New Zealand

Road tripping around the South Island – Part 2

Leave a comment

Beautiful sunset arriving into the Marlborough Sounds and Picton on the ferry from Wellington.

After spending 3 weeks on the north island, I caught the Interislander Ferry from Wellington over to the south island and landed in Picton for 3 days. The ferry was a beautiful way to see the Marlborough Sounds on the northern most point of the South Island and took about 3 hours.

My ride for one month.

I ended up spending over a month on the South Island and decided to hire a car on my own for a month and do a road trip from Picton and down the West Coast, then back up to Christchurch. Driving gave me so much more freedom as there are some places which can be difficult to get to by public transport. I would highly recommend a camper van or car if exploring the South Island. I also ended up purchasing a cheap tent and managed to do some camping in some of the National Parks and towns, which worked out a bit cheaper and was lots of fun! However it did get cold at night, but it was amazing to be able to make use to the great campsites dotted around the South Island.

Here are just a few of my South Island highlights…

Continue reading →

6 months of travels…

3 Comments

So I have been rubbish at keeping my blog up to date! It’s now almost (will be on the 1st March 2017) officially 6 months since I have been away from home and I am going to do some short blog posts on my favourite spots/countries so far…so watch this space.

So far it has all been an adventure and massive learning curb and I am still learning (but loving) every minute of each day I continue to travel. So please keep reading and I will try to post a bit more…

In the meantime this is me feeling content and happy on a beach on Urupukapuka Island (what a name!) which is the largest island of the Bay of Islands on the North Island in New Zealand.

Urupukapuka Island, Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

 

All photographs copyright Jemma Nicholson.

Road tripping round New Zealand – Part 1

Leave a comment

I spent two months travelling around New Zealand’s north and south island. Someone told me before I arrived that every corner you turn in New Zealand you say ‘WOW’ and it was so true! I landed in Auckland at the beginning of February and even though it was going into Autumn, I was lucky enough to have spectacular weather in my time visiting this beautiful country.

I am lucky enough to have friends and family on the North Island, so I stayed with them when I first arrived, which was so lovely and made me feel at home immediately. Although I was suffering a little bit from culture shock after spending 5 months in Southeast Asia, it was made easier by seeing some friends and familiar faces.

As there is so much to mention in regards to New Zealand, I am going to do two blog posts, the first one on the North Island and the second on the South Island. So here are my highlights of the North Island where I spent just under a month.

Continue reading →