New Zealand & Australia 2026

Greetings from yet another completely different region of New Zealand's South Island... After visiting NZ's wettest location (in Fiordland), we've crossed eastward over the Southern Alps into the rain shadow to our base in Cromwell/Bannockburn, a pair of small towns in central Otago, and NZ's driest place.  The area is very reminiscent of the historic fruit & grape growing regions in California, except with only about 1% of the population! Here the climate is a dry, temperate, almost high desert landscape, with broad rolling glacial valleys between steep and rugged mountain ridges.  Our Airbnb was located adjacent to both a large vineyard (Pinot Noir grapes) and a cherry orchard, with a view over the grapes down to the Clutha River. Pretty idyllic! We've continued to be remarkably lucky with the weather here.  Most days the temperature has started in the low 50's, and then climbed up to 70-75F by lunchtime under clear blue...

After a great week on the north central west coast, we've moved south - first 3 nights on Franz Josef at the foot of several glaciers, and then way south to Fiordland National Park for 4 nights on Manapouri.  These areas are probably what the south island is best known for... Particularly the iconic Milford Sound pictured above.  It doesn't disappoint!   Our first couple of days near the glaciers included a bunch of hikes to various lookouts and scenic vistas in the deep valleys under the glaciers. Sadly, the glaciers a retreating rapidly, so they are now a long way from the main highway, and hiking trails can only safely approach to points more than a mile down valley.  For reference, in 2013 when I was here with students, we could walk to within a few hundred yards of the front of the glacier! Between Fran Josef and Manapouri was a long, 7 hour drive over winding mountain highways - lots of spectacular views and ...

After 9 days spent first near Christchurch on the south island's central east coast, and a week on the northeast corner in Marlborough, we've now moved 350 km west and south to the central west coast. We've had a weeklong stay just south of Greymouth in another Airbnb studio apartment, about 300 yards from the beach, and with a rather nice sunset view of the breakers on the Tasman Sea.  So far, we're really pleased with our Airbnb bookings- really nice little apartments with pretty much everything you need to feel at home! The landscape here on the West Coast is dramatically different from that on the east.  There we had wide open valleys FILLED with vineyards (more grapes than we've seen anywhere in the world, and we've been to a lot of wine regions!), and short but steep, densely wooded hills around the Marlborough Sounds. The West Coast, at least much of what we've seen so far, is more reminiscent of Big Sur or the NorCal Sonoma co...

After driving about 200 miles up the east coast from Christchurch, we arrived at our idyllic B&B in our own private vineyard about 4 miles outside the city of Blenheim.   We had a lovely little terrace about 5 yards from the vines, where we had coffee every morning, and sipped a little of the local Sauvignon Blanc each evening.  Not bad considering it's about 10F back in Cazenovia! Like several of our recent winter travels, we're again taking things slow and easy, and largely unplanned from day to day other than knowing where we're staying in weeklong blocks at Airbnb's I booked back in June. This week I've gone out for a 20-40 mile bike ride most mornings, before Norma and I headed out to a variety of adventures hiking, beach walking, wine tasting, and even a day long boat cruise on the "mailboat" on Queen Charlotte Sound. There's a huge variety of landscapes to explore, and we're doi...

After a very long, but mercifully uneventful day of travel, we're happily on the ground on the south island of New Zealand.  The 13 hours in the air between San Francisco and Christchurch went better than expected, with both Norma and I managing to get at least 6-8 hours of fitful sleep. Remarkably, after two days on the ground, we both feel like we've gotten beyond whatever jetlag we suffered. We spent the first two days in and around Christchurch, including a visit to the Botanical Garden (excellent!), and out to the coast at Lyttelton for a couple of great walks along the shoreline cliffs.  Lyttelton is also the port where Niall spent several days a few years back when the USCG icebreaker Polar Star stopped here before heading south to Antarctica. Coincidentally, while we were here, we were able to see the new floating pier/barge (NSF Discovery) waiting in the harbour to be escorted by the Polar Star down to McMurdo base! Pretty cool... 😎  ...