I hate early starts! 7.15am pick up, 8.30 on the big yellow boat and guess what? Yeap, I got eaten alive by mosquitoes last night! You think I’d learn. Every time I arrive in a hot country, first night out I get savaged. 9 bites this time, so off to the shop for after bite cream and a beach towel (I left mine in Oz). Then all aboard the big yellow boat. I decided on 3 islands and the first one Nanuya Lailai is 5 hours from Nadi. Well probably about 3 hours but we had to drop people off en [View Full Entry]

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Wow how hot is it. I’d forgotton how much I missed the sun. The first thing I hear when I get through customs is “Bula” (welcome). Everyone is so friendly. A lady approaches me, I obviously stand out as a lone backpacker, she takes me to the office where I pick up all my travel vouchers and then takes me to my transfer bus. So I arrive at the hostel, Nadi Bay Hotel, basic, but I get the impression this is what I am to expect of Fiji, unless I spend £1000’s. I dumped my bags and headed into town for [View Full Entry]

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The day has arrived again, leaving friends behind. Today Stu and I flew to Auckland. So we said our goodbyes to the guys we’d spent the last month with, Sean, Becky and Sam and we boarded our plane to Auckland. A sad day, but I have to move on, kind of getting used to goodbyes now. So we arrived in Auckland and decided to do a bit of last minute souvenir shopping. Then it was off the post office again for me. Second parcel I’ve posted home. I’ve bought way too much stuff again. Then off to the travel office for [View Full Entry]

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Well today was a long day. Pretty much a straight run up to Christchurch, but it took about 7 hours. When we got there, Sam, Sean, Becky, Stu and I decided to have a big night out. The gang would be going there separate ways in 2 days and none of us wanted to fly with hangovers, so tonight would be our “last night” So we all grabbed some dinner and then hit the hostel bar, where we spent most of the night, then around midnight we ventured into the city and eventually found a bar that was open late. It [View Full Entry]

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Not much to write about this, as the pictures tell it all so i'll keep it brief. Today was a ridiculously early start, 6.30am, so the four of us dragged ourselves to reception still half asleep and boarded the bus for our day trip to Milford Sound. It took around 4 hours to get there and then we boarded a boat for a 2 hour cruise around Milford Sound (which is actually a fiord). The scenery here was quite spectacular a long way to travel from Queenstown, but well worth it. We also stopped at Milford Deep Underwater Observatory. [View Full Entry]

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We’d had a pretty early start today with the Milford Sound trip, but we still decided to hit the town tonight as we had no plans for next few days, so it was time to take advantage of this party town. As part of our snowboarding packs we had vouchers for the casinos for free chips and drinks. So after a few in the hostel we headed to the two casinos in town. I managed to win $20 in the first one without using any of my own money just free chips and then proceeded to do the same in the [View Full Entry]

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We caught the bus fairly early today up to the snow field, Coronet Peak, to take advantage of the lessons on offer. Over the next 3 days we had 2hr lessons both morning and afternoon. I couldn’t wait to get started. So we picked up all our gear, jackets, pants, boots boards and off we went. Sean had boarded quite a bit so he went off in a different group, Sam & I had skied before, but never boarded and Becky had done neither, so the three of us started in the beginner group, along with Nuno, Portuguese guy from our [View Full Entry]

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We left Franz Josef today, heading for Wanaka. Now this is quite a long drive and normally en route we would stop at various spots for pictures, including Fox Glacier and views of Mount Cook, but the weather was still pretty shocking, so it was pretty much a straight run to Wanaka, arriving early afternoon. This is a really sweet town, again reminded me of a ski resort, and surprisingly when we got here it was glorious sunshine. We had quite a chilled out afternoon here, just wandered around the village and shops. If I had the time, it would be [View Full Entry]

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So today we left Uncle Les and Lake Mahinapua and it was Franz Josef today’s destination. Only one stop along the way today, Pukekura (Pook-e-ku-ra) where we visited the Bushman centre. This showed us how people make a living from various things including possum trapping and helicopter deer recovery. They showed us a film of men basically throwing themselves out of helicopters onto deer’s back, crazy! And we met their resident pig, which Sam had to feed, the pig was huge and hungry, Sam was very nervous, ha ha. Then it was on to Franz Josef. Now Franz Josef is famous [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 11th October Boo Hoo, I feel ill today. Combination of alcohol and curry for tea I think. We are off to Westport today. We stopped at Richmond to pick up a picnic lunch, then on to Nelson Lakes National Park. The views of Lake Rotoiti were stunning. We went for walk for over an hour through the bush, then it was picnic lunch and off to Westport. Tonight was a lazy on for me. Everyone was drinking, but I decided to have a day off after the last couple of nights. Plus I knew the next night was going to [View Full Entry]

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