Circumnavigation of New Zealand Completed!

Sunday 30 March

11.35am on a beautiful morning and I pulled up the anchor for the last time on this journey, and we cruised out of Bon Accord Harbour for our final destination – home!  What a stunning weather day for our return,  it wasn’t long before we got the sails up and enjoyed the most wonderful last few hours of our cruise into Westhaven Marina.

We left Auckland harbour on Sunday 29 December at 1.57pm and here we are, sailing back in on Sunday 30 March at 2.59pm – see the photos going out and coming home below….

What a trip… 92 days….awesome, scary, stunning, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying, scenic, amazing, incredible, impressive I could go on and on with this list of adjectives to describe what a fabulous three months it has been, circumnavigating one of the most beautiful countries in the world, no wonder it is called Godzone (God’s Own Country – a phrase used for more than 100 years by New Zealanders to describe their homeland and popularised by New Zealand’s longest serving prime minister, Richard John Seddon).  

A huge shout out, congratulations and thanks, to Captain Geoff for navigating me, and our guests, safely through some pretty scary situations – think the West Coast early on in our journey, and the two of us on our Bay of Plenty/Coastguard escapade - and for planning and executing some amazing stopovers and itineraries for us all to enjoy and make the most of this wonderful country during the last three months.  What an epic journey it has been, this makes two circumnavigations for Geoff, his first of the World and now New Zealand, that’s two huge bucket list items he’s ticked off!   Pretty proud of myself for now being able to add this awesome journey to my list of “things I would never have dreamed of doing five years ago” too! 

Thank you all for following us on our journey and a special thanks to my son Dan, for his diligence in posting this blog for me.  Until our next adventure……