A road trip really is the perfect way to see New Zealand in all her glory. Cruising up and down stunning coastal roads and twisty mountain passes for a month, gave Richard and I some of our most memorable moments while travelling with our trusty campervan ‘Fred’.

We thought we’d produce a photo blog to take you on a photographic journey to just some of the awesome places we visited on both the North and South Islands, to give you a little taster of life on the Kiwi road…

North Island

Our first night was spent at Auckland Marina where the friendly security guards even gave us the code for the mariners shower block!

Just one example of the quirks to be found along the road – this is the inside of the ladies loos in the famous Hundertwasser toilets en route to the Bay of Islands…

View of the coast from the Coromandel Pennisula where we walked along the cliffs to Cathedral Cove.

This is me in one of our favourite cities in the North Island – Rotorua. Here, I’m stood in front of a steaming lake in Kuirau park trying to ignore the stinky sulpher smell…

South Island

Arriving in Picton after crossing the Cook Strait we headed straight up to a viewpoint to get a look at the pretty marina below us. It would have been great to spend more time in Picton as it is a really friendly town with a great atmosphere!

Without a doubt one of the best campsites we stayed at was in Mount Cook National Park itself. The mountain backdrop was amazing and we enjoyed a fantastic hike through the Hooker Valley to try and catch a glimpse of Mount Cook itself (which we did. Sort of). This is us en route!

Travelling down the East coast we had heard about a group of fascinating rock formations on a beach near Oamaru called the Moeraki Boulders so went to check them out for ourselves!

The town of Dunedin was first settled by Scots and has a very Scottish feel about it, right down to the shortbread biscuit shops and bagpipes. It was here that we stumbled upon Baldwin Street – the steepest street in the World!

Trying to get a good look at the South Island’s famous glaciers was quite a challenge due to the infamous Kiwi weather, but we eventually managed to get up close and personal to the awesome Franz Josef…

The Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki were amazing and the wild west coast made for some really impressive wave shows as the sea crashed into the rocks and out of the numerous blowholes scattered aroung the coastline…

One of our last stops on the South Island was the Abel Tasman National Park were we took yet another amazing hike – this time to Tinline Bay where we took this photo of a bizarre yet beautiful rock sculpture on the beach…

So, that was NZ – in a nutshell! There are so many photos that we could have chosen to depict our trip, but we hope that the ones we’ve managed to cram in have inspired you to bite the bullet and think about taking your own Kiwi Road Trip!