Hokitika Travel Blogs

On monday afternoon I arrived in Hokitika. I was the only one to be dropped off by the Kiwi Experience, as Hoki is just a small town, and there isn't a whole lot to do there. I had a special reason to stop in Hokitika though: family! Just before I left Holland I got some information on family …

*****DAY THIRTY-SIX (Wednesday, January 7th) - BONZ & STONZ!***** I spent the WHOLE day making a necklace.  It was very cool...I made the design, picked out the piece of jade, & then Steve showed me how to use all the tools to cut & polish it!  I made a butterfly with korus f…

Glaciers In The Mist   With Military precision we decamped our lovely hotel in Queenstown and headed up the East coast (of the South Island) in a very unsexy, but highly practical Toyota SUV. Tom, Jonny & I took turns in driving. Anna was distraught at the weather, which was raining d…

This morning we left Queenstown at a relatively early hour (the sun had yet to rise) and began our journey toward the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers.  New Zealand is a country of only four million people in the same land area as the British Isles or Japan.  Of the 4 million, only 25% l…

Tried to get photo's downloaded this morning between the two of us we have taken so many that we have both ran out of memory....We headed south down to the Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes, picked up a couple of German lads who had been camping for 2 days, felt sorry for them as they were so cold and w…

Another early start, looked around the Jade (greenstone) factory shop on the ground floor of our hostel, then the aquarium/kiwi centre nearby.  Then back in the car to drive to Franz Josef.  We were staying in Glow worm cottages which seemed really nice and friendly.  We had arrived …

Frank and Susie grand tour around the world

After graduating I promised myself 'The Big Trip'. I had family overseas that I'd never met, so it was a journey of discovery in several ways. I started with a visit to Toronto, Canada, moving next to Southern California, USA, from there to Melbourne, Australia, and on to Adelaide. A quick stop in Canberra, and then on to Sydney. An impromptu long weekend in New Zealand's South Island, followed by a brief return to Sydney and a long flight home. Two and a half months of travel bliss...

Drove from Picton to Hokitika via Blenheim through the vineyards, Wairau Valley with our first stop at Kawatiri Junction.  This still has the old train station in situ at the intersection between two highways, a bit odd to see at first.  There's an interesting information panel about the …

Toured New Zealand and helped Joe with his thesis project for 18 days.

One month in New Zealand - two weeks on each island. Fantastic nature!!! Kayaking, paragliding, bungy jumping, Christmas... and much, much more. This is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever been! I have to go back.. and back.. and back, and back..

We started with a tour guided by the owner of the hotel. She told us about the minery years ago. This took 1,5 hour. There was not much left to see... Back at the hotel we get in the bus and drove to the south. But after 10 minutes our tourleader was missing his cellphone. So we are going back…

Hallo Hier sind die Fotos von Neuseelands Suedinsel...

So this is our 2.5 year trip!! One year on the long and bumpy road of South and Central America. Our second year started off with 12 weeks in New Zealand, then we headed to Australia! Eagerly clutching our working holiday visas we stayed in Australia for one year for work and travel. The last leg of our 30-month trip was 3.5 months in SE Asia. (We are home now and oh how we miss travelling!)

We woke on our penultimate day surprisingly early, and decided to head up to Greymouth to find some breakfast.  Greymouth was a relitively pleasent town on the ocean,  though it had an unwelcoming industrial feel to the place.  Despite that, Breakie was top class, and now we were rea…