We left Dunedin early in the morning so we could get to Bluff to catch the ferry across to Stewart Island at 11. There are many tiny towns down this end of the country. I think we passed through places like Otokia, Waihola and Clarendon but I was blinking at the time so I missed them. Milton was bigger: it had its own Manure Stall. All the country towns seem to have some sort of huge mascot proclaiming their identity. Rakaia has a giant salmon, Gore has a giant trout, Hinds has a rock, Milton has a co-operative church. There were [View Full Entry]

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It is the day after Christmas, and Robyn and I are heading south to Stewart Island, the lesser of New Zealand's three main islands, in search of birds. It is our first time there. The plan for day one (Tuesday) is travel from Christchurch to Dunedin, then on to Stewart Island the next day, and back up to Christchurch on Sunday. The first stop on the road trip was the mighty metropolis of Timaru. There is an aviary at Caroline Bay (a big round one with common parroty birds) and another at the Botanic Gardens (a much smaller one with even [View Full Entry]

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Well I got back to New Zealand without any plane crashes or highjackings. Every country I go through there are no problems at immigration at all, but as usual when I come back into my own country I'm closely questioned regarding my reasons for my travels, then I get pulled out of the declaration lines and interrogated further and get my details checked to make sure I am who I say I am, then get my bags searched. "Are you carrying any illegal items?" they ask. What do they expect people to answer? "Um yes officer, some heroin, a sack of [View Full Entry]

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23 October This morning I moved residences. Then I went to the Bukit Brown cemetery to look for lesser sulphur-crested cockatoos that I had been told may possibly be found there. The cemetery is huge and, unlike what you may suspect from a Singaporean site, most parts of it appear to never receive any kind of maintenance. The ground is matted with weeds and thickets of trees crowd in all around. Its great. Getting there was easy. I love the Singapore public transport system: its easy to understand, easy to use, easy to get information about, and its reliable. When I [View Full Entry]

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The bus from Krabi was due to leave at 7am. I had been informed with all assurances that it would be a three-hour minibus ride to Hat Yai, then a transfer to a big bus for the rest of the way to Penang. The minibus arrived at 6.40am. There was only one other person in it. She got transferred to another minibus. Two tourist guys got picked up. Then they got dropped off at a tourist place to await another bus. Some more people got in during the hour we spent driving in circles round Krabi. Then we were off. We [View Full Entry]

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Right. The bus from Bangkok to Krabi ended its voyage not at the Krabi bus station but at a tourist place, as I suspected it might do, but that wasn't actually so bad because they had all the information on all the guesthouses in town. I picked a cheap one at random like I usually do. It was called Hollywood Guesthouse. It turned out to be about five minutes walk from where the boats leave to do trips into the mangroves, and was just round the corner from Krabi's famous restaurant 'May & Mark' (and also one called 'Scandinavian Restaurant' which [View Full Entry]

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I had been intending to head straight off to Krabi in the south of Thailand a day or two after leaving Chiang Mai, but I ended up being so sick that I stayed in Bangkok for five days. I think it was something I ate in Chiang Mai, and it was probably Thai food because there were little tiny Muay Thai fighters pounding on the insides of all my organs. My 30 day Thai visa had almost run out because I'd spent too long in Doi Chiang Dao so while in Bangkok I went to immigration and got it extended for [View Full Entry]

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With Doi Chiang Dao done, I had to head off to Doi Inthanon, the other indispensible stop for any birder in northern Thailand. How to get there by public transport was the problem. That is to say, getting there wouldn't be a problem, getting around to the right spots on the mountain would be. There's a fair bit of traffic so your average tourist could do it, but for a birder the only hitching option would really be with another birder. So I rented a jeep. "What? He rented a jeep?" I hear the people back home cry. "What's he gonna [View Full Entry]

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A couple of days later an English couple arrived. Jenny was a first-time birder and Gareth was tagging along. They were on a year-long trip around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia (Sumatra to Komodo and West Timor), Australia, New Zealand and then Chile to Costa Rica! Awesome! They came along to the Temple Gully with me (few birds) then we headed along the Nature Trail. As Gareth said, I'd like to see a party of school children attempt the Nature Trail! The name sort of conveys an easy stroll, not a military assault course. The grade was so steep in places [View Full Entry]

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On the 24 September I started off to the mountain of Doi Chiang Dao, north of Chiang Mai. When in Bangkok I normally leave my main pack in storage at Prakorb's House and just take two day packs when I go somewhere (Sai Yok, Khao Yai, Cambodia...) because I don't need all my stuff all the time. So that's what I was going to do in Chiang Mai too. Bag storage at the Lanna Guesthouse where I had been staying was 50 Baht for an indefinite period (one day, ten days, it didn't matter, always 50 Baht). But when I went [View Full Entry]

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