Corromandel, Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Tongariro

Well our second last road trip in NZ. We combined three long awaited trips to make 10 days on the road hitting our last few kiwi hot spots.

We took our first magic trip to the corramadel in northern new zealand. We started in Auckland and headed out to the beaches (notice deb's shirt...that's for you devon). Our first pit stop was auckland's mount eden.


Classic New Zealand!

We made a stop at hot water beach one of the coolest places in NZ. There's a thermal hot springs under the beach so it heats the water and riases it back up creating natural hot tubs on the beach. Watch out for the tide coming in though...the ocean is not so warm!

Next stop cathedral cove (we've been seeing postcards for this spot since we first arrived here and we're excited to see it looked just like it did on the cards)

Next stop Paeroa - where they make the unique NZ drink l&p. And from there back to auckland where we did our second bungy of the trip - off the auckland city harbour bridge! Very exciting and a great experience (still scary but not quite as traumatic)

A few stops in auckland that we missed the first time around. First Wendy's for a square burger and a spice chicken. A much missed canadian fast food treat...followed by dunkin' donuts timbits. Good times. And then the real highlight for kitch the real shortland street! Shorty is a evening soap on here every day and we've both become pretty addicted so were excited to see the real street.

Our next tour was a kiwi experience out to the east coast of new zealand. We had a maori homestay on our first night out on the cape.

From there we went to the most easterly point of NZ and were literally in the middle of no where...where we did nothing. Great times playing cards, walking to the ocean and of course a tui fuelled dance party at night.



Just hanging with the pigs at the eastenders farm stay.

From there we went on to NZ's longest wharf and a hollywood encounter with the town where whale rider was filmed.


Our next stop was back to taupo where we did our second chance to try the Tongariro crossing. Commonly referred to as the best one day walk (or tramp) in New Zealand I like to call it..hell.

Look at the enthusiasm at the beginning of the walk...little did we know what was to come...

Like we went back to canada....only worse.


Knee deep snow and gale force winds.
And Debi makes it to the beautiful blue lake (cant you see the beautiful blue lake? Oh you cant through the blinding snow and ice? Good thing she risked her life for this view!)