Asian Detour

Back in early 2021 I saw a travel deal on the Fiji Outrigger Resort. It was a risk, buying a future travel voucher in the middle of the COVID pandemic with Fiji & New Zealand completely shut-down to outside visitors. But we already had airline credits to New Zealand, let’s add Fiji! So I bought […]

The flight to Fiji was easy and we were ready to slow our pace and relax a little more. Not yet. I had reserved a rental car a few months back and should have realized earlier that they were not a “top-tier” rental car company. My first clue was when they called me at home […]

I found a RV campground close to where we needed to be and it included free geo thermal pools as part of the package. They needed to include something extra as the park was not up to what we’ve become accustomed to. It had everything we needed, it was just that everything needed a little […]

The area around Waitomo Town is famous for its caves. Some are on public land and some are on private land where you need a guide to go in. We scheduled a tour for a “raft” trip inside one of the private caves for 2 days later. We started our first morning driving out to […]

We arrived at the Mt Taranaki visitor center mid afternoon during a light lain. We sought the advice of a ranger at the center and He suggested a couple of hikes that might shelter us from the approaching storm. Our plan was to stay in the “ freedom” camp site in the parking lot of […]

It was a 3+ hour drive to Wellington, we needed gas and pulled off the road. Small town, Norsewood,” very proud of their Viking heritage. Small gas station, one pump in front of their general store. I went in to give my credit card info and a crotchety old guy just said, “ya pump first.” […]

Napier is a sleepy beach town nestled into a valley full of vineyards. Which wouldn’t normally be bad but it was too cold to hang out at the beach and winetasting while driving an RV was not in the cards. The one redeeming item for Napier was the very nice Holiday Park that we stayed […]

It was time to hike some volcanoes and make a few stops along the way. First stop : Huka Falls If you haven’t noticed yet – Terri likes waterfalls; big falls, little falls, no matter as long as they are not dry. Pushing towards Tangariro NP, Terri had spotted a commercial hot water pools spot, […]

We are now in the midst of the full Labour Day weekend. Compared to before, everything is busier: roads, restaurants, towns and campgrounds. We started early as we had a fair distance to travel today and wanted to make a couple of stops. The first stop was in Karangahake Gorge. It’s NZ famous for being […]

Cathedral Cove is one of the most photographed spots in NZ and therefore can get very busy. It’s also best to go at a lower tide so you can go through the cove without getting wet. This is another spot that you can’t drive to but must hike or take a boat to reach. Low […]