We flew into Cairns and made our way up to Port Douglas where we spent the next four nights. The climate was noticeably more humid in this tropical region and the weather constantly fluctuated between rain and sun, but remained very hot throughout. We arrived around 9pm, so had to wander down the road in the dark to find a convenience store to buy dinner. On the way there, there were numerous rustles coming from the bushes which kept making Mark jump into Hazel's arms in a cartoon fashion. We saw a few toads, but nothing more theatening and were glad of the Shell torch Joanna had donated to light the way. We discovered later, whilst on our Daintree tour, that Crocodiles are actually rare in the town and that the nocturnal snakes are likely to ... read more

This next leg of our adventure involves the central east coast of Australia, using Brisbane as a hub. As the country is so massive, our plan to try and tackle the enormous distances involved includes flying up the east coast, taking a coach trip up the middle - after some more flying to get there - and then driving up and down the west coast, using Perth as another hub. It feels like a bit of an epic journey, and in hindsight we're covering off 4 out of 5 states and ignoring Adelaide/South Australia, but it was the best route we could come up with at the time! To kick off, we flew from Melbourne to Brisbane on Tiger Airways and made our way to a random industrial estate near the airport to pick up a ... read more

Sadly this will be our final blog from New Zealand, as we are about to fly from Auckland, back to Sydney, to start our tour around Australia. This is a bit of a mammoth blog with lots of photos and even video links. (Appologies!) Our final leg back up New Zealand started at Kaikoura, where we stayed in a nice little hostel called "Fish Tank". As you can probably imagine it was all themed around sealife, including the paintings on the walls and even ceilings - the ceiling of the kitchen was like looking out through the top of a fish tank. There was also a large balcony area overlooking the Kaikoura high street and beach, which was just outside our room, so we ate most of our meals out there which was great. Kaikoura means ... read more

Our journey from Fox Glacier to Lake Wanaka was a fairly long one, so the day was broken up with plenty of photo stops (some more exciting than others!) and plenty of sand flies. After leaving lake Matheson, which was a definite high point, we headed further south via Knights Point (where we spotted a dolphin pod out to sea) and then the Blue Pools. At the end of a scenic drive around Lake Hawea we arrived in Wanaka mid afternoon. We checked into our hostel (Matterhorn Backpackers) and were informed by the owner that we were priviledged to have our own block in the "love shack". This turned out to be the garden shed in the middle of the vegetable patch (I kid you not), with "LOVE HACK" on the wooden door (S had been ... read more

We set off from Wellington bright and early and jumped on the Interislander ferry. The crossing was very calm which came as a surprise given the stories we had heard from previous trips. The ferry pulls around the headland from Wellington and crosses the sea fairly quickly. The next two hours are spent navigating through the Marlborough Sounds before pulling into a pretty little town called Picton. We had some great views when crossing as the water was really still and the sun was shining. We even saw a couple of dolphins pass by. Once we had reclaimed our rucksacks (yes - on a ferry in NZ you have to check-in your luggage) we found our Magic Bus waiting just outside the ferry office and set off for Nelson. The scenery had become endless fields of ... read more