Looking at America from 10,000 miles away
We were checking out at the natural foods store of Commonsense Organics, and the cashier asked where we were from. The States, we said, and Texas. Ooh, he said, then maybe I shouldn’t ask you…
Today's laundry drying on the rack
A Week in the Life
Since we’ve arrived in Wellington, we’re often asked what we do to fill up our time here. In other words, what do we do when we’re on “endless vacation”? First of all, we’re not really…
Easy SE Asia sockets
Plugging in: SE Asia/Australia/New Zealand electricity made easy
For Americans, getting power for your stuff in SE Asia (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar) is very easy. Everywhere we went, we found electrical outlets in which you can also stick standard U.S. two-prong electrical plugs. Easy.…
On the beach at Abel Tasman National Park
Ready, willing…and Abel?
We were just one hour into our hike along the famed Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of the nine great walks of New Zealand. And it was tea time. We were familiar with many of…
Coffee shops abound in Wellington
Coffee, coffee everywhere
If I can't take my coffee break, My coffee break, my coffee break . . . If I can't take my coffee break, Gone is the sense of enterprise, All gone, and something within me…
Lighted floor map of New Zealand in the Our Space section
It’s All On at Te Papa Museum, Wellington
It’s a Kiwi smorgasbord: a display of Maori cloaks woven over a two hundred year span, an exhibit of European fine arts collected by the wealthy here, a “colossal” squid from the Pacific depths splayed…
The skyline walkway above Wellington
Cheers, mates! – Mutual respect along the trail
Hiking in New Zealand is often made possible by the cooperative effort between landowners and the hikers. This is a similar relationship to the one we found in Europe. Without this cooperation we would be…
Uncoiling the meaning of the Maori koru
It looks like the end of life, not the beginning: dark, hairy, oily-looking stalks sticking out of the fern tree’s base, with black clusters on their ends. It seems that the fern has suffered some…
Upon the Fox Glacier at 6500 feet
Peaking at the right time: the glaciers, mountains and beaches of the West Coast
Rain lashed us, swept sideways, as even the cattle collectively turned their backs to the violent gusts that threatened to heave them into another pasture. And there we were, bravely rolling along in a 6400…
Freedom camping with our campervan on sandy beach
Freedom Beach: Touring by Campervan on the South Island
The view was just what we wanted on our trip to the west coast of New Zealand's South Island: a sweeping panorama of the shoreline with a craggy rock formation to our right. We had…