, a total stoner, and a super nice guy. He had quit his job a few months back to run the [...]

Next we headed south stopping a couple places along the way. I know we stopped in Fox Glacier and then Lake Wanaka. I can’t remember but there may have been another place on the way. All fairly uneventful. We did try to go skydiving at lake Wanaka but it was too cloudy. We got booked [...]

On Steven and Maggie’s recommendation, we went to stay at Gentle Annie on the west coast. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere and its just a beautiful campground run by an amazing family. They own a 1000 acre lot that has been a giant greenhouse complex with a cafe, a golfcourse, and now [...]