Day 8 – Manapouri is mountainous and there is a big lake here that is prime for fishing, boating and if you are brave – swimming (cold!). It is also the entrance point for tours out to Doubtful Sound. So we are here for three nights. Exploring the town…
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Catlins of NZ – Wonderful Suprise!
Day 6 – This area is called the Catlins Coast and a good portion of it is scenic reserves. When Europeans first came to NZ, they cut down every tree in site, so all of the forest reserves are replanted and now protected as it seems the bent of even mod…
South Island NZ continued
Day 3 – Peel Forest to Cromwell – Today we see rolling hills and valleys with rivers and a canal that joins one lake to another. There are dams on every piece of moving water in this region. In the canal they have salmon farms setup – ingen…
Adventures of the Mystery "Campervan"
The South Island Exploration Begins Bright and early on the morning of Feb 1/11, you find Glen and I waiting at the top of the dock for our taxi to take us to the Auckland airport where we will be whisked off, by Jet Star Air, down to Christchur…
Boat Work and People Play
I can’t believe how quickly time goes by when you are busy (and having fun). Here we are at the end of January and I have only written our adventures down once. Guess I’m just getting lazy, but also, how exciting can it be for anyone else to rea…
Happy New Year 2011 – New Zealand
Happy New Year to Everybody!We are back in New Zealand again after spending a lovely December visiting family and friends in Calgary and enjoying a “white Christmas” with our daughters. When you are a Canadian child from the prairies, there is no other…
New Zealand, Port Opua
All in all the trip from Tonga to New Zealand was good. Lumpy and smooth, windy and calm. We arrived at the customs dock in Port Opua at about 1:00pm on Nov 6 and after all of the “whoop-lau” amongst the boating community as to how strict they were wit…
Tonga to New Zealand
We are into day 4 of our passage. The conditions to begin with were not so great, 2.5 to 3.5 Meter swell, at 8 second intervals, with wind waves and 15 to 20 knots of wind. The four of us went through many packages of crackers in order to keep our sto…
Weather Window Wait in Tonga
John, one of the fellows that helped us on our Pacific crossing, was supposed to join us here in Nuku'alofa and do the crossing from Tonga to New Zealand. He was looking forward to a bit of diving, sightseeing, warm weather and so on along with the…
Bits and Pieces of Tonga
While we were in Neiafu on Vava'u, we meet a colorful couple from Banff, Alberta. They are the owners of the "Giggling Whale and the Tipsy Turtle" a happening little restaurant and bar. Sandy and Cathy come to Vava'u every year for si…
