Hello From New Zealand

A lovely part of the area You've picked a really good place.

I suppose that when you were at Hamilton you got fed up with all the tourist in the Rotorua area!

 

Leonie it sounds to me like you have a great lifestyle over there and a beautiful place to live.. I have a big poly tunnel and think it is great for growing veggies etc.. I haven't updated the thread for a while but this is my tunnel.. I will update it soon.. http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/marleys-tunnel.51721/ and our tunnel forum.. http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/forums/poly-tunnel-gardening.110/Look forward to seeing you around the forums..

 

I have always wanted to visit New Zealand - beautiful from what I have seen image wise

 

Leonie, that's a very nice offer

You're definitely right about the 'strange' smell of Rotorua. I don't think I could live with that smell of sulphur.

Is 90 Mile Beach popular with tourists now?

We spent five weeks driving around NZ, Christmas with friends in Nelson and then a week with friends in Titirangi (Auckland). They have one of the interesting old houses built on stilts (needed a lot of work done on it) and their garden was part of the rain forest. They'd only recently moved in and it was a very nice spot to live (especially for their very young kids) - apart from the mosquitos!

This was the view of their garden from the deck.

 

Congratulations

It's always difficult to say what we think is the best place we visited as every place is different.
As we were there through Christmas and New Year the atmosphere was brilliant and everyone seemed to be in a holiday mood. Some of the places we visited are listed below.

We went to the touristy type sites as well as the out of the way places. Christmas Eve Carol concert in the street in Nelson was memorable (but a bit chilly) but Christmas Day we spent hiking in Abel Tasman Park in temperatures up to 80F.

New Year's Eve we spent on the beach at Queenstown watching the fireworks and celebrating with the locals.

Did all the usual visits around the Bay of Islands and went to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The Rotorua area has lots of touristy things to do so, apart from the thermal springs, rainbow springs and the Glowworm Caves we did the usual visits to a sheep shearing show, a Hangi (very good), went on a good Duck Tour and visited the Kiwi house.

We enjoyed the Matakohe Kauri museum, loved the Tongariro National Park as the weather was just right for us to wander up the mountain (may seem a bit easy to you but we were already pensioners when we were touring ), went to the site of Tangiwai Rail disaster, hiked in the Waipoua Forest and enjoyed looking around Wellington including the Botanical Gardens (with the interesting sculptures) and the Te Papa museum.

South Island was pretty good and, once again, we did the touristy things:- Queenstown and the Shotover Canyon (only watched the bungee jumping ) and the trip on TSS Earnslaw, Christchurch (nicer botanical gardens than Wellington), walked on the Fox Glacier, went part way up Mount Cook
Definitely worth watching sunrise and sunset on the mountain




Wanaka area was pretty and we took a trip on the Kingston Flyer and, of course, the Te Anau area with trips on Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound are not to be missed. Even just little places en route are well worth taking a slight detour - such as the Pancake Rocks at Punakaikai and the Mirror Lakes and just seeing the statue of the collie dog that commemorates the work done by the dogs without whose help the pioneers of the MacKenzie Country couldn't have survived.

 

Thanks for your nice comments

I don't do any fancy things with photos. All I do is take thousands of them so that I can get few that look OK

I'm working on threads about my travels and have been posting them here, if you find some time to look.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/shineys-travels.61299/

Haven't done ones on NZ yet