SpicyLynny

The remoteness of Mongolia is evident from the moment you enter the country. To go from China to the least densely populated country in the world is quite something. We said our farewells to the Colonel and his wife after a very pleasant train journey. They spoke a little English which was a god send as 24 hours in a sleeper cabin without any communication can be frustrating. The Colonel's last words were "here is my phone number, you have any trouble in Mongolia, you call me. I have much power". Brilliant! Mongolia had the coldest temperatures on our trip. Being 1500m above sea level and light years from any ocean, its climate is extreme to say the least. We got off at Ulaan Baatar to a biting daytime temp of -15. The first thing we ... read more

Getting to HK was a long mission. The initial excitement of being on the plane fizzled out when we were told there was a 'slight irregularity with engine 4'. After 2 hours on the tarmac they decided that we should get off the plane as it was going to take longer than expected to fix. Nine hours later and we were in the air! Qantas were good though, they dished out $60 worth of food vouchers. We ate enough for a week and managed to buy a bag full of snacks for the plane. Imagine our faces when they decided to give us 2 dinners on the plane! (not sure why they did this). Thankfully, we were staying at our friends Darren and Tracey's place, who didn't seem to mind getting up at 3am to let ... read more

Not content with driving 4000km in 2 weeks in Queensland, we flew to Perth to prepare for a another 8000km on the West Coast. This was made easier by the knowledge that our friend Emilie would soon be joining us for a month of exploring and long road trips. We needed a car that was up to the job. Somehow, we ended up with Geraldine! A 1994 4.0Li Ford Falcon Wagon that for all of her faults, we grew to love. She became such a personality that it was hard not to. Lynny and I jumped into purchasing her rather hastily as she was ridiculously cheap and came with some much needed camping gear. The catch was that we would need to spend a little money on her so that it would be easier for us ... read more

So it has been a good couple of months since you have seen a blog from us. Happy new year to anyone we haven't had contact with. We are in Sydney and have been since we left Fiji. Yes, Australian customs saw it fit to let us through despite looking like Mr and Mrs Swampy and having a good hard look at our deer antler. We spent 3 weeks at big brothers which was very generous of Darren and Natalie. During that time we did a tiny bit of sight seeing and loads of flat hunting and job hunting. Basically, we had decided by then to work in Sydney for 3-6 months and save some money for further travels. Trying to find a place to live proved frustrating. Every room we went to view seemed to ... read more

OK, OK, here we are. It has taken so long as there is not much in the way of internet on tiny Fijian islands :-). We were going to leave this one as just a picture blog showing you our 4 weeks in the South Island of NZ, but in the end we felt compelled to tell the story of our deer antler. Whilst out and about with the deer near Queenstown, we came across an antler, in good condition, which must have come off in a fight or something. We instantly wanted it as a cool souvenier so picked it up and put it in the campervan. The obvious question then arose: 'How do we get it home?'. It was far too heavy to carry around for the rest of the trip and we thought ... read more