Reset search
The Little OneThe Little One
SatelliteEdit route

The Little One

January - May 2023
After a short break here we are on the road again and we want to share it with you once more! Read more
  • 37footprints
  • 7countries
  • 114days
  • 585photos
  • 25videos
  • 40.7kkilometers
  • 25.4kkilometers
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • The Little One
    2
    Day 2

    The journey begins

    January 10, 2023 in England ⋅ 🌧 30 °C

    We're off on another adventure, not quite as long as the last one and this time we have a flight home booked so we have a deadline.

    We have left the cold weather of London to tropical climate of Singapore! After a short 13 hour flight here we are! Let the adventure begin!Read more

  • The Little One
    1
    Day 3

    Sensational Singapore

    January 11, 2023 in Singapore ⋅ 🌧 28 °C

    First stop Singapore! We got off our flight and were met at the Airport by our good friend Carys, after admiring the airport's indoor waterfall we were whisked off to her swanky condo to enjoy a delicious home cooked meal (by Carys Fiancé James) Carbonara! Yum! We weren't sure how tired we would be after the flight so we planned a quiet night in, a few beers and catching up with old friends. A great way to start the holiday.
    Carys' place backs onto the massive Singapore Botanic Gardens so we spent most of the next day wandering around this amazing park and acclimatising to the tropical heat, it's 30° and very humid! During the night it got a bit cooler and we managed to enjoy some drinks outside in Haji Lane. It is a street with only 2/3 story buildings in the middle of all the high rises!

    Second day we ventured out into the center to visit the Gardens by the Bay. It is an amazing complex with the iconic metal trees and the indoor cloud forest. We were lucky with the weather it was sunny all day and even more lucky that the cloud forest is its own climate so much colder! Once bored of plants we went to see the art science museum which was very cool. There was a lot of interactive Art that took us back to our childhood! Next day and we're at Sentosa Island and Resorts World, a man made island that is dedicated to Fun, entertainment and adventure activities, home to the water parks, theme parks, beaches and other activities. Another hot day so we headed into the Aquarium for some refreshing aircon. That evening Carys booked us into an amazing rooftop bar to have a few cocktails, toast their recent engagement 💍😍 and enjoy the phenomenal views of the iconic skyline, then onto a super cute and authentic Mexican restaurant for more drinks and delicious food. Seems the thing to do here is eat and drink too much with good company.

    Our final day in Singapore and we were joining our hosts friends on a boat party, it's one of the most popular activities for birthdays and other celebrations. Once we had loaded all the booze and the DJ on board we set off out to some smaller islands just off the coast to party the afternoon away with the occasional dip in the sea when the dancer floor got too hot. Back onshore by 8pm we headed into the CBD to check out Satay Street for our final meal, a large outdoor road lined with street sellers specialising in Chicken, beef and Prawn Satay, you order by the 10 and there is no upper limit. Some of the best Satay sauce we have had, it was a great way to cap off a fantastic start to our trip.    Read more

  • The Little One
    11211
    Day 9

    Auckland

    January 17, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Nearly 48 hours after leaving Singapore and with stopovers in Manila and Sydney (don't ask) we have finally made it to New Zealand, over 18,000 km from home,very daunting. Luckily Auckland is a charming little city, very laid back with lots of friendly locals. It is the largest city in New Zealand with just over 30% of the countries population. Set in a natural harbour on the Pacific it is centred on an old Dock front which has been rejuvenated into a really cute entertainment district with a plethora of bars, restaurants and even the odd English pub.

    First day and we headed up the Sky Tower to get a view of the city from above, with the top viewing platform at 60 stories it is apparently the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Vertigo dealt with we headed down to have a wander around the center and check out their parks and the National Art gallery, always interesting to see the indigenous art works and the styles they embrace.

    Next up we hit the maritime museum to learn about how the original setterlers travelled across the open ocean from the other Pacific islands in small canoes, with palm weaved sails. Pretty impressive when you look at the distance to the closest islands, although maybe that's part of the reason why New Zealand was one of the last places on earth to be inhabitanted by humans. A couple craft beers, a decent pizza and then a couple more beers ensured we got a good night sleep and over our jet lag.

    Next day and we headed out to the National Auckland Museum. A very interesting museum that covers everything from the arrival of the first humans right up to how people live in Auckland today. Since our arrival we have been impressed to see how the Mauri culture and language is thoroughly integrated in the day to day life. Everything is in English and Mauri from the museum explanations to the street signs and trains announcements. The Europeans hadn't always behaved well when arriving here around 1740 and it's interesting to see how it is being out right now.
    The museum is in the middle of a park and we wandered around a little and found ourselves in a fern forest. It was surprisingly cool under those ferns, perfect against the hot afternoon.
    For our last night in town we chose a restaurant by the harbour and enjoyed the lively atmosphere of the town before the heading off to the quietness of the countryside.    Read more

  • The Little One
    1221
    Day 13

    The Bay of Islands

    January 21, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Van life has officially begun! We picked our home for the next 30 days and headed north out of Auckland for our first stop at Paihia, the gateway to the Bay of Islands.

    The area is quite historic as the first treaty, the Waitangi Treaty, which essentially created the country, was signed here. The countries first official capital, Russell, is also in the Bay. However, most visitors come to see the turquoise waters and explore the hundreds of little islands that give this area its name rather than for the history.

    It was just a 4 hour drive north of Auckland, it can get quite busy on the weekends, and after we had done our grocery shopping and spent some time organising ourselves in the van we didn't have much time to do much other than cook ourselves dinner and enjoy the views on the lake from our campsite, its a hard life.

    Next day we got on board a boat to take a tour of the bay and islands. There is a large pod of Bottlenose Dolphins that live in the bay and luckily for us they were in a very playful mood, they came right up to the boat to say hello as we were enroute to our first stop. Unlucky for you, Armelle didn't press the record button so you will have to imagine it 😆. The waters are rich with life and these dolphins are very well feed, believed to be the largest Bottlenoses to be found. Once the Dolphins got bored and went back to hunting we headed out to the Cape Brett Lighthouse and Piercy Island, home to the famous Hole in the Rock. A geological wonder that has been carved over millions of years, it is big enough to sail through, if the conditions are right and the captain is just a little crazy. The conditions were goos so we went through! It was impressive how a 3 stories boat like ours went through!
    After all this excitement the boat dropped us on Urupukapuka island, for about an hour, just enough time to walk uo the highest hill to the get a good view and have a nice swim.

    Very enjoyable day in the bay of Islands and a good start of our van adventure!    Read more

  • The Little One
    3
    411121111
    Day 15

    Coromandel Peninsula

    January 23, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Heading south our next stop is the Coromandel Peninsula, just across the Firth of Thames from Auckland.
    We start our tour of the peninsula with a visit to an old gold mine. There was a large Gold Rush in New Zealand in the late 1800s, Early Gold Rushers, seeing the riches coming from the South Island tried panning for gold in the rivers on the peninsula but had no success at all. Unlike the South Island, the North has never been through an Ice age so the gold is all still traped within quartz. Once they broke the quartz they could extract the gold and silver using Mercury and Cyinade, a very dangerous job. To break the quartz they needed heavy machinery called a battery, a group of volunteers at the mine we visited have rebuilt one that can be used today! Very noisy and impressive. None of the mines are still open today but it used to be the main activity in the area with some 800 batteries in operation, so loud the noise could be heard across the Firth in Auckland some 60km away. As every gold rush some miners were more lucky than others and it must have been a crazy place to live when the 8000 habitant town had 120 pubs and nearly as many brothels.

    Next day and we started with a little walk in the Forest of Coromandel situated at the heart of the peninsula. It is a forest set on the slopes of very steep little hills which gives us nice views between the trees. The king of trees here is named Kauri. It was plentiful in the late 1800 but after much logging surprisingly it is now rare to see an old tree. We manage to see a few and they are indeed beautiful. After the walk we continued north along the coastline which gives us amazing views on the Firth of Thames.

    After a good night sleep we went to check out a miniature railway experience we had heard about. It is incredible, a man in the late 1980s decided to build a miniture railway by himself to get to the top of the hill of his property. It took him 30 years to build! As he was an artist it is all very quirky and fun and a very good experience! Back on four wheels we headed towards the east coast with a quick stop at a few beaches on the way before the main event of Cathedral Cove, a set of large natural features created by water and wind carving the rocks. The biggest is similar to the Hole In the Rock except a lot closer to shore, at low tide it is possible to walk through it, it's essential a huge passage under limestone rock, with trees growing on top. Definitely worth the hour walk out to see it.

    Just down the road from the Cove is Hot Water beach, another natural phenomenon caused by hot spring located just under the surface of the sand and accessible at low tide. Lots of locals and tourists turn up with shovels to dig holes in the sand and bath in the warm waters. You have to pick your spot carefully though, too close to the centre of the springs and the water is too hot, near boiling, too far away and it's just cold sea water. Luckily for us we found an abandoned hole which was just right for us.

    The Coromandel Peninsula has been a lot of fun to explore, lots of natural beauty, geological wonders and an interesting history, a perfect place to spend a few action busy days.    Read more

  • The Little One
    21
    Day 16

    Karangahake Gorge

    January 24, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Heading south off of the Peninsula we headed inland again to discover the Karangahale Gorge. It happens that they also discovered gold around here so in additional to the natural beauty of the gorge we visited some ruins of another time, which wasn't that long ago. Everything was abandoned around the 1950s and except the town of Waihi who are still using some old buildings, all the factories went into ruins. It was like going through a modern archeological site as the vegetation was already starting to take over most of the old buildings. To move the ore around they built some railways and tunnels. Some of them are still up today and we had the chance to walk through a 1km tunnel on our walk. Quite spooky as it is very straight and the end always seems so close but also very far away.

    Our luck with the weather has finally changed and most of the morning was grey and raining, despite the horrible weather we ended up doing a 16km walk along the river which runs through the gorge with a nice stop for lunch in a station cafe. Our camping spot for the night is right by the beach and by late afternoon the skies started clearing up and the sun come out out so we got to enjoy a post dinner stroll along the sand, still a little windy but a nice way to end the day. A lot of walking today we will definitely be sleeping well tonight.    Read more

  • The Little One
    1
    1311
    Day 18

    Hobbiton

    January 26, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    The main reason we wanted to come to New Zealand was to live our fantasy and become Hobbits for the day! For those of you not familiar with Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, you can leave now, we are no longer friends 😁.

    The Hobbiton Movie set, situated on the picturesque Alexander Farm, is a fully immersive experience at the location which was used for filming both LotR and the Hobbit. The original set for LotR was created way back in early Naughties and mainly built from disposable materials, like ply woods and Styrofoam, they did terraform some areas but when they were done filming they dismantled the entire set and let the sheep take back over. When they came back to film the Hobbit over a decade later the farm owner partnered with the director to build out a full permenent set which would last through the ages and could be used in any future films and as a major tourist attraction.

    The result is astounding, it really paid off. They have created an amazing full set experience complete with 39 hobbit holes, each with their own character and design, the party fields, Green Dragon pub, a stone bridge and working Mill. The tour itself is a 90 minute guided walk around Hobbiton with photo stops at the major sites, Bilbo /Frodos home Bagend, Sam and Rosie hole, the Party Garden, as well as the major filming spots from the two movies and even a glass of Hobbit ale at the pub.

    The tour was also about how they filmed the difference scenes in the movies with hobbits and normal sized characters. As you can see on our pictures there are hobbit holes perfect for a James size and some perfect for an Armelle size! Of course when we see the movie we all think they are the same so we think it is the character that are tall or small!

    As big Tolkien fans it was a bit of a pilgrimage for us and really incredible to see his epic novel come to life.    Read more

  • The Little One
    2
    211121
    Day 19

    Rotorua

    January 27, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌧 19 °C

    Just south of Hobbiton is the slightly large and more human sized Rotorua, nestled up against a lake in the Bay of Plenty. Unfortunately for us the only thing we saw plenty of was rain. It has rained constantly for the last 48 hours 😢.

    Rotorua is a town built on top of the Pacific Rim of Fire and has lots of Geothermal activity, from bubbling mud pools in the local park to streams of boiling water running alongside the stunning lake of the same name. As we arrived in town the rain let up slightly so we headed for the Polynesia Spa, a set of natural pools of various temperatures and acidity, meant to relax and heal a variety of ailments. It was very relaxing, although the cold plunge pool was a bit much, and the smell of egg followed us for a long time! The rain held off for most of the evening so we were able to head into the centre and treat ourselves to a cooked meal (cooked by someone else for a change) As the rain started up again we headed for our campsite to hunker down for the night. It absolutely hammered it down all night!

    The next day we had planned to do a tour of the towns historic Maori site and the best of the Geothermal activities including their Geyser that goes off multiple times a day. The weather had other ideas. Being in a van is not ideal when it's raining as there is no where to derobe and dry clothes. We managed to catch a break in the rain for an hour or so to explore the Gardens in town and see some of the bubbling mud pools before the heavens opened again and we had to head back to camp. Unfortunately we have to move on the next day so we will have to miss some of the highlights from what we assume is a cute little town.

    Our first bad luck with weather but we have seen on the news that there is a lot of dangerous flooding up in Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula, lots of road closures caused by landslides and they had to close the airport for 36 hours, so we are lucky we got to explore the North and avoid the worst of it.

    Looking for activities out of the rain, we found an opportunity to see some kiwi up close in a Kiwi Hatchery. No... we're not talking about the fruit 🥝 but about the bird! Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures so we stole some off their website to give you an idea. We learned a lot of interesting facts about the kiwi like that it is the bird with the shortest beak and it has a belly button! This bird is nocturnal so it is almost impossible to see them in the wild and also because their numbers are quite low. This hatchery helps repopulating the kiwis by taking the eggs in the wild (who only have a 5% rate to become an adult) hatch them, and when they are about 1kg release them in the wild again. That means that we had also the opportunity to see some eggs and some babies! Some that were not older than a week!    Read more

  • The Little One
    1
    11
    Day 22

    Tongariro National park

    January 30, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    We left Rotorua with the rain in our luggage! Our next stop is Tongariro National Park with one of the most famous day walks in New Zealand: Tongariro Alpine Crossing. On our way to Tongariro, our plan was to stop on the road at Lake Taupo to enjoy the views of the biggest lake in New Zealand, apparently it's the same size as Singapore😱. This lake got created around 25,000 years ago after a mega eruption. Surrounded by amazing volcanos it is meant to be quite idyllic . As you expect we just saw a big cloud of rain 😂

    After a stop in a nice coffee shop, we continue driving to our destination, Whakapapa village, a village at 1000m altitude used for skiing during winter. Because of the heavy rain forecast we checked in to a hotel for the night, our van's living space in the rain is limited to lying down and everything gets wet!

    The hotel has a nice kitchen area and communal space so we're lucky that we can still cook the meals we had planned. It also apparently has a nice view according to the pictures, but for now just cloud will do.

    Back to our aim of the Tangariro Alpine crossing. This is a 19.6km walk and as its name suggests crosses an alpine environment. To avoid needing to do a return trip there is a system of shuttles, you park your car at the end of the walk and the shuttle brings you to the beginning. The locals don't take any risk for this walk though and if the weather isn't good, the shuttles don't run. Luckily on our 2 full days we had planned to be here the weather was good enough to do the walk on the second day!
    On the first day we still managed to do a small walk around the lowlands from our hotel to see a nice waterfall. Good thing about rainy days, the waterfall was plentiful!

    It was amazing to wake the next day and, as the ouds had parted, actually see for the first time the mountains around us! There are three volcanos, Mt Ruapehu, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro (happy they chose the most pronounceable for the walk). The walk starts at the foot of Mt Ngauruhoe better known for the fans of LotR as Mount Doom or the place where Frodo needs to destroy the ring! Luckily we had good shoes, a lot of water, food and no orcs chasing us during our walk. It was still a challenging walk! 800m going up all on volcanic rocks or sand, very tough on the legs! The landscape was totally worth it. We started in a bushy plain to then climb up a hard rocky steep hill to arrive in a completely bare plain with a yellow mushy floor (that smelled like rotten eggs) and then go up a dune of lava sand to see some crazy emerald colored lakes! After this point our luck turned on us and we went back down the mountain in a cloud, so we could only 3m around us. This was weird because we were obviously not alone on the walk but at this point we couldn't see anyone in front or behind!
    Slowly but surely we make our way down to the end of the walk, passing by nice humid forest. Our legs may be a bit sore tomorrow but it was a great achievement!    Read more

  • The Little One
    2
    111113
    Day 25

    The Road to Wellington

    February 2, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Our original plan had us heading west from Tongariro, out to see another volcano, however, upon checking the weather it seemed we wouldn't be able to walk very much and the volcano would be in the clouds ☁️☁️. So change of plans, we went east instead. We looped back past Lake Taupo to see the view with clears skies, it was pretty good, then headed on to the Sea Side town of Napier. A small cute town famed for its Art Deco style and National Aquarium, the main draw being the Aquarium is inside and out of the rain. We found a gap in the rain to play their shore front Mini Golf. We hit the Aquarium the next morning when the heavens opened again but it was a little underwhelming, small, with a tiny collection of fish. They did have some Kiwis though which was nice and a little exhibition about the Vault Lines running the length of new Zealand which explains all the volcanic activity. With the clouds still grey we headed south to our camp spot for the night and a delicious home (van) cooked meal.

    Next day the the sun was back again! We headed down to the South Coast to see Putanguirua Pinnacles reserve. It is an amazing landscape created by wind. It carved some funny shaped chemines called Hoodoo. We walked up to a view point and then down in between. It is very hot without all the clouds!

    After a nice little picnic we're on the road again back inland. This is a famous wine region so we stopped in the cute little town of Martinborough. This town centre is laid out in the shape of a Union Jack flag, we couldn't verify it from the air but you can clearly see it from the main town square with all the side roads. After a nice beer, yes they also had a good brewery, we bought a bottle of local red wine and to set up camp in sleep the nearby town of Greytown. Do spite the name it was quite cute and while exploring we smelled the most delicious pizza. We scraped our planned dinner for the night and got ourselves a nice bit of sourdough instead. We'll worth it!

    Next morning, we're met with the rain again, but it isn't a problem as we are going to walk in a forest. The forest where part of Rivendell, the famous city built by Elrond (of The Lord of the Rings) was filmed. It was a cute little walk with nice trees but it was hard to imagine where everything was set.
    We now feel that we left most of the rainy days behind us and we're leaving in good spirits to visit the capital, Wellington.    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English