Ooh, you gotta love Christmas on a cruise ship.  The decorations, the festivities, the atmosphere.  And to be fair, they didn’t seem to go overboard with decorations in Auckland, making it all the more magical when we stepped onboard Seabourn Odyssey.

It felt like I’d been working right up to the 11th hour.  But with Christmas Day not until Monday, we still had Christmas Eve to wind down and let it all seep in. 

Overnight, we’d cruised north, way north, and north a bit further, almost to the tip of the North Island of New Zealand.  And so it was, on Christmas Eve, we dropped anchor in ‘Bay of Islands’, a stunning collection of 150 or so little islands, peninsulas and inlets.  From there, we began a carefully choreographed set of maneuvers involving tenders, ferries, and buses – in order to go for a walk.

We were up and away on the first passenger tender, eager to get going (and more importantly to get back and make a start on the festive eating and drinking).  Waiting for us at the dock in Waitangi was a shuttle bus to the nearby town of Paihia.  Despite the initial choppy seas and angry looking overcast skies, the weather held up as we took to the coast path and beach trails from Paihia to Opua. 

A short ferry hop took us to Okiato and our terrain changed to dense, steep rainforest.  Proper Lord of the Rings stuff, very cool.   Weird and wonderful trees, gigantic ferns and creepy strangler vines.  Bird calls from another planet competing with the overpowering white noise of cicadas (or whatever Antipodean equivalent they have over here).  The humidity was palpable, and the effort intense.

Having run out of water way earlier, we were mightily relieved to emerge from the jungle to a road with signs of life.  And more importantly, an oasis of a petrol station.  Nine miles in (with just a couple more to go) and somewhat dehydrated, we sat on the curb downing Gatorade and tucking into a well deserved chocolate chip cookie.  At which point a friendly bus driver filling up with petrol took pity on us and offered us a lift into the nearby town of Russell.  He didn’t have to ask twice!

Another ferry ride, shuttle bus and tender completed our Christmas Eve outing, at which point we were pretty glad to see our ship. The rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day really was all about enjoying Christmas.

There are some pivotal moments that I feel warrant a mention, even though I don’t have any photo evidence… Resting our aching muscles in the hot tub on the back deck, for one. With champagne, because it’s only right to have bubbles in the bubbles.

And then one of my favourite activities, which I’d been building up to big time, really looking forward to it: a Singalong Christmas Carol session. Darren on the other hand, took a bit of persuading, said he’d meet me there, and just about made it in time for the last chorus of We Wish You a Merry Christmas at the end. I was festively decked out in my Santa hat (brought with me all the way from home), swinging my mulled wine and singing with gusto. And somehow not a single photo to memorialize it.

Merry Christmas all!

It may not seem like much but boy, was I glad to see the inside of Tom Bradley terminal at LAX.  It was a week before Christmas and I was finally about to follow in Darren’s tracks, destination New Zealand.  Note to self… in the run up to Christmas, chances are that the merry hell of standard Friday evening LA traffic will be even worse than normal.  LAX lies exactly 35 miles from our house.  On a good day, door to door is 45 minutes.  But you always allow two hours, just in cases.  

Three and a half hours it took me!  Three and a half hours to go 35 miles to LAX!  With two miles to go and traffic at a standstill, panicked passengers were emerging from their Ubers and running towards the airport with their luggage.  Adding to the mayhem, given there’s no actual path.  They were the lucky ones with just their carry-on luggage – I didn’t fancy my chances much with my super sized cruise suitcases and laptop.

Having survived the very real risk of not making it to the airport, I luckily breezed through check in (everyone else was long gone).  I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized I’d make it to the gate for boarding time.  And then came to my senses… with a ‘cheap seats’ ticket, there’s no way I’d be near the front of the queue for boarding.  Which would give me ooh, a good ten minutes to grab a glass of red in the terminal.  

With a midnight departure, I totally lucked out on the overnight portion of the flight with a three seater row to myself.  The layover was in Papeete, on the island of Tahiti.  I’m sure it’s a tropical paradise although I wouldn’t really know.  You don’t get to see too much from the inside of an airport, other than the flying in and out bit.

The first thing that hit me after arriving in Auckland a day and a half after leaving LA (that whole date line thing messes with my mind), was the somewhat Britishness of New Zealand.  There were signs for lifts and toilets, and I was quite tickled to hear the satnav in the Uber speaking in a posh English accent.

Given Darren was still off galavanting on his South Island adventure, I’d asked him to book me a nice place, well located.  He rather excelled himself actually.

I still had Monday to enjoy New Zealand’s capital city before starting work (the extra day thing again, it was still Sunday in California).  I heard exercise is good for jet lag.  And what a lovely day I had walking 12 miles across Auckland, technically kind of from one side of New Zealand to the other.

The rest of the week was quite honestly a blur of 4:30am alarm calls and long working days.

And then in flew Darren, as if to remind me that we had a vacation to go on.

Darren had booked us a sunset kayak trip on Friday evening.  Should be a nice start to the holiday!  Turns out this involved a 3+ mile kayak across open water to Rangitoto island; a picnic; a 2 hour hike up Rangitoto peak, descending at dusk; and a night paddle back in the dark, getting back around midnight.  Not quite sure where the sunset kayak bit came in.

Pretty much as soon as we launched the kayak, right into full-on wind and waves, I realized this was going to be challenging.  Of course, the front of the kayak takes the brunt of the elements. That’ll be me then.  I was soon blinded by what seemed like buckets of salt water being repeatedly thrown in my face.  The nose of the kayak see-sawed awkwardly over the crashing walls of waves, each time giving me a fresh drenching.  I did my best to continue the arm and shoulder movements but not only was I a little out of practice, I wasn’t expecting quite this level of intensity.  Meanwhile Darren was as encouraging and supportive as always, barking his orders from behind.  Something about paddling harder.

I was dreading a traumatic re-run on the return journey, especially with the stakes ramped up in the dark.  But oh what a difference in the conditions. The wind had mostly dropped and what there was, was behind us.  It was oh so peaceful, like gliding across a vast mesmerizing pool of black glass.  What felt like gentle ripples aided us from the rear, and our paddles lapped in unison.  Tiny lights onshore in the distance were all we needed to guide us.  It was approaching midnight and my body succumbed to a relaxed rhythmic trance of paddling, maybe not fully awake after a week of silly o’clock starts.  

All those lovely sunrises during the week and just our luck, Seabourn Odyssey rocks up to a grey cloudy morning.

The anticipation for this Christmas and New Year cruise had been building for some time. I was so so so nearly pencils down with work (Darren even more so!), and we were full of excitement for the next two weeks. It was a joy to step onboard and receive a friendly signature Seabourn welcome. In our suite, amid a slew of personalized Welcome Onboard notes, was a delightful platter of Christmas niceties, a bottle of red wine, a stunning bunch of flowers, and the obligatory bottle of champagne. Don’t mind if we do!

After the biking, hiking and paddling it was road trip time before heading back to Auckland.

The first stop was Queenstown where I felt I deserved a post hike soak at Onsen Hot Pools and a slap-up mean at the waterfront.

Queenstown isn’t the type of town where you get the day off from outdoor adventures so it was time to get back on the bike and go exploring. I rented a gravel bike and am thinking for sure there is space in the garage for a new style of bike as it was a lot of fun. The hill called Sharp Rise or (C**T Hill had scratched on the sign) set me up for a stop for fish and chips and then a brewery before dropping off the bike.

For the final day in Queenstown it was time to get the hiking shoes back out and tackle Ben Lomond. I think the pictures say it all for this hike. Note the scenic outhouse toilet on the way up 🙂

After the slog up Ben Lomond it was time to unwind at the waterfront with some beers in the sun and then pickup some Lamb from the famous ‘Pedros Lamb’ (famous in NZ at least!).

I had fun in Queenstown but it is well known as the adrenaline capital of the South Island and my biking and hiking didn’t quite tick the adrenaline box but this was about to change when I drove to Wanaka and signed up for a Via Ferrata adventure!

Via Ferrata (iron path in Italian) is climbing whilst clipped in to steel cables, rungs and steps (with a waterfall thrown in!). There were three options on how long you want to keep climbing with the extreme one involving 450M of climbing and it was rated as hard with warnings on exposure. I was thinking how hard can it really be and I guess they have to big it up and should be fine……

Things got ‘interesting’ after the level 1 and 2 tour groups dropped off and hiked down and just myself, the guide and one other guy (also out of his depth like me) continued up, over, through, behind and finally above the waterfall. For the next couple of hours as we continued up with exposed overhangs and sheer drops I flip flopped from this is amazing to WTF!

The good news is if you sign up for the extreme tour you get picked up at the top and helicopter back down! It was a much much much quicker trip down than it was up.

The climbing and stress of the day certainly had me burn through some calories but not to worry that lamb dish from Pedros just kept on giving for multiple nights in the camper!

First off lets set the record straight that technically it should be Milford and Doubtful Fiords rather than Sound but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The Welsh explorer John Lort Stokes misnamed it in 1851 but the whole area was renamed Fiordland so all is good I guess.

I was lucky enough to be able to paddle both Milford and Doubtful ‘Sound’ and although they were two very different trips both were awesome.

Doubtful Sound was definitely harder work to get on the water. You start with a bus to a boat, you then take the boat across Lake Manapouri and it is time to get wet suited up. You then get onto a bus to get yourself to Doubtful Sound with a rather cool view point along the way.

Milford and Doubtful get over 23 feet of rainfall each year and are the wettest inhabited place on the planet and it lived up to the hype by the time we made it down to the water and got into our waterproofs (on top of wetsuits!).

The waterfalls really are spectacular and given how much it was raining and how wet we were we ended up just kayaking through some of the smaller falls as we hugged the coastline.

And before we repeated the bus, boat, bus trip in reverse to get back we took yet another boat ride but it was a lot quicker than paddling back!

Doubtful Sound is a remote and quiet place and our hardy group had the place to ourselves which was in contrast to the much easier to get to Milford Sound were I paddled next. Whilst it was busy in Milford Sound once we paddled out and away from the hustle and bustle of the other trips it was still an amazing experience.

The Milford Sounds trip was a much shorter trip that Doubtful and so short I hardly got any pics! But rather than resort to stock pictures of Milford Sound I will hold off as we will be coming back on the Seabourn cruise in a few weeks!

The Routeburn track is a three day hut-to-hut walk starting from near Milford Sound and crossing the Southern Alps over to the Queenstown side. As it was a two night trip it needed a two hip flask level of packing.

Day one was hiking up to Mackenzie hut and was a lovely sunny afternoon hiking through alpine gardens and waterfalls and ending with a ‘refreshing’ dip at the lake next to the hut.

Logistics can be tough with getting from the start/end of the trailhead and for having all the gear you need for a multi day hike. I opted to make it easy and used a company that relocated the camper to the end of the trailhead so it would be waiting for me as well as having them provide the backpack stocked with cooking stuff and camping food. I think it would be fair to say the food was pretty basic. When I got to the hut and saw the list of what was for dinner I was looking forward to the cheese and crackers as I had dragged some wine up. Lets just say it wasn’t a fancy cheese board style of starter….

The next morning was unfortunately not quite such a bright day. Moist airflow was the situation according to the weather report in the hut. The forecast was accurate and it was time to get the waterproofs out and trudge on to the next hut.

As I headed down to the hut it was a reminder there is very much a class system for hikers and I was not in 1st class! You pass the hut that is for the private guided hikers (table clothes, washer and dryers, non-dehydrated food!) and then get to your hut that has a bit of a laundry feel as every tries to dry out their soggy gear.

Luckily I had some spare (dry!) socks for the final days hike down to the trail head. It brought back some nice memories of when Heather and I were here on our original global adventure 20 years ago and we did this stretch as an out and back day hike. Luckily today it didn’t snow this time.

My exploring of the South Island started with a five day Alps 2 Ocean bike ride which goes from Mt Cook down to Oamaru on the coast. It was a perfect way to unwind from work and get into a breakfast, ride, lunch, ride, beer, dinner, bed and repeat mode!

Day one starts up at Mt Cook and follows the glacier moraine bumpy track along the shoreline of the turquoise waters of Lake Pukaki. There is the small issue of the glacier fed Tasman River being in the way and the lack of a bridge. This was easily enough worked around by a helicopter trip! After this trip I firmly believe every bike ride should start with a helicopter ride.

Despite a rainy start to the day, it soon cleared up and I had some nice clear views of Mt Cook to distract me from the rocky ride. The gravel track finally gave way to some nice single track, with a cool little detour to the Mt Cook salmon shop. I was very much ready for a few beers and a nice curry when I finally made it to Twizel to spend the night.

The rest of the trip had scenery changes throughout the day as I left the alpine scenery of Mt Cook and went through farmlands, winelands, lakes and eventually hit the sea. It was a fun mix of tracks, single track and quiet country roads.

Five days of this and it was nice to roll into the victorian styled seaside town of Oamaru. After hitting the must do photo frame at the finish line, there was a brewery straight over the road 🙂

It was fun bumping into other cyclists and groups along with way that were doing various different options and different numbers of days on the Alps 2 Ocean route. I was lucky enough to get adopted by Jon and Karen that were visiting from Oz and doing the same route. We would leap frog each other as we made various pie and pint stops during the day but it mean’t I never had to drink alone in the evening! Cheers guys and thanks!!

After logging off from work and picking up the campervan, I had a day to kill before heading up to Mount Cook to start the Alps 2 Ocean bike ride so it was time to pop over to Akaroa. Akaroa is a small waterfront town a couple of hours from Christchurch and it was a pretty little spot to start the holiday.

It was also time to sample some of the pies that New Zealand is famous for. Veggie curry and pork belly pies were chosen to kick off the pie adventures that would fuel me for the upcoming bike ride.

New Zealand is well setup for campers and whilst the harbor car park doesn’t look that scenic, it was a perfect spot to wander into town and then stagger home.

There isn’t that much to Akaroa but it did have a waterfront gin bar and a curry house so I was pretty much sorted for the night.

The advantage of ‘camping’ at the harbor meant that in the morning there was a kayaking tour getting ready to head out so I tagged along and enjoyed a little paddle to start the day.

After a paddle and a pie (yes, another pie), it was time to head out and get myself up into the mountains ready to start the cycle adventure. It was a particularly nice evening to be camping at the lake with views up to Mount Cook where I would be riding from tomorrow.

We know that not everyone who reads the blog believes we really do work as well as travel, so here are some pics of the week that I spent in Auckland and Christchurch. The plan was to have a week working in NZ before starting my 5 week ‘recharge’ break from work.

My Auckland plans had to be reworked at the last minute as mentioned in the previous blog regarding the extended Honolulu layover. This meant my Auckland hotel wasn’t as fancy as the airbnb that Heather was due to be staying in when she came out. But I did at least get a peek-a-boo view of the Auckland waterfront, so no complaints.

Whilst Auckland is 21 hours ahead of US pacific hours, it is also -3 hours (+1 day) so it wasn’t too bad to join meetings and get the job done for the week. That said, I was pretty sure when Heather flew out in a few weeks time to do the same ‘1 week pre-holiday work week’, that she would have something to say about the time difference!

After a couple of days in Auckland, it was time to hop on down to the South Island to Christchurch. Whilst the weather hadn’t exactly been awesome in Auckland, it took a turn for the worse when I landed in Christchurch. I was starting to have second thoughts about how clever my decision was to switch a SoCal winter for a New Zealand summer!

My temporary office in Christchurch was a nice enough little airbnb and luckily the weather improved the next day and I was able to make the most of the little garden that the city center apartment had.

New cities of course mean new dining options to explore and new beers to try.

Talking of food options, Heather was a little concerned that she didn’t know what the crisps would be like in New Zealand, and if they would be an improvement on the options available in the US. I sent her some snaps from the supermarket to reassure her she would be OK during her solo week in Auckland and all she would need would be some bottles of wine and crisps, and she would be all set for dinner plans.

Finally Saturday rolled around. Finishing at lunch time Saturday (Friday 5pm US time!) meant it was time to pickup the campervan and get the recharge holiday going.

The plan was LAX -> Honolulu -> Auckland with just time for a quick pint at the brewery in the airport in Honolulu before connecting with the Auckland flight. The reality was that it turned into a few days layover, but for some reason I didn’t seem to get much sympathy when I let people know I was stuck in Hawaii!

I won’t bore you with the details but suffice to say the New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA) is now a thing (even for Brits) and they don’t always take 24 hours to be approved and ‘system maintenance’ can cause it to take days!

The outcome was a weekend in Hawaii and then a couple of long days of travel/work combo that were brutal but given that I was going on 5 weeks of holiday I managed to muddle through my last week of work for the year!

The unexpected travel plans continued as I was in the queue at the airport for a taxi to a last minute booked hotel. Instead of a taxi, the next car in line was a limo, just for me! It was only a short hop to Waikiki and I didn’t even get a chance to open a bottle of champagne.

The first stop was lunch and the mission – to come up with a plan for the weekend!

As you can probably guess, the plan revolved around breweries and food.

I did manage to escape the mayhem of Waikiki Beach Hotels and get out on a scooter for the day. To be honest, I think I could have ridden a bike faster than the little scooter that seriously struggled to drag me up hills, but it was a fun trip along the coast.

(True story on the warnings for jelly fish!… A wave lapped in and dragged a little tentacle over my foot and it was stinging for days!)

Waikiki Beach is a bit of a Hawaii/Vegas feel with the large hotels but it does look pretty enough at sunset. Sunsets and cocktails would have been more fun with Heather tagging along 🙁

The hotel room/office space was technically an ocean view room but only if you ignore the Macy’s car park.

It wasn’t all cocktails and beaches as I did have to get up at 4am to work till lunch time, hop on a flight to Auckland, straight to bed at 1am and then back up at 5am the next day. Technically it was 5am the next, next day as I some how skipped a Tuesday.