Kiwis and Fairy Bread

19 December 2023 It was time to say good bye to The North Island. It was so beautiful and we enjoyed it so very much, it was hard to imagine anything better. But from all our research, and even from talking to Kiwis themselves, the South Island is even MORE beautiful! But to get there we’d have to cross Cook Strait. There are no bridges or tunnels, so it must be crossed by plane or ferry. We chose the latter. And it is the part of the trip I had been looking forward to most. It did not disappoint. An… Read more

18 December 2023 One cannot simply just walk into Mordor. Boremir is right. Just hiking (let alone filming) in this setting for Mordor and Mount Doom takes careful planning. And flexibility. Tongariro is a fragile landscape on a living volcano. It has erupted every decade or so for the last century, as recently as 2007. This 19.4 kilometer (12 mile) track is one of the most tramped (hiked) in all of New Zealand. So much so that in good weather it can have 1500 visitors in a single day. It is not an easy walk. There are elevation changes, paths… Read more