New Zealand North Island 12th Nov - 27th Nov So, as you can tell we're pretty far behind with our blog now. A lot of this is to do with the amount of camping we've been doing where the only internet is our built in flysheet. Now we are in Bangkok waiting for our visas for India to be processed, we have the chance to get up to date so we'll be taking you on a whirlwind tour of the highlights of our travels in New Zealand and Australia. A lot of this will be throught the medium of the photo story. Here we go... We arrived in Aukland where we stayed for a couple of days and got ourselves organised for a road trip around the North Island. We first of all headed up into ... read more

Fiji - The Yasawas We left Honolulu at 12:00 on the 21st October and after six and a half hours flying we arrived at Nadi airport in Fiji where it was 16:30 on the 22nd October. We had crossed the equator and the dateline and completely missed out on Tuesday night! We took a taxi to the hostel we had booked for the first two nights and after sampling a couple of the local beers, headed to bed for an early night. In the morning, we took the local bus into town. The bus had what they refer to as 'Fiji air conditioning' i.e. no windows. In Nadi, we did some shopping and visited the local market which had lots of fruit and vegetables we had never seen before as well as mountains of a root ... read more

California road trip part 4 After cleaning up the mess left by the racoons at our campsite, we headed towards San Fancisco. The route in from the north took us over the famous Golden Gate Bridge which provided great views over the city and the bay. After a short drive through the city centre, we headed over the Bay Bridge to the university town of Berkely where he hoped to find some cheap accomodation. Unfortunately there wasn't any and we had to settle for a fairly expensive motel but it was much nicer than camping. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the shops and bars that surrounded the university before going back to the motel. The next day we took the train into San Francisco and spent the day exploring the various districts ... read more

California road trip part 2 We left the campsite at Sunset Crater and headed off on the long drive through Arizona to Nevada. By mid afternoon, we reached the famous Hoover Dam which holds back the Colorado river and provides energy and water for most of Southern Nevada as well as creating a huge lake for fishing and boating. We crossed the dam and parked on the Arizona side. We walked along the top of the dam and admired the views over both sides as well as the new bridge that is under construction to divert the traffic away from the dam. We left the dam and headed to one of the campsites on the shore of Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the dam. The campsite was busy with weekend revellers from Las Vegas which ... read more

Southern California: 1st September 2008 Our first stop back in the States was San Diego, just a short tram ride from the Mexican border. We had booked a hostel in the centre of town for three nights which was right next to the Gas Light district where all the restaurants and bars are. Although San Diego is quite a large city, it never seemed too busy and it was easy to get around. While there we visited the attractions at Ocean Beach, a laidback surfer hangout with lots of bars and surf shops. We also spent a whole day at the very impressive San Diego zoo where we managed to see polar bears swimming in their glass sided pool. We also saw pandas, koalas and even a two headed snake. That evening we headed out with ... read more