Kia ora from the Land of the Long White Cloud cuzzie bro’s!

Welcome to New Zealand (NZ) loyal blog fans. After 6 months of working hard (or hardly working, I forget which it is), we decided to treat ourselves to a Kiwi* Christmas! My brother’s living over here at the moment and visiting him gave us the perfect excuse to take the short flight over here (it’s just 3 hours from Brisbane to Auckland) and enjoy some of the wonders of the Land of the Long White Cloud.

*For those that may not be familiar with the moniker, a Kiwi is what Aussies (lovingly) call New Zealanders. Not to be confused with kiwi, the fuit, or kiwi, the bird (see images below for clarification).

Kiwi fruit.

Kiwi bird

NZ is one of our closest neighbours and makes for an easy holiday destination for us. It’s also one of the most beautiful places on Earth, with scenery that has always left us breathless. For us, NZ sits alongside Iceland and Japan as one of the truly magical places to visit if you love nature – especially because it is just so GREEN*.

*For Australians the colour green is a rare sight indeed – our country is beautiful in its own way, but “green” is not a colour we see much of at home (most of Aus tends towards the brown, red/brown, or, at best, green/brown). As a result we often find ourselves craving the colour green and travelling to “chase the green”.

Chasing the green.

We’ve been to NZ before and LOVE it. The landscapes are stunning, the people super-friendly and the food fantastic (especially the seafood) – what’s not to love?! Plus it’s also a lot cooler than most of Aus, which is a bit of a relief really as Brisbane has been stinking hot and stupidly humid lately. And even better, nothing in NZ is out to kill you (unlike Aus where everything is deadly – the snakes, the spiders, the crocs, the sharks, the jellyfish and even the octupi). Our plan is to drive from Auckland to Wellington (where my brother lives), taking it slow and visiting some of our favourite spots in the North island along the way. The map below gives you an overview of our plan for this Kiwi Christmas adventure.

Our Kiwi Christmas

For now though we’re off to bed – it’s just gone midnight NZ time and tomorrow we need to pick up our rental car and get this adventure started. Hei konā blog fans!