It's been a while since I have posted! Work life got away from me a bit late last year and I didn't take time out to enjoy New Zealand - something of which will be changed this year.

Sadly the reason for this trip is not good news, my Uncle 'Skip' Watson passed away and I've come up to Auckland for his funeral. It will also be nice to spend a few days with Mum & Dad who have flown over from Sydney.

One of the reasons for the road trip was to save money on a flight (last minute flights can be expensive), but I really do enjoy road trips and it was time to see more of New Zealand. I picked up a free rental car from Thrifty due to a relocation deal - I only paid the fuel, which turned out to be only $4 cheaper than what I would have paid for an airfare, but MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE. If you want to see a replay of my trip - check out my tweets with the hastage #ccroadtrip.

I was impressed with the Toyota Camry, it had all the requirements of a good large vehicle. My only problem with the car was the automatic gear selection - often I would get stuck in neutral driving to select drive.

Enough of the talk, photos say a lot more! Only added the comments where I felt an explanation might add to the photo :-)

International Airport? What? Just the DC3 here...

Mt Ruapehu

I don't recall seing a single-lane double-decker rail/road bridge before? Pretty cool in my eyes!

Waitomo Limestone Caves (area of course, I didn't go into the caves will save that for another time)

The last photo of the Camry - at the airport.

Decided to add this shot, taken from the spotters point at Auckland Airport (per above photo). Not bad for a Sigma 50mm f1.4 / Canon 7D then cropped per below.