After testing gravity in Wanaka, we made the short drive south to Queenstown, a small town overlooked by the Remarkable Mountain Range. We took a gondola ride up the side of one of the mountains which provided a fantastic panoramic lookout over the town below. Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of New Zealand, and from the mountain we watched people bungy jumping and paragliding. After enjoying the scenery, we took a chairlift further up and then raced back down on the luge track. We spent several days in Queenstown walking along the lakefront, browsing the shops, and enjoying so [View Full Entry]

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Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane? The answer, we've found in New Zealand is why not?! But before we get to that, we'll update you on the first half of our South Island road trip. We travelled to the South Island via the Interislander Ferry. It was huge, and as we boarded we thought it looked more like a cruise ship then a ferry. We had a bit of a storm for the crossing so it was a little rough, but altogether a pleasant experience. We sailed through the scenic Queen Charlotte Sound as we approached the South Island. [View Full Entry]

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Kia Ora! What a beautiful country this is! Our first week in New Zealand was spent exploring the North Island. When we arrived in Auckland we were very excited to meet up with Hui, our friend from home who is currently studying in NZ. Hui was the first person we've seen from home since we started our journey and it was great to catch up with an old friend! We wandered around the city together and spent the rest of the evening at the pub... Kiwi beer is much better than Aussie beer! In the morning we picked up our rental [View Full Entry]

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We spent a bit of time in the city of Cairns before and after our dive trip. Walking along the esplanade, we looked out into the mudflats and all the interesting wildlife it had to offer. We spotted a flock of pelicans, more species of crab than we could keep track of, and to our surprise, mudskippers! It was fascinating to watch these little guys - part fish, part reptile, they're like evolution in progress. At night, large fruit bats swooped around us. After our dive trip, we rented a car for a couple of days and headed out to the [View Full Entry]

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We have just returned from a two day dive cruise on the Great Barrier Reef. Neither words nor pictures can do it justice - amazing wouldn't even begin to describe it. The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest living organism, is visible from space, and is one of the Natural Wonders of the World. We were able to do six dives while on our cruise and we also enrolled in an Adventure Diver specialty program, where we took courses in deep diving, night diving, and navigation. The day after we arrived in Queensland, we took a two and a half [View Full Entry]

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We have spent the past couple months living in the tropical, laid-back city of Darwin. With a population of approximately 100,000, Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory, and home to about half of the Territory's residents. It's a great city and we both feel very at home here. Andrew has been working as a mechanic for Thrifty, enjoying being able to get his hands dirty, and the less stressful pace of work in Australia. I have been doing a variety of casual jobs and temping work. I spent almost a month working in Administration and Reception for CridlandsMB, a [View Full Entry]

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Back from our Asian adventure, it was time to face reality and find some work. We were unhappily surprised to discover that all of the places who had told us there would be work in three weeks before we left for Asia were telling us the same thing now. We decided to make our way down the South West coast to the wine region of Margaret River. We stopped in the small coastal towns along the way; many of which boasted impressive historic jettys, all of which were closed for repairs. Arriving in the small but swanky town of Margaret River, [View Full Entry]

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After another short flight, we arrived in Bangkok. We planned to see Thailand's capital on the way back, so we went directly to the train station where we bought tickets for the 13 hour journey to the city of Chiang Mai. We decided to treat ourselves to a first-class sleeper cabin - although outrageously priced by Thai standards, it was a rare opportunity for us to actually be able to afford first class! We were greeted by a very polite and courteous officer who showed us to our cabin and explained he would be there to cater to our every need [View Full Entry]

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Our first day in the beautiful Phi Phi Islands was spent scuba diving. Diving was the primary reason for our travel here, and we had planned to join in on some local dives around the islands. Upon our arrival we were informed that for the last nine days, divers had sighted both whale sharks and manta rays at a dive site far offshore. It was two hours out into the open ocean by speed boat, and therefore the trip had a significantly higher cost; and there was no guarentee of a sighting, but chances were good. What an exciting possibility! We [View Full Entry]

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As our plane arrived above Phuket, Thailand we were treated to a complimentary scenic flight as we circled the beautiful islands below while we waited for clearance from Air Traffic Control. Once we arrived and passed through Customs, we were absolutely bombarded by people; "Taxi, taxi, sir? 600 baht.." We were barely able to make it through the mob, but eventually found the airport shuttle, which would transfer us to the ferry terminal for 85 baht each. We had read that Phuket has an extremely high rate of road fatalities, and we quickly understood why. Traffic was chaos - drivers did [View Full Entry]

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