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Welcome to our blog! We will use it partly as a travel journal for our family to cherish for years to come and partly as a way for family and friends to stay updated on our adventures. Feel free to subscribe if you want to be notified whenever a new post goes up (scroll to bottom of page).
Arriving in Australia
On Friday, January 19th we arrived in Australia for the next part of our trip. We will likely (hopefully) spend 10 weeks exploring this vast, beautiful country. We started our trip in Melbourne because Steffen has had a life-long dream to go to the Australian Open which is running from January 12-February 1st. He, Hannah…
5 Days in Christchurch
We ended our six week trip to New Zealand’s South Island with five days in Christchurch. Christchurch suffered a devastating earthquake on 22 February 2011, and they are still feeling the effects. The February 2011 earthquake came six months after another big one, so the buildings and infrastructure were already weakened. It also was on…
Twizel, Lake Tekapo and Aoraki (Mt Cook)
We spent four nights in miniature cabins at Lake Ruataniwha Holiday Park & Motels in Twizel, a small town in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand which was a great jumping off point for exploring the area. When we arrived, we were quite surprised by the size of the two cabins…
Epic Drive East
We left Haast early Wednesday, January 7th and headed east for one of the most beautiful drives we’ve been on. I think the most amazing part was the diversity of the nature–we started in the lush rain forest, passed by several turquoise lakes, came across the arid hills of Otago and ended with a visit…
Township of Haast
We spent four days just outside of the township of Haast at the Haast Beach Motel. We had our own little apartment and we stocked up on food ahead of time, which was good because there was only one small grocery store and a couple of restaurants in town. On Sunday we drove towards Jackson…
Ferniehurst to Haast, via Hokitika
On Friday, January 2nd, we left the farm and headed west. Originally we were planing on driving directly from the farm to Haast, a 600km drive, first west and then south down the west coast. But after a few days of driving on New Zealand roads, we realized that 600km here was a lot farther…
Sheep Farm Life
making our way from Nelson to Ferniehurst As I mentioned, we spent the two weeks of Christmas break on a sheep farm in Ferniehurst between Kaikoura and Christchurch (north east coast). I found the place on Airbnb and thought it would be a unique and fun experience to stay somewhere very remote since much of…
Special Gifts this Christmas
As I mentioned in my previous posts, physical gifts were few and far between this Christmas. We have been more drawn to experiences than stuff for the past several years (hence our birthday trip tradition, among other choices) but this year it was imperative. So we organised a few fun activities, including a day at…
Holiday Traditions, old and new
As expected, our December looked very different than years past, though it’s not the first time that we have had to change up our holiday traditions. First, we had our life in California, then our life in Germany, then our “Big Trip” through Europe during Covid, then the year we were renovating our house and…
Activities in Nelson
During our two weeks in Nelson, New Zealand, we did some schoolwork, some work-work (Steffen), lots of baking, movie nights and relaxation, but we also fit in some fun activities in/near Nelson. In the girls’ advent calendars I did a mix of candy/little trinkets and activities, so I had done a little bit of research…
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Gnegel Family Travels 