Author: melmalinowski

Returning to North Island, I began my first explorations there. About 3 hours drive south of Auckland lies Matamata, a big lush green valley that is mostly farm pastureland. This area was the setting for The Hobbit movies, and some of those sets were preserved and now are the popular theme park ‘Hobbiton’. More than half…

Heading even further south, I set about walking the Humpridge Track. You begin by hiking along the coast. These are BIG old Rimu trees. A Kiwi couple from Wanaka, South Island, that I met along the trail.   After 8 hours of strenuous climbing, I reached Okaka Lodge, perched high atop Humpridge. On the ridge…

Heading further south, I decided to go spend a night at remote Waitutu Lodge. There are no roads in this area, so the most common way to get here is to take a jetboat from Lake Hauroko down the river to the coast. Along the way, Johan stopped to tell us about the natural history…

After driving south to Lake Te Anau, I did two long day hikes along the Kepler Track. It is one of the ‘Great Walks’ tracks. My first walk began by crossing one of the many cable bridges. NZ must have a  cable bridge engineering department! Soon I was hiking through a dense, mossy forest. The…

Welcome to Year Two of my global seeking adventure. Just one year ago I began by flying to New Zealand. I loved it, but needed more time to even scratch the surface of this big beautiful island nation. This time, I’ve allocated 3 more weeks to South Island, and three weeks to North Island. Here is…