Best Burger award

3/27/25: Had to stop in Paparowai at Peake’s Kitchen for the burger that was the winner of the Burger Nation competition – voted “Supreme Burger”! And it was!!

And the toilet saga continues…

Last post we were happily camped at a beautiful spot along the coast and the toilet was fixed – or so we thought. Next morning it leaked again! The rental company arranged for us to go to an RV repair shop in the next town on our route – Dunedin. They were able to repair […]

All’s well that ends well.

Woke up Tuesday 3/25 to a leaking toilet- called the rental company and they came out to fix it. All good, so we left Lake Tekapo to head to our next stop for the night. Along the way we stoped to see some ancient rock art and lunch at a winery. Then on to Oamaru […]

Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo

Arrived at Lake Pukaki Sunday night, 3/23, in time to get a spot at The Pines – the most popular free camping area in the South Island. Gorgeous views of the lake and Mt. Cook. The next day we had planned to try hiking a bit of the famous Hooker Track, but the weather did […]

First stop

Our first stop for the night was at a winery that allows campers to stay overnight. Straight Eight Winery in Burnham. Very good wine and the wine maker invited us to stay after the tasting, to enjoy a glass of wine and conversation with a group of friends that arrived for an early evening get […]

Auckland

While the plan is to start our trip in the South Island, we decided it would be best to spend the first day after arriving in New Zealand, in Auckland to recover from any jet lag, before picking up the camper van in Christchurch. Feeling much better after sleeping 12 hours in a nice comfy […]

We made it!

We left SFO (thank you to Mike & Robin for driving us there!), arrived at LAX to find that we had to walk approximately 2 miles to the international terminal! We had plenty of time, but that was a long way – definitely got our steps in that day! Tried to sleep on the next […]

Testing post

The last time I posted was our Alaskan trip in 2018. We’ll be going to New Zealand on March 18, 2025 for a month, and I’m hoping to post that trip here. I’m going to link this to Bluesky, so if you follow me there, you will see this.

Home!

Two months to the day, we arrived home. Eventually we were greeted by Angus, our dog! He’s old (13 years), and he must be mostly blind and deaf. I unlocked the house, brought both cats in, opened the back yard gate, and Randy pulled the RV in before he realized we were home! The RV […]

Last stop before home

Yesterday we stopped for the night in Lone Pine at Boulder Creek RV Park. Our job today was to scope out a ride for the motorcycle trip there at the end of the month. We checked out the Movie Road in the Alabama Hills. It’s a beautiful and interesting area, but I’m not sure it’s […]