Work asked me to use up some of my annual leave, so Rachel & I decided to rent a campervan and go up northwards (it's warmer north, right?) So on the 12th we picked it up and set off. The first day was mainly driving. Funnily enough, this was the first time I had driven a camper at more than 10-15km/h, after 9 months of driving them daily. Being used to driving a Skyline, the campervan's lack of power (especially up hills) took a bit of getting used to. It was automatic too, and would do stupid things like stay in [View Full Entry]

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Still catching up, last month Israel & I visited Kaikoura so he could go on the Albatross Encounter boat for like, the ten millionth time. This time I joined him as I managed to arrange a free trip. Working in tourism has benefits. I really enjoyed the boat trip. For those wanting to see albatross, I think this would be a lot better than on the peninsula at Dunedin. You're a lot closer for one and you get to see them fighting. The boat tows a chunk of frozen fish leftovers so all the birdies follow desperately trying to get a [View Full Entry]

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In early December, Israel & I went to Dunedin but I've been too lazy to write about it til now. I'd been really sick the days before (Omg, sick enough to take time of work!!!1!) so the drive down wasn't fun. When we got to Dunedin we first went to Portobello and got to go behind the scenes again. I took some cool underwater pictures in the rockpool tank. Then we briefly went to the albatross colony to watch birds from the carpark. Once we returned to the city, a petrol station attendant mocked me for buying 2 pies (Israel was [View Full Entry]

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So I went to Lake Tekapo for one night a few weeks ago. It wasn't very exciting. It was very windy. We walked to the top of Mt John and it was so windy that it was difficult to walk and we got head aches. And the salmon farm road was closed due to wind which is sad 'cos I really wanted to feed salmon. It's not like I can do that in Christchurch anytime I want! *sarcasm* There were cute little bunnies bouncing around the holiday park we stayed in. We got a little cabin to ourselves for $50 there, [View Full Entry]

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Israel and I took a brief roadtrip on my days off this week. The main reasons for the trip were to do Whale Watch Kaikoura, find the black kite (a bird) in Blenheim and visit the Picton aquarium. On Tuesday morning we headed off early to Kaikoura. We were on the waiting list for Whale Watch (We were getting on at a heavily discounted rate, so the paying customers had priority) but managed to secure seats for the 10.30 trip. The boat ride was good. Their is a slideshow thing playing so the 20 minute ride isn't boring and the seats [View Full Entry]

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On the last morning we headed out to the road to wait for a bus and found a baby giant millipede! It was so cute. We had been planning to make a giant one walk onto my arm to take photos of but had never got around to it, so this was the perfect opportunity. As he walked around on my arm, he was secreting some yellowish liquid. You readers who have been paying attention may remember that millipedes leak cyanide when upset! So yes, 5 minutes later there was a definite burning sensation on my arm where he'd been and [View Full Entry]

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After returning to the main island, we headed back to Colo-i-Suva to stay at Raintree lodge again. Although I'd liked it here heaps the first time, I now consider it to be pretty average. Tovutovu Resort has just raised my standards so much ;-) It's funny, the cleaning/maintenance staff here are so much friendlier than the service staff (some of whom are very disinterested). The next day we bused to downtown Suva to do some of the things we missed first time. I wanted to do some souvenir shopping, so we headed for the curio and handicraft market. It was so [View Full Entry]

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The ferry trip to Vanua Levu was quite good as they played movies to keep us entertained. The first was a good one, "Catch A Fire" which was about Aparteid. The second, called "Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever" was an awfully bad action movie starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas, who both seemed awfully embarrassed to be part of such a plotfree monstrosity. After landing, we waited for a bus north in the village of Lao. It seemed that tourists didn't stop here very often and half the village came to talk to us and ask questions about where we'd been etc. [View Full Entry]

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So on the 2nd we left Kadavu and arrived on Taveuni. There's a lot more tourists here, mainly American and some Australians. We stayed at Tovutovu resort. This place was fantastic, really good value. Although it was the most expensive place we stayed, it felt like it should have been far more expensive. For only F$75 ($10 more than Raintree) we got a big bure with a private bathroom and hot water! The towels and bedding were changed daily. There were also tea & coffee sachets in the rooms. By the end of the stay here, the staff absolutely loved us [View Full Entry]

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I haven't been able to update for a while, apparently travel blog's servers crashed. I think my old entries might have been lost too.... Last time I updated, I was starting to get a sore throat. The morning after it was really bad and turning into a cold. We left Raintree lodge and headed for the airport, with a stop at a supermarket to get some soluble aspirin for my throat. The plane to Kadavu was tiny, with 8 passenger seats. Upon arrival we discovered the place we had intended to stay was fully booked. Instead, we headed to a smaller [View Full Entry]

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