New Zealand Part I

Hey Guys! A few weeks ago Kristin and I had the privilege of shooting a wedding out in New Zealand on the small island of Waiheke just off  the coast of Auckland (photos from which will be up on here soon). I had always dreamed about traveling to New Zealand and was so  thankful for this opportunity. Over the next couple weeks we were able to really dive into the Kiwi culture of extreme sports, fine cuisine and majestic landscapes. Since we desired to see the whole country and take photos wherever we wanted we figured the best way to do this was to rent a camper van. I don’t know how Kristin agreed to this before hand but I was so thankful she did before she saw the camper van we put a non refundable deposit on! 🙂

Driving on the left side of the road was quite fun! Although the instigator of quite a few panic attacks I think I finally got the hang of it by the end of our 3400km journey. About 2200 miles.

Our first stop was Cathedral Cove in Coromandel. Such an incredibly beautiful place. It takes about an hour to hike to this secluded location but totally worth it! You may recognize it from the last Narnia Movie.

Check out our JUCY Chaser (pronounced chasssaaa) from JUCY cars and campas. Believe it or not this was one of the most normal looking
campers there was.

The best thing about renting a camper van in New Zealand is that they have whats called a freedom camping ethos. Which
means you can park and camp almost anywhere you want. So after a full day of activities we would pull over to a beautiful spot with a view, cook some dinner while watching the beautiful colors of the sky change at sunset. This is me attempting to make dinner on our gas stove.. We got our self a high tech campa!

Kristin was dying (laughing) at this point..Oh yeah.. because we slept in here with all our luggage (3 large bags) as well as with all our camera equipment from the wedding (4 bags) 7 bags total plus all the food we bought to live off of. Cramped actually does begin to describe the experience. You could say that we stayed in a crampa.. haha ok that was bad. I don’t think this is the preferred method of travel for most people, however Kristin and I had the time of our lives! Seriously just wait until you see all the photos! We weren’t bound by obligations or time constraints, having to get to certain places by a certain time. Whatever we wanted to do we did! It was one epic adventure!

Here is the view from our first night there! We got to park and camp right on the cliff of the beach.

The next day we headed down to Lake Taupo where we took a sail out to see the Maori carvings.

Then off to some geothermal areas in Rotorua

The caves in Waitomo. These are literally the only 2 photos that I got before our guide looked straight at me and said no cameras and no  photos. With a tour of 3 people I couldn’t even sneak some if I tried! I will say though that it is simply incredible if you are ever considering  seeing something like it!

Sea view houses of Wellington.

Kayaking excursion in the Abel Tasman National Park.

Pancake rocks of Punakaiki

Im guessing a cow / ewok breed