stories of a traveling wilderwoman
Three years ago, on March 19, 2020 we landed in Christchurch, New Zealand with a year long visa – planning to sit it out until “covid blew over.” We landed with 22 hours to spare, and they closed the border right behind us. Our two week traveler’s quarantine was extended by four more weeks of…
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17 months. 519 days. 747,300 minutes. 44,838,000 seconds. 8 Countries. England. Scotland. Spain. France. Italy. Japan. Vietnam. New Zealand.1 Disease. 1 Pandemic. 1 Worldwide Lockdown. That’s how long it had been since I had seen my best friend in the flesh. My best friend married an aussie guy in Thailand back in 2019, and since…
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During our 16-months of hunkering down in Aotearoa during the pandemic, we spent about 7 of them living in and around Queenstown and Wanaka at different points during our trip. Needless to say it became the heart of us while in Aotearoa and our kiwi built family resided there, so there is where we kept…
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Our plan when we entered New Zealand was to gain a more permanent visa and to settle down in land of the kiwi. We had been working with a lawyer on our application for 15 months whilst in the country and while we were in Auckland discussing going home we found out they didn’t “realize”…
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Though Auckland was mostly rest, I can’t resist a good wildlife encounter. I found the Penguin Passport experience while googling wildlife encounters near Auckland and at first I was hesitant. After giving them a call to dig a little bit into the ethics I found that this is the world’s largest sub-Antarctic penguin colony and…
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On our way to Auckland for our canyoning trip we decided a stop in Whakarewarewa Forest (Aotearoa’s Redwood Forest) for some mountain biking was called for. I’m so glad we made the call to stop for some exercise because this place is beautiful and the riding is so much fun! We only managed to snap…
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Oli spent his golden birthday (29th on the 29th of March) in quarantine and lockdown. Though I made him a banoffee pie from scratch and hung cherry blossoms from the ceiling for a picnic under the blossoms, I knew it was still a bummer of a birthday. So for his 30th, I mayyyyyyy have gone…
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Oli’s 30th birthday scavenger hunt extravaganza ended with a spearfishing tour out of Tairua. At the end of a successful day of hunting for kingfish, we were gifted a close encounter with a pod of orcas. Claire and I had gotten out of the water for a bit of a warm up break when we…
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Wandering Wild 