Cool Trips Australia and New Zealand

Our Travels and Adventures in New Zealand

We left Australia a month early for Auckland New Zealand breathing a sigh of relief and hoping the Aussie attitudes hadn't made the crossing before us. Well, five weeks in a Jucy Camper and 8000km later and we didn't want to leave. New Zealand is stunning, absolutely stunning. Forget Australia, if you want to experience the real outdoors, eat great food and meet fantastic people... get yourself to New Zealand, it's fantastic.

Cool Trips New Zealand

Kia Orana from the Cook Islands & Rarotonga

We travelled back in time to yesterday and arrived in Avarua, the main town on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The landing was scary as all you can see...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kirstie …

It’s The Big One … 21 years old and a woman of the world !!! We’re all thinking of you and we all wish you a HAPPY … HAPPY...

Ohakune, Watimo and Taupo

Ohakune is situated at the base of a volcano, which would have been nice if the weather wasn’t so horrendous! We continued driving and arrived in Watimo....

Greymouth, Motueka and Picton

Greymouth is a big seaside town with a Montheith’s brewery (the local beer) so there were a lot of bars. We didn’t stay for long as we were headed...

Wanaka and Queenstown

We drove through Queenstown on the way to Wanaka over a huge, huge mountain. When we arrived in Wanaka there was a country show being held. We watched...

Te Anau, Fiordland and Milford Sound

Te Anau is the gateway to Fiordland and Milford Sound. The town is very touristy but situated on a beautiful lake with beautiful snow-capped mountains...

Hammer Springs, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill

Hammer Springs is a very small town up in the hills and it’s packed full of tourists. We took a trip to the thermal springs, which had loads of different...

From Napier to Wellington, Picton and Kaikoura

We’re heading down the East Coast of the New Zealand North Island hoping to spend some quality time in the South Island. Friends and reviews have...

Rotorua – A Thermal Wonderland

We camped at the Blue Lake which is just out of Rotorua city centre. The city was good, and fairly large by NZ standards. We found a restaurant called...

New Zealand – Auckland, The Bay of Islands and Tauranga

Our first stop in our Cool Trip to New Zealand was Auckland on the North Island. We flew in from Sydney and when we arrived we found that New Zealand customs...

Cool Trips New Zealand Video

A quick Video of our Cool Trip to New Zealand. And; it’s official Backpackers should forget Australia and start taking a real good look at New Zealand....

Cool Trips New Zealand – Kia Ora

Kia Ora everyone, just a quick update to let you know that we’re currently in New Zealand and have been here for about four weeks. We left Sydney,...

Our Travels and Adventures in Australia

We left Bali for Darwin, Australia with visions of Koalas, Kangaroos and wild open spaces. Instead, initially anyway, we got aggressive aborigines and crocodiles. We expected backpacker heaven and got backpacker rip-off with a pleasant smile and sensational backdrops. Australia isn't all bad, Monkey Mia, north of Perth was great as were the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves near Sydney and Ayers Rock is stunning, but somewhere in the recent past Australia decided to milk travellers for all they could. $100 AUD for a bed in a hostel dorm wasn't the most expensive item we came across, but it was close. We met mostly unhelpful and uncaring people and cut our two months in Australia to one. Happy to get out of it really, there's more beautiful, friendlier places to be.