"You'll hate skiing," everyone told me. Incessantly. Why is everyone so determined that I would hate skiing? Is it my general dislike for exercise? The outdoors? Fun? Well I ignored the negativity and went skiing in Queenstown. Queenstown is a scenic place. It's small, certainly not city-sized, and home to mostly Irish people I assume because all we heard were Irish accents. Unless you wanted to do an activity, it wouldn't be worth visiting for more than a few days.... Read More

I have some Middletons living in Moteuka, North of the South island, so naturally we decided to impose ourselves upon their hospitality, demanding food and wifi and entertainment. I hadn't seen these particular Middletons since I was about 9, and it was nice to see that my cousin John had managed to become the only tall person on the whole Middleton side of the family.... Read More

Wellington will forever be ingrained in my mind as "The city where I didn't get to try an Occulus Rift". I've wanted to try out virtual reality ever since I was 10 and RTE used to show The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. Wellington is a small, rather scenic city. It surrounds Wellington harbour and has lots of mountains around, which makes you feel like you're never really in a bustling city centre.... Read More

In spite of the fact that we do a lot of travelling, Dan and I never seem to learn anything. Here's my number one tip for aspiring travellers: Plan Everything. Do not assume you'll 'recognise it when you get there'. Do not assume transport will be easy. Do not assume you don't have to book it. Do not assume it will actually be open. Check the weather. While many of these affected our New Zealand trip, today we will be dealing with 'Do not assume you don't have to book it'.... Read More

Ignoring the fact that I lived in Ireland for 25 years and never visited France, which you can literally drive to, we figured it would seem ridiculous to not visit New Zealand while living in Australia. So we arrived in Auckland and added a new element of stress and excitement to our travel adventures: A hire car. The plan being to drive from Auckland to Wellington, stopping off for a few different things. From Wellington we would fly to Nelson where we would be picked up by my aunt and uncle for 2 days of family fun in Motueka.... Read More