“The land of the long white cloud” is the nearest translation of “Aotearoa”, the Māori name for New Zealand. I took hundreds of breathtaking photos during our vacation 18 months ago and I’m dreaming of the day we can return to the land of the long white cloud.

Scenes like this, or “The Shire” as I liked to call every single hillside while I busily snapping away photos during our cross country drives, definitely add to the numerous reasons of why I will be returning someday.

And the cows! The cows are everywhere. It’s no wonder “New Zealand Grass-Fed Beef” is desirable stuff because it’s wild and free all over the country, as far as I could see anyway!

These rock formations were really neat, too. We saw them on our way down from Rotorua toward Waitomo.

And these photos of lambs at pasture are some of my favorites. The sun was setting and we had just settled in at our “motel” staying at Woodlyn Park in Waitomo. More on that in the Waitomo post, but I’ll give you a sneak peek.. we slept in an airplane 🙂