NZ Round 2
Nov-Dec 2019

After a few weeks in New Zealand, a week in Tasmania, a few days in Sydney, I retuned to New Zealand.

This time, Katie came with me. And as luck would have it, now that skiing was no longer an option, the skies cleared and we had a perfect weeklong vacation on the South Island.

After spending nearly three weeks on the South Island in early November, I felt like I knew what the island had to offer (rain, mostly). But looking at a map, I noticed I hadn’t gone north from Christchurch, leaving about one-quarter of the island unexplored by me. That part of the island was warmer and beach-ier. Fortunately, Katie is pretty beachy herself. We rented a cute little campervan and headed north, allowing me to complete a pretty thorough tour of New Zealand’s South Island on this 5-week-mega-trip. This also allowed Katie to be in her happy place: on white sand.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a meal we cooked in the van, hiked all day along a tropical coastline, fell in love with the recently-razed city of Christchurch, and Katie became a Kiwi Ranger, the New Zealand version of the Junior Ranger Program that she actively participates in at home. She also sunburned the top of her forehead in a terrible, hilarious way.