This year it was in the capital of Wellington. While it was centrally located between the two Islands, it was unfortunately on the north Island, or a 6 hour return trip from the south island by ferry, making visitting the south Island by car a non very worthwhile endeavour, which is unfortunate since many of the interesting things were actually on the south island. Given that, we stayed on the north Island and were greeted by pretty poor weather (overcast and drizzle on most days), making visits no that worthwhile or enjoyable. As a result, we didn't get to rollerblade around the coastal path, or hike up the nearby mountain, or kayak, or even dive due to fairly strong winds that just mess up the waters (which were cold anyway). We still got to see a bit, including the single nice day we used to drive to the coast and see pinnacles, but otherwise we saw a few museums (indoors), and ended up coming home a day early since whatever left we could do didn't seem worth the hassles for me of staying an extra day and travelling back on monday and going to work the same day after landing. Random pictures from Wellington:
weight of one car brings the other one up
nice rotor cloud, Wellington is *very* windy
New Zealand Kaka (like a parrot, but not quite)
They taught their warrior dance to our friends
they also had wines with QR codes
the dirt randomly collapsed under our shoes and we got a bit dirty :)
The trip back was uneventful outside of increasingly ridiculous TSA practices (full body and luggage search for everyone just 3mn after you clear the previous search and Xrays at security: they empty absolutely everything, even the coins in my wallet).