During our visit to Sydney, we took a day tour to the Blue Mountains National Park, which begins at the western edge of Sydney. It’s an expansive mountain range with surrounding canyons that are majestic and beautiful. Its vast scale
The next-to-last city on our New Zealand-Australia itinerary was Brisbane (“Bris-bn”). We had never been to Brisbane before, but there seemed to be plenty of things to see and do, so we budgeted five nights. We’re glad we did. Brisbane
We spent four nights and three days in Melbourne (pronounced “Mel-bn” by the locals). We’ve been there once before for a two-day cruise stop in 2013, so we had already seen some of the sights. We didn’t recall that Melbourne
The first city on the Australia portion of our trip was Hobart, the capital of Tasmania (“Tassie,” as the locals call it). It’s a smaller city relative to Australia’s other state capitals, but it was beautiful and modern, with a
Our final stop in New Zealand was Hamilton, the country’s fourth-largest city, located an hour and a half south of Auckland. Our main reason for including Hamilton in our itinerary was to experience the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, which, along with
We spent three nights and two days in Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island. In some ways, it’s the North Island’s answer to Queenstown; an attractive town on a beautiful lake with outdoor thrill attractions and plenty for tourists to
Napier is a city on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It’s the nexus of the largest wool center in the Southern Hemisphere, and the primary export seaport for northeastern New Zealand. It’s located in the center of
After covering a fair amount of New Zealand’s South Island, we flew from Christchurch to Wellington to explore the North Island. Wellington, at the southern tip of the North Island, is officially the windiest city in the world, with an
We wrapped up our tour of New Zealand’s South Island with a brief stay in Christchurch. Christchurch is probably best known, unfortunately, for the damage it suffered during earthquakes on September 4, 2010, and February 21, 2011, the latter of
Oamaru (pronounced ŌM-a-RU, not ō-MAR-u as we had initially guessed) is a town of 14,300 on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island, between Dunedin and Christchurch. A century and a half ago, it was a rapidly growing, bustling
