Room with (hella) views

A long exposure of the Auckland skyline, just past sunset, from our apartment in the Wynyard Quarter.

7:14am, the sun is just barely at the horizon, the morning light evolving from blue to warm sunlight...

Auckland Sky Tower

The tallest giant-pointy-thing in the Southern Hempsphere. Yes really!

Cathedral Cove Beach, on the Eastern coast of the Coromandel peninsula. To get here, it's a 45-minute hike through the hills down to the beach. Then what looks like a cave - duck your head and go on through - this is what awaits on the other side.

More hobbit holes

Seriously the sheep are everywhere.

The Champagne Pool at Wai-o-tapu. NZ's equivalent of the Grand Prismatic spring at Yellowstone.

The view down to the valley from Te Mata peak, the highest point in the region (1,300 ft). Relatively speaking not a very tall point, but the sheer drop straight down to the valley induces vertigo almost instantly. Also, notice the guardrails.

Wool (Or as Eden called it, sheep fur)

Wool ready to be packed and baled

Second serious attempt at photographing star trails. The skies were so incredibly dark and absent of light pollution, I had to give it a shot. The lighter area at the top is the Milky Way (our galaxy), and the two cloudy areas to the left are two separate galaxies: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

Auckland sidewalks

Any guesses as to what this is a picture of? (and yes this photo is intentional, not an accident)

Flat White

The "flat white", the core of the New Zealand coffee scene. This is somewhere between a cappucino and a latte, close cousin of the Cortado or Gibraltar. Needless to say I made it a point to quality check each and every cafe within sight.

The western rim of the now-dormant volcano at Mount Eden. Although it erupted 28,000 years ago, standing near the base of the crater to get this shot was a *bit* unnerving.

Lions Head, at Piha Beach on the western coast of the North Island. And yes, the beach was just that empty.

Autumn on Waiheke Island, NZ

Cable Bay vineyards, a 35-minute ferry ride away from downtown Auckland. The winery is on Waiheke Island, a short ferry ride from Auckland's city center. Basically, Hawaii and Napa Valley had a love child.

Autumn on Waiheke Island, NZ

The vines of Cable Bay Vineyards (cablebay.nz/), a 45-minute ferry ride away from downtown Auckland. This winery is on Waiheke Island, a short ferry ride from Auckland's city center, which is worth every accolade that Lonely Planet heaped on it last year. www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel/regions/5?detail=1 If you could sum up the vibe here: basically Hawaii and Napa Valley had a love child.

Hobbiton, New Zealand. Yes its a real place, exactly as it was during the filming of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Selecting the best shots here was probably the hardest part of the whole album, because I took probably 500 photos just here alone.

Autumn everywhere, and of course sheep everywhere too.

Bag End, home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.

Our hosts were lifelong sheep farmers, and invited us to join when he went down in the morning to shear the herd that still needed it for the season.