Mark Kate

So hungover and hungry we touched down in Kathmandu airport from Lukla. The plan was simple: get to hotel, dump our stuff and go and grab breakfast, and spend the afternoon snoozing. The pre-arranged airport pickup man wasn't there, so we had the joy of haggling for our taxi. Oh we took the serenity of the mountains for granted! Once we threw our stuff into the hotel we dropped back our rental gear, happy to get the hefty deposit back in our greasy mits, we walked to the famous Mike's Breakfast in the scorching heat and chaos that is Kathmandu traffic. Now you might be thinking "oh yeah, bad traffic, how annoying that can be sometimes...". Wrong. Being a pedestrian in Kathmandu is a nightmare. Your premium would double if you hinted to your life insurer ... read more

Excited! That is how we both felt leaving Brisbane for Hong Kong. Moving from our longest time in one country to our shortest, we predicted a bit of a culture shock when we arrived in HK. Boy were we right! We were wide eyed as we drove into town in our taxi at the sheer scale of the buildings, high rise apartment blocks everywhere. As soon as we got out of the taxi, the hustle and bustle of the city was upon us, and the heat and humidity hit us. We stayed at the Ah Shan Hostel, which is basically a few rooms on the 14th and 15th floors of a big apartment block in Mong Kok, the northern part of Hong Kong. Way nicer than we expected, we were given a triple room as the ... read more

Well, after the somewhat underwhelming Ayers Rock experience, we were off to Cairns. We were excited to hit the coast, and get away from the outback and head for the ocean. We touched down in Cairns to buckets of rain, and that's the way it stayed for 2 days non-stop. Turns out the humidity never drops below about 97%. We were holed up in a really nice place called Dreamtime which had a cafe attached to it, offering backpackers cheap meals. The highlight of our time in Cairns was collecting $120 from Qantas for our wandering luggage. When the time came, I went and collected our Wicked camper van, a converted Hi-Ace with some clothes storage and a mattress jammed in the back, and a sink to boot. This was to be our accom and wheels ... read more

After flying back into Sydney from Parkes, we were keen to regain possession of our beloved passports, so we headed into the city. We got to the Indian embassy to find a scum of anxious looking travelers (ourselves included!), but within 30 minutes we were out of there, visas in hand. That night we got some awesome pizza from Base in Randwick delivered, easily the best I've ever had, and headed down to the park to watch Shakespeare's Twelfth Night being performed. It was fantastic to sit with beer in one hand, pizza in the other in the open air, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. In the end it all came together (kind of) and the audience were clearly impressed. It was a tad unnerving when the more educated members of ... read more

So we arrived in Queenstown Airport all packed for Australia, got to the desk, handed over our passports and the attendant raised her eyebrows. "Where are your visas for Australia?"....Hmmm, a good question indeed, as we were assured by Trailfinders that we didn't need them. I also had a feeling (that was subsequently proved false) that Lonely Planet was with Trailfinders on that one. A bit too much adrenaline for our liking, but it was all ok as we handed over some dosh and we were sorted, electronic visas in the cyberspace back pocket. As Simon was in Tasmania, Row picked us up from the airport and whisked us to Coogee for a drink on their apartment balcony. The weather was nice, as joggers plodded past and the sea crashed against the cliffs. We had some ... read more