My fall into spring

We’re back home in the Adirondacks.  There’s still some snow on the ground and the rivers and lakes are high.  Our last three weeks in New Zealand were pushing into fall and we were in the southern most part of the South Island.  We enjoyed coal stoves in the huts and the heater in our [...]

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Journey home

Our two or three day journey begins today. We spent our last night in the camper van at the Christchurch airport. We fly to Auckland today, LA then NY tomorrow and will get to spend Sunday night in Brooklyn. We’ll run errands on Long Island then drive home on Tuesday.  What a long, great trip [...]

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Day tripping

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We took a day hike in Mount Cook National Park on a perfect day with beautiful views.  Two rangers recommended it to us as “easy” with fabulous views of Mount Cook and the glacial valley. Well, if you climb high enough, everything is beautiful. And climb we did. Straight [...]

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Our campsite

We are traveling the South Island of New Zealand in a moaner home. Here’s tonight’s resting place.

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Lord of the rings?

Our last day on the Milford Track was a bit of a slog.  We had a boat to catch, our longest walk, 11 miles, in the rain and met a local celebrity along the way.  Maybe. I thought he was a sweet old man on the track who I hadn’t slept with.  (I slept with [...]

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Post Milford Track

We are relaxing after our four day, 33  mile walk on the Milford Sound. We experienced two days of rain and debated the meaning of the forecast: showers clearing or showers, clearing.  Either way, we got wet.   I didn’t tackle side trips so opted  not to climb McKinnon Pass, elevation 1000+ meters, when the [...]

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Away we go

We are heading out for the first of our two long walks.  The first on the Milford track, from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound, will take four days to travel about 50 kms.   The brochure says to expect rain one day but it looks like we hit the jackpot and may get wet [...]

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If this Wednesday, it must be Te Anau

Our travel pace has quickened. We saw five cities and towns in five days.  We are among people and germs  again and we both caught colds.  We saw Launceston, Hobart, Auckland, Queenstown and Te Anau, where we are poised  to begin our walk on the Milford Track.     We littered New Zealand with our [...]

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Hello New Zealand

We flew over the Bass Strait yesterday and saw Deal Island out the window. Now we are in beautiful Queenstown, New Zealand where planes, helicopters and hang gliders are constantly flying overhead. I hope we will leave this behing when we hike the Milford and Routeburn tracks over the next couple of weeks. I look [...]

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