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 route. So I had 5 hours of sunbathing, okay it turned out to be burning rather than sunbathing. I did have cream on, just not properly. Then a little boat pulled up along side (Mum, ... read more

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 me, to decide where to go in Fiji. Okay I know a little unorganised, I leave tomorrow and don’t even have a bed for the night. Anyway after a couple of hours, I decided to ... read more

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.... read more

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 bus. Well Sam picked it up really quickly so he went off into the next group and but the afternoon had moved groups again. Whereas Becky & I weren’t doing too badly, just a steady ... read more

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 for its glacier and that was tomorrows plan, so today we went to the tour office to find out exactly what walking on ice involved and what we should wear, then it was off to ... read more