Back in August, my mom came to visit my partner and me in Australia! It was an amazing visit and of course we did all the expected Sydney-tourism things. That said, my mom is a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan (as am I) so we decided to hop over to New Zealand for a road trip. For some reason Aussies really get annoyed by the American mentality of “Well I’ll be in Australia so I may as well visit New Zealand.” After visiting New Zealand I have comfortably decided that it’s because they are jealous their country has to be the size of America just to have as much terrain variation as New Zealand 😛 I’m sorry to my Australian friends but I couldn’t resist the jab. Also Kiwis are, as expected, very nice.

What better way to see Northern New Zealand than by driving the entire island.

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