Chanelle O’Sullivan and Sarah Drummond

The Cross Country Kiwis kids travel activity book was created by Chanelle O’Sullivan and Sarah Drummond with kids from ages 5-12 in mind.

Chanelle has a daughter and son three years apart. She originates from Auckland but has resided between South Canterbury, the Mackenzie and Hawea for the past 14 years after marrying a local. She is a raging multipotentialite with a background in the primary industries and entrepreneurship with many projects on the go and came up with the book concept when her eldest was 6 and asked: “How many towns are there between Timaru and Nelson?”

Sarah was born in New York, raised throughout Southeast Asia and spent her high school and university years in Florida before also meeting her South Cantabrian man. She has based herself in Timaru for the past 10 years, working as a professional freelance photographer and designer. Sarah spent the majority of 2018 backpacking the world with her husband and her then 5 year old girl. In 2021 Sarah welcomed a wee boy into the world!

Both Sarah and Chanelle get fidgety when they haven’t travelled for a while which results in wild impromptu road trips around New Zealand with 4 kids and 3 dogs in tow. This is where XCK all began – in our desire to lessen the occurrence of road trip scraps and the constant question of: “Are we nearly there yet?”