New Zealand!

Apologies for the boring title, and nature of this post – just wanted to share some photos from our time in New Zealand so far!

Glow worms are stunningly beautiful, but difficult to capture by photograph without a tripod!

Spiders aren’t so hard to photograph.  This one was about 3 inches long with outstretched legs.

We hiked around a small set of caves (Abbey Caves) after driving north from Auckland, towards Cape Reinga (future blog post!).  I was surprised at how far the flash travels on my x20 Fuji camera:

  

There was actually a sign directing us to this (admittedly beautiful and unique) “Rock Forest".  I was on the lookout for gnomes, and also Ents!

 
e stopped by the Makana chocolate factory and saw (and tasted) truffles and brittle being made:

 

 

Pinot Noir Truffles.

 

Also, stopped by an avocado oil maker for some tastings!  I hadn’t drank oil from a shotglass before this day, let alone 10 different oils in shot glasses.

 

 
Picturesque bays abound:

 

Our home for the duration of our multi-week trip.  One of our first stops was at a hardware store to buy bins to organize the back of this; it’s super useful, though we don’t use the bed area reserved for our 3rd passenger.

 

Adventure buddies!