Aotearoa: The Land of The Long White Cloud

We are so happy to be back in New Zealand (or Aotearoa as the Maori called the North Island). We have actually hit a lot of the tourists spots on our first trip here in 2016 but look forward to just enjoying being here. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world, the people are like British hobbits (polite and down to earth) and it’s a really new country with even the Maori getting here about 700 years ago and white people only colonizing it in the 1800s which means the roads and infrastructure are very good (no hedgerows or stone walls one foot from the road – I’m talking to you UK). The only thing it’s missing is a lot of ancient history but you can’t have everything.

Our first stop was the Coromandel peninsula simply because we really hadn’t explored that corner of the North island. There are not a lot of big towns in this area but a lot of beautiful hills and coastline.