Heels and Wheels are dusting off their luggage, packing up and hitting the road again for the first time in five months. 

If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll know that Ric and I have been living in Wellington, New Zealand recently. While I guess technically that could be counted as travel since neither of us are kiwis, nor had we ever been to Wellington prior to this trip, we’re ready to start REALLY traveling again.

It’s been a brilliant few months here in the country’s capital. Unfortunately, it was one more focused on saving up money than holidaying. We spent six months prior to our arrival in New Zealand traveling Asia and the USA, so we really needed to buckle down and focus when we arrived in New Zealand.

All the hard work paid off. We’ve both reached our monetary goals and will be hitting the road to explore New Zealand’s South Island, from the Marlborough Sounds to Milford Sound,  in ten days. Readers can follow all our adventures from sound to sound here.

However, we’re too excited to just countdown in our heads till then, so we’ll be counting down with all of you. Over the next ten days we’ll post one interesting fact about the South Island per day.

We hope you’ll follow along to get to know a bit about us and the great island we’ll be tramping. (Fact: Tramping is a kiwi term for hiking.) Find all South Island countdown facts below:

Sound to Sound fact 10: Nevis Bungy

Sound to Sound fact 9: Mount Cook

Sound to Sound fact 8: Nelson’s Blue Lake

Sound to Sound fact 7: Aurora Australis

Sound to Sound fact 6: sunny New Zealand 

Sound to Sound fact 5: steepest street in the world

Sound to Sound fact 4: Franz Josef Glacier

Sound to Sound fact 3: a Sound

Sound to Sound fact 2: Slope Point

Sound to Sound Finale: rugby