Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Final Days & Kiakoura

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Heading up to Mt. Cook on the South Island of New Zealand.

The last few days on the bus were mostly filled with scenery instead of activities.  We woke up in Dunedin and had a long drive up to the base of Mt. Cook, New Zealand’s tallest mountain.  The stops along the drive included the Moeraki Boulders, large, marble-shaped boulders on the beach, the Victorian town of [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Day 22 – Dunedin

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The lighthouse at Waipapa Point on the south island of New Zealand.

We were up bright and early this morning to catch the morning ferry back to the south island and meet up with the rest of the bus.  The ride back from Stewart Island wasn’t as bad as the previous day’s trip, but I’m not sure that passage is ever calm.  If you plan on getting [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Days 20 and 21 – Stewart Island

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Some Stray passengers play in the snow.

If you’ve been following along form the beginning, you’ll already know that, while in the North Island, heavy rain prevented us from doing river rafting and created heavy snow that shut down the Tongariro Crossing as well.  After a week’s worth of amazing weather, I suppose it was only a matter of time until we [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Queenstown Part 2

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Skydiving with NZone! in Queenstown, New Zealand.

These two posts on Queenstown cover five days, which, in keeping with the previous posts, would be days 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 of my trip.  If you were sticking with the standard Stray bus schedule, you’d normally only get two nights in Queenstown, but most people seem to take extra time here.

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Queenstown Part 1

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The center of town, Queenstown, New Zealand.

These two posts on Queenstown cover five days, which, in keeping with the previous posts, would be days 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 of my trip.  If you were sticking with the standard Stray bus schedule, you’d normally only get two nights in Queenstown, but most people seem to take extra time here.

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Day 14 – Slow Day

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The scenery of New Zealand's south island heading from Franz Josef to Makarora

After our visit to Franz Josef Glacier yesterday, we’ve got two days of transport before arriving in Queenstown.  Today we traveled to the hamlet of Makarora which didn’t have much for us except for dinner, a place to sleep and karaoke, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Days 12 and 13 – Franz Josef Glacier

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Our guide leads us down a portion of the Franz Josef Glacier.

Today we not only slept in but left at half-past noon due to one of our activities being canceled.  Normally we would have stopped in Hokitika to check out the greenstone factory and, possibly, carve our own greenstone.  It wasn’t quite clear if we would have just watched or been able to do it ourselves, [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Day 11 – Cape Foulwind

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From the shore along the Beach Cave between Cape Foulwind and Greymouth in New Zealand.

Today we head south along the west coast of the south island.  Our destination is the town of Greymouth, which, by all accounts, isn’t much of a destination.  It’s basically a sleep stop on the way down to our next major spot – Franz Josef Glacier.  However, just because it’s a transport day doesn’t mean [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Days 9 & 10 – Abel Tasman

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Torrent Bay at Abel Tasman National Park

We rushed out far too early this morning to make sure we made the 8am ferry from Wellington to the south island.  There were five of us from the original bus, which I’ll refer to from here on out as Bus #1.  With the new passengers, we had a bit of a bridge in Lauren, [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Days 7 & 8 – Wellington

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An orc placed above the check out desk at the Weta Cave.

Today was taken up with the “Ultimate Lord of the Rings Tour” put on by Movie tours in Wellington.  From 10:30 – 6:30 it was all Lord of the Rings, all of the time.  The rain stayed away for most of the day, but we got caught in a downpour toward the end of the [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Day 6 – Te Papa

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The Stray Tribe at the playgound

Our group got up and out an hour early today to try and beat some of the weather and get in a few stops along the way to Wellington, the capitol of New Zealand.  The weather continued to dump rain on us along the way, but we got a lucky break when we stopped to [...]

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Flashpacking New Zealand with Stray – Day 5 – National Park

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Jan, aka.

The following is posted from the road during the middle of a month long trip through New Zealand with Stray.  If you don’t know who stray is, read the intro to the trip or check out their website. In an attempt to give you an idea of what the trip is like I’ll be posting [...]

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