Laura and Paul

Sunday 17th December Paul - It's another full day with Greyhound! This time with added freaks and weirdos, plus as a special BONUS feature, we will actually be stopping somewhere with more than just Burger King to choose from for lunch. Yes, we'll be including MacDonalds as well. Enjoy! Monday 18th December Paul - Arrived in Vegas last night pretty late so we checked into our hotel and went to sleep. Let me just say, the hotel is AWESOME (said in a true American surfer dude accent). We even have a bath AND a King size bed. The best thing is we are 23 floors up so we have some fabulous views over Vegas to enjoy. Woke up and generally loved our hotel room until we decided to venture downstairs to the casino. Our hotel is ... read more

Thursday 7th December Paul - Greyhound gets a bad reputation in America and our first bus was over 40 minutes late which is a cracking way to be introduced to it's delights. You have to bear in mind that EVERYONE drives in America so the people left to take the Greyhound must be desperate... A woman who couldn't stop dancing, a group of people who decided to sit at both the back and front of the bus in 15 minute intervals and the smelly guy made up our troop. Our bus made its' rather obvious stop at Burger King halfway through the journey so we could all have some food. If you didn't want Burger King then tough shit because I literally couldn't see another building on the horizon, never mind food place. The driver had ... read more

Friday 1st December I Laura - Happy Birthday Dad! Paul - Final day in Auckland today and we spent the morning browsing round Kelly Tarltons Antartic Adventure where we saw some huge penguins. Apparently it was the first of it's kind in the world at the time but it's looking a bit dated! Definately needs a face lift. Said a (nearly) tearful goodbye to Andy and Anna as they jetted out to warmer climates whilst Laura and I were flying to Hollywood! Flight was fine and we passed the time watching "Little Miss Sunshine" amongst other things. Friday 1st December II Laura - Happy Birthday AGAIN Dad! Paul - Arrived in LA after a nights sleep on the plane to be told that it's STILL the 1st December. Yikes! This posed all kinds of questions. Did ... read more

Wednesday 22nd November Laura - We left Taupo today and made our way to Rotorua, stopping on the way at a 'Thermal Wonderland'. Sorry to disappoint you Katie, but this place was not a centre for Primark thermals. It's actually a geothermal area with lots of steaming geysers, lava flows, silica terraces, and boiling mud pools. I'm no expert but I believe these are formed due to the volcanic activity in the area and the plates that lie under the ground (I never did understand plate tectonics in Chemistry GCSE). So the place was called Orakei Korako and it smelled of eggs (not rotten eggs though as commonly believed, more like egg sandwiches....) We had to get a boat across to the geothermal area and the first thing we saw was a huge mass of colourful ... read more

Thursday 16th November Paul - Thankfully no hangover this morning. But we did get our first sleep in for ages so Laura "I managed to snooze in a tuk-tuk on a pot holed road in Angkor" Darby was especially pleased. Only the thought of a fry up for breakfast got her out of bed. After brunch we wandered down to the seal colony but as it was high tide we couldn't get out to see them close up. It was a lovely day so we went and sat on the lookout over Kaikoura and admired the snow capped mountains in the distance. Essential activites over (we read by the sea, threw stones into the water, admired the views, went shopping, argued over whose socks smelt the worst) we strolled back to the hostel to have tea. ... read more