KA

Hello again to our audience out there. We are now only a few days off finishing our trip and as such feel both happy and sad to be heading home. Having had six months off has been fantastic but it'll be a bump back down to earth once work recommences in a little under two weeks. (my heart bleeds I hear you saying!) Anyway, continuing on from above we left lovely Wanaka and headed south through Queenstown where we spent a few hours shopping for more kit for the impending Kepler walk and to sample some of its hospitality. We'd booked to stay in the isolated Glenorchy Kinloch lodge which took nearly two hours to drive to. Glenorchy is supposed to be beautiful but we didn't see that much as it drizzled most of the night. ... read more

South of the north island Following our restful sta with the Fairhursts we head first to Rotorua and then onto Lake Taupo. Rotorua was interesting from a geological point of view but the town itself did not strike a chord with us. A little too commercialised redneckness for our liking and the run-in with the pissed Moari's outside our hostel room at 4 am didn't endear the place much. The natural features were amazing however with boiling mud, coloured lakes and steaming hillsides as far as the eye could see. We spent a few hours soaking up the heat in the Rotorua thermal baths before heading over to Lake Taupo. Here we gorged on farmed prawns, marvelled at the immense power of the Huka falls and took a stroll through the cratered landscape of "craters of ... read more

Hi all and hope the christmas and new years hangovers are all settled and that the return to work hasn't been too awful! We've has a fabulous 2 weeks in NZ so far and are currently on the South Island. The North was great but haven't much to compare it to yet as far as the south island goes. Having finally (after 31 long years of waiting in my case) landed in NZ we negociated the hire car offices and got ourselves our chariot for the duration of our NZ experience. A trusty little ford focus whisked us northwards, battling our way through the auckland rushhour up towards the bay of islands on the east coast. We only managed to get as far as Whangerai as I was already starting to study the backs of my ... read more

Having to fly back to Bangkok didn't fill us with much joy at all. We decided to play it safe and fly the day before our connection meaning a nights stay in the city. Having been there before it all proved much easier the second time and we opted for a central location (staying in the wendy guesthouse near Siam sq. which was fine) Being back in consumer crazy Bangkok was light throwing fuel on a fire for Kate. Imagine those wide eyes and the thumping heart and one could tell she was back in her element! Damn. Luckily we only had a night otherwise the bank account would have taken a smighting I fear! We had just enough time to catch the new James Bond film in prehaps the most amazing cinema we've ever seen ... read more

Hi from Mark and Kate, wishing you seasons greetings and hope the Christmas capitalist bonanza isn't driving you mad! We're in Laos now but first i'll tell you about Hanoi and Halong. After our whistlestop tour of Hue and the DMZ we boarded the nighttrain to Hanoi. 13 hours rattling along the coastal railway snug as a bug in a rug in our cabin. We arrived and successfully dodged the cheating ba$%*d of a taxi driver who wanted 5 dollars to drive us the 1.5 dollar trip into town. Funnily enough they always change their mind from meter to fixed price once the bags are in the boot! Arriving at 4.30 in the morning, the city was like a ghosttown, everything including all the hotels shut up for the night. We whiled away the few hours ... read more