Regardless of what form of transport you use in New Zealand, there will always be areas where you can’t bike or drive a motorised vehicle. There is simply no other option than to hoof it. And that’s ok.

Take for example the Coromandel; it’s not possible to drive the full circle around the top of this peninsula. To the west from Coromandel Town the road heads North through Colville, along the Hauraki Gulf, and stops just past Port Jackson. To the east it curls its way up the Pacific coast to come to a halt at Stony Bay. In between lays the Garden of Eden: Cape Colville Park, a DOC owned sanctuary -to say the least- with a world renowned walking path that connects Stoney Bay with Port Jackson in a truly spectaculair manner.

Walking is good though, and fun-apparently. So this is not the problem.The problem is getting to these remote sanctuaries in one piece and good health.

Should you for example be renting a car during your holiday, getting up the Far North of the Coromandel is, to say the least, a bit challenging for the international and national out-of-towners. Not only are you usually not allowed to drive on gravel roads with your rental-from Colville on everything is gravel road-, in this particular case you would be in need of some serious four-wheel-drive-activity at times as well. Your rented 1.3L stationwagon is not going to be cute for this.

Not to mention that the roads themselves are quite……tricky. Imagine extremely small winding gravel roads going up and down steep hills with, just on the side of the road, sheer drops of hundreds of meters to ocean pounded rocks far, far below. And now imagine you and your rented sleeping-4-campervan creeping up these narrow roads. Not pretty.

So, what to do if you’re driving a no-go car or campervan? In this case, contact the Coromandel Strongman Coachlines, ask for the feisty sixty-something driver and co-owner Jocelyn with her big smile and even bigger wrap-around sunglasses to book you on one of their coaches going up the Far North. They have a regular service dropping people off at one end and picking them up at the other. And this type of service will be provided by others in many other remote areas throughout New Zealand as well.

Now, you might have to share a ride with the occasional corporate Aucklander out on a bonding weekend, but try to keep the bigger picture in mind while enduring this phenomena. Think of it as a mantra-hear the ‘hummmmmmmmmmmm….’ And here we go….Your doing this because: You can leave your precious rented car/campervan behind, enjoy the ride to and from safely, take as many photo’s on the way as your 64mb memory card can possibly store and, last but definitely not least, you don’t get into trouble with your rental company.

“hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….everybody wins!”

OK one of my many ‘privileges’ of working from home is watching Oprah during lunch most afternoon =)

Just last week saw this very unfortunate and interesting episode of an unfortunate incident on a cruise liner, which made me want to share some very important tips

In the case of any ‘unfortunate incident’ overseas, along with the thing u would normally do make sure you also
1. contact the local embassy of your country, this MUST be done along with contacting the local police
2. if its something very tragic it could be most practical to return home, for investigation purposes rather than continuing with your holiday.

Its really sad these things happen, I just hope and pray stuff like this stays in the news - I’d hate to consider something like this happen to me or anyone for that matter, especially on a holiday.

You can read more about the story here.

“The June quarter report released yesterday shows international visitor satisfaction levels for scheduled domestic flights have dropped from a rating of 8.2 out of 10 in December 2006 to 7.7 in June.”
Source: NZ Herald, Sept 1st 2008

Well, which is where and why Transfercar comes into the picture.

And with us stepping up, with what we do - Mr & Mrs Domestic Airlines will have to do a lot better or NO ONES  going to fly!

Well - very interesting article I came across in the Herald the other day.

As per the story - a hacker hacked into a hotel server, left a data stealing trojan that gave him access to all the hotel customer data information!! The hotel in question (for logical reasons) has completely downsized the enormity of situation, saying “it only affected 10 customers”!
Super dangerous dont you think? considering credit card details etc.

All these stories convincing me to ration my credit card use both home and overseas!

Read more here

Source:

‘Don’t forget to take your body and soul with you, but leave your laptop and cellphone at home.’ Kiwiswiss (Kaikoura)

Beautifully put don’t you think? So is the next….

‘Try not to get too wrapped up in other people’s tips about travelling, people (all of them including you & me) are weird and have weird ideas about stuff (vaseline up the nose?). Just enjoy yourself in the way that suits you best and be nice.’ - John Paul Moss (Auckland)

My personal (more of a ‘tip’sy tip) - a scan of all important documents (passport, drivers license, visas etc) saved onto your email, just in case your wallet or suitcase happens to get ‘castaway’

Read more @ New Zealand Herald Travel Section

After 4 consecutive years at the top of the Lonely Planet Travelers Pulse survey of ‘favourite destination’ Australia have been dethroned by The United States of America - but maybe for the best reasons!

“Lonely Planet Marketing Analyst Adam Stanford said the United States had become an increasingly popular travel destination because of the exchange rate of the American dollar”

Australia have otherwise topped every year running since the Loney Planet started conducting the survey since 2004

New Zealand moved up to 5th place from 9th (in 2007).

The survey includes the opinion of over 17,500 respondents from 132 countries - the largest of its kind

Read more
@ Lonely Planet website
@NZ Herald website