Moroz Christmas Australia New Zealand Dec 2025

  Jan 1 2026 Day 39 Happy New Year from NZ! One of the first countries in the world to start the new year. Last day in Christchurch visiting all the family followed by an extremely uneventful house party of games night til the wee hours of the morning. Morning trip to visit mum in laws resting place and off on the highway to Lake Tekapo a few hours south. Lunch, more wool shopping, waterfall hike with a wrong turn and an extra 30 minutes of elevation and cardio which ultimately provided us with more exercise than we wanted but definitely needed. Rolling hills and low mountains with a third straight day of rain showers and storms, but we rolled into Fairlie NZ near Lake Tekapo and found our amazing little motel room and some top notch Chinese food before watching some tv and reading before calling it a night. Jan 2 2026 - Day 40 Pancake with PB/Jam for brekkie and out the door in the pouring rain. Filled up with cheap gas and headed to Lake Tekapo. The rain stopped right before we d...

    Day 1/ 50 Today is Day 1/50 days of travel to other side of the world and back. My flight to Vancouver wasn’t until 1:30 in the afternoon, but my free Uber could only bring me at 9 AM so I have a few quality hours to spend in the airport. Whilst to my wife, son and friends, Rick and Michelle attend a Fancey buffet event at the Palliser Hotel, I am resigned to some less than stellar breakfast at the airport lounge lol. I was extremely fortunate to bump into a former colleague from our Lady of Peace school travelling back to Hamilton after having been in Calgary all weekend for her mom’s birthday. We had a great visit for half an hour before she departed. 3 hours chillin in the Aspire lounge adding info to my itinerary and off on a twin propeller Dash 8 to Abbotsford. No wifi. No chargers. First world problems. lol Best Uber driver ever - my brudder - picked me up and off to New Westminster for a couple beers and a visit. Another awesome Uber driver - my sister in law Mia dr...

    Day 6/50 Stupid fridge in my room makes the loudest groaning noises all night so I’m awake at 4am cause why not. Alarm at 5. Packed and in the cab by 515. Fiji Airport is small but absolutely beautiful. The premium lounge was like a garden of luxury with amazing fresh fruit and top-notch coffees. Flight was delayed a bit and only 1/3 full as it was an Airbus A350/900! 66 rows of 3/3/3 - that’s almost 600 seats!!! Once we got this behemoth off the ground, it was smooth sailing for 5 hours to Melbourne. That’s when things went a little sideways. The fly-by-night car rental agency I used decided to completely cancel my Car Rental. Good luck finding an affordable car on a Friday. Thank God krista wasn’t here for these performances. I don’t think she would’ve dealt with this well, and also thankful for black Friday sales as I was able to wrangle one through Expedia. Not a very flashy sports car as I ended up with a beautiful Soccer Mom Honda CRV in Candy Apple Red! After gettin...

    Day 10/50 Last night’s adventure could be summed up very easily with reference to the amazing film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but add on Feral cat fights and motorcycle drag racing Even with earplugs and headphones on over top, last night’s smoking hot deal of $45 for the Airbnb room with free laundry services did have some downfalls. So up and at em at 4 AM again. Did a bunch of computer work and then off to the mall for 8 AM to hit the money exchange, grab some breakfast and do a bit of shopping. At the airport for noon and flew out at 3 PM. Front row seat 1A in a plane that held about 300 people. Only cost an extra nine dollars. Because Airport food is insane compared to North America, I went to the lounge and had an all you can eat lunch and filled my backpack with cans of soda and some extra sandwiches. Unfortunately, this put the weight of my backpack over by 3 kg and the airline wanted to charge me an extra $75 so I gave away all my pop and sandwiches to some f...