Ginny and Duncans Big Adventure

 Don't assume motorhoming round NZ is a 'good idea' Travel agents may tell you it's the cheapest way of touring NZ, and it certainly sounds romantic.  Both of those couldn't be further from the truth.  Motorhomes are RIDICULOUSLY expensive to rent; you then have to add on fuel costs, extra mileage, replenishing the gas canister, and campsite fees.  Even if you are 'self-contained' (i.e. have a toilet) you still cannot camp just anywhere and while there are freedom campsites, you will need to connect to a power supply fairly regularly and that costs.  Once you've paid all that, you really feel you need to make full use of it, so you cook in (not that you have any cash left over for eating out).  You are also restricted to tarmac roads, and driving motorhomes is far from relaxing - lots of rattling and stuff constantly falling on the floor.  You are much better off renting a good car (we got a Toyota Hilux pickup truck which was perfect) and finding A...

15 hours into the 17 hour flight from Christchurch to Dubai, and it's suddently hit home that this 'trip of a lifetime' which Duncan and I first started talking about in the summer of 2016, is actually done and dusted. I know that I have another 3 months off work and 6+ weeks in Peru and Ecuador after New Year, but Ginny & Duncan's Big Adventure has come to a close. Wow, that went fast. It's been amazing, difficult, stunning, loving, emotional, joyous, tense, spectacular, exciting, exhausting and pretty much everything inbetween. And while we have both learnt about each other and about ourselves, the most important lesson for me has been being reminded how lucky we are to live on such an incredibily beautiful planet, and that we have to do way better in how we share it with all the other amazing creatures that inhabit and enrich it. We have seen first hand, over and over, that there are plenty of people who are passionate about protecting them. On the flip side,...

This is the last post I'm going to be making on this blog.  I can hear a collective sigh going up from around the world :)  I don't think I'm about to take a career change into writing, but before you get toooo comfortable, I am considering one addendum page.  We shall see. Anyway, since my last post Duncan and I have had what I think was the perfect end to our time in New Zealand.  We started off on our travels almost 3 months ago, in South Africa, with my dear friend Paula and while we have spent a lot of time fending for ourselves since then, it was such a joy to spend our last 2 days with a very old Grossart friend: Anne Weschenfelder, and her daughter Amelia and boyfriend Sam.  Long ago, before living in Halsmere, where Duncan grew up, the Grossarts lived in Yorkshire, and were great friends with the Weschenfelder family.  Anne was the same age as - and best friends with - Jacqui, Duncan's older sister who tragically died in a riding accident at the ...