Part three of our adventure has kicked off in veritable family style, with an action packed week at the iconic Walt Disney World in Florida. And it’s not just the four of us either, somehow we managed to persuade my parents to join us for a bit of Disney magic too. One of…

Snap, just like that our antipodean adventure had drawn to a close, and we found ourselves once again in the tropical south-east Asian paradise of Singapore for a few days on our way home. I can’t believe it was nearly three months ago we were here, having escaped the dreariness of a British…

Time really does fly, we now had only two nights left in the van, and the end of our great antipodean adventure was looming. It wasn’t quite over yet though, so what was next? Before leaving Twizel, we headed over to High Country Salmon for a late breakfast. This salmon farm produces excellent…

Crowded House sang about experiencing four seasons in one day back in 1991. Granted, they were talking about the weather in Melbourne, not New Zealand, but in a country as varied and remarkable as this it’s also possible to witness multiple weather extremes in a single day. This is exactly what we were…

That’s how Rudyard Kipling referred to the magical terrain of Milford Sound on the west coast, and like the other million or so other tourists who make the journey every year, we needed to witness its beauty for ourselves. We stopped a few times on our way across the country. We spent a…

Sorry. Childish title, I know. Couldn’t resist.  It was finally time for our long awaited whale watching trip in Kaikoura, and I was dying to see some sperm (whales)! I’ve always wanted to see a whale in the wild, and supposedly this is the perfect place to do it. There is no specific…

The day had finally come for us to pick up our campervan and head south. It seems like a long time since we bid farewell to Discorama after spending so much time in it on the first leg of our big adventure, and we were all looking forward to getting back in a…

Time to head a little further south-west along the volcanic zone and right into the very heart of the North Island – next stop, Taupo. This town sits on the shores of the sprawling Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand and actually the caldera of the Taupo super volcano. Yes, that…

There’s a reason why Peter Jackson chose New Zealand as his filming location for the fictional world of Middle Earth. Before his films breathed a sense of visuality into Tolkien’s original books, the only way to visit Middle Earth was through your own imagination. But the reality is that New Zealand really IS…

Just north of the town of Coromandel itself, lies a place called Driving Creek. In 1973, a young potter by the name of Barry Brickell relocated here and started a grass roots pottery commune. Barry was already a well known and influential figure in New Zealand pottery circles, and people flocked here to…