The Leigh / Pakiri / Mangawhai / Waipu Road If you are planning a road trip from Auckland, New Zealand, into Northland (the locals will try to kid you it's 'the winterless north’) why stick to boring and ultra-busy State Highway 1? It’s a road trip for heaven’s sake. Do something different. Quit … [Read more...]

The shackles of lockdown are slowly coming off and on April 12 domestic tourism resumed. Even international travel is beginning to stir from its Covid slumber. Where better to take a staycation than a lavish estate housing a drive-through safari, or the opulent birthplace of Winston … [Read more...]

Had a birthday party last night and in a chat with a friend I mentioned that the previous weekend I had been in Bluff, the southernmost town in New Zealand. "Why the hell would you go there?" they asked. So I thought about it.  Three reasons. Oysters, sharks and geographical … [Read more...]

 So you are heading out on the great road south from Auckland towards Taupo and beyond. Why not take a road less travelled and enjoy drop-dead beautiful rural landscapes, an environmental success story, a bit of history and some great photo ops for Facebook or the ‘Gram?   Instead of the … [Read more...]

There are hundreds of great and grand houses in the UK but Haddon Hall, near Bakewell in Derby, is unique among them. It is 900 years old and has been in the same family all that time.  But that’s not what makes it all that special. For 200 years during the reign of Queen Anne to the late 19th … [Read more...]

Living in London or just visiting?  Here’s an easy two or three day road trip to Brighton via Royal Tunbridge Wells . It can be done comfortably in two days with an overnight stop in Brighton but why not take the extra day and really get the most out of a region that has history, outstanding … [Read more...]

Just finished a road trip through the Catlins area in New Zealand's Southland.  Been a few years since  I rode that road . . . what an amazing place it is. Wildlife - much of it threatened species - in luxuriant abundance, wild golden sanded beaches,  life-filled forests set to the music of … [Read more...]

You hang at an angle, feet still reassuringly touching the launch pad, suspended 130m above the floor of the canyon carved by the Nevis River in the mountains between Queenstown and Cromwell in New Zealand. The only thing stopping you plunging to a very messy end all those metres below is a harness … [Read more...]

Given the impracticality of overseas travel right now, and therefore the enjoyment of some of the bucket-list road trips – Blue Ridge Parkway or Alaska Highway for instance – I decided to explore one of the backroads at my own backdoor. State Highway 22 in New Zealand runs from just south of … [Read more...]