With 'why does it always rain on me?' running firmly through my mind, I tried to ignore the pounding rain upon arrival at Rarotonga at 4am, telling myself it will have cleared up by the morning. My spirits were lifted when I entered the arrivals hall (well small room which also served as immigration, departures, duty free shopping and anything else you'd need at an airport!) and was greeted by a man singing tradtional island music and playing a ukelele - at 4am!!!! Loa Angeles could certainly learn some lessons here! I'd had a bit of a nightmare organising some accommodation as everywhere was really busy, but had managed to get a bed in the Tiare Village, which promised to be a clean, friendly, hostel environment, only a short walk from the beach - ideal! Unfortunately, ... read more

Having collected 'The Mumbler', named after our favourite Penguin in Happy Feetand also because it was like 'The Gambler's' smaller, slower (if you'll believe it!) cousin, we drove North to Napier along some stunning but extremely twisty and mountainous roads. After a brief detour to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu - funnily enough the location of the longest place name in the world, we arrived in Napier late afternoon and our first task was to find the two houses that our Grandma and her sister grew up in when they lived in New Zealand as children. Mission accomplished we drove over to the campsite Jo and Becs were staying at to see if there were any cabins available so we could get together for some drinks that evening. There was no room at the inn unfortunately, so we drove over ... read more

The journey down to Queenstown was broken up by a couple of stops at Lakes Wanaka and Hawea. The lakes in this part of the world are truly stunning - pools of icy blue water, as it's generally glacial run off, flanked by snow capped mountains - just beautiful! We made a brief stop off in the very picturesque Wanaka where I ran around like a mad thing trying to organise some fizz and plastic glasses for one of the girls on the bus, Matilda's, 19th birthday. It was here that I was reunited with Vic and Dutchie who had gone ahead at Franz Josef and spent the night in Wanaka. One final stop was made at the Kawarau Bunjy Bridge, where the more mentally challenged members of the group chucked themselves off whilst only attached ... read more

'Right you have to get out immediately!' - not the ideal words to hear at 08.30 on a Saturday morning when your head's pounding from the previous nights excesses! Re-wind to Friday night and we've just checked into the Altamant, the boutique hotel which has 1 dorm room where Wigg and Christophe were staying. After a lush meal and a couple of bottles of vino at a Thai restaurant down the road it was back to the room for a few goon related drinking games before heading into town. We can remember Rory and Marta, 2 others staying in the dorm, coming in and having a few drinks with them and then the next thing we knew we were being chucked out! One the man's words had rudely dragged us from our drink induced comas, we ... read more

Brrr, the weather was very chilly, so being back on the road again wasn't ideal, especially was The Beast has a cracked muffler meaning that carbon monoxide could potentially be leaked into the car, so we had to drive with the windows down at all times - oh the joys of backpacker cars! The stunning scenery did something towards making up for the frostbite but thankfully it only took 2 days to reach Melbourne, a lot less than anticipated, as I was starting to wonder how much longer I could cope with the 3 of us crammed into a 2 man tent for body heat! We were heading to Melbourne for various reasons but primarily to catch up with Kate, Claire and Tim who we'd met a Hoa's Place in Vietnam. The girls very kindly agreed ... read more