After two overnight stops in Rockhampton and Airlie Beach (where Paul met a nice man in the fishing tackle shop who explained that Paul didn't actually need any more rods or equipment and suggested very gently that it was maybe his technique that needed improving, so the fishing is now rendering is karmic tranquility once more.) We take a short ferry ride to "Maggie". After staying in various backpackers and realising the prospect of shared bathrooms wasn't as bad as we thought we decided to book a double room with a shared bathroom on Magnetic Island. When we arrived we found [View Full Entry]

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Leaving behind the bright lights of Brisbane, we headed north, ever north to the sleepy retirement resort of Hervey Bay, the main jump off point for Fraser Island. In the day wait before we could leave, Paul finally bought a fishing rod and took himself off to the beach for a few hours, returning empty handed but serene. A visit to Vic Hislop's Shark Show is to be recommended. It certainly tells the shark story from a different view point. Vic Hislop makes it very clear that sharks should not be endangered and are more than likely responsible for the disappearance [View Full Entry]

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We got up bright and early and set off to Brisbane. Did you know there was a time difference between the state of New South Wales and Queensland? No, nor did we which is why when we turned up at our hostel, after driving for all of 2 hours, they looked at us in a strange manner when we joked we were early. We weren't just an hour early as we thought. No. The clock went back and we were in fact two hours early. Very strange. The only reason we were stopping in the big city was to go to [View Full Entry]

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Our first stop on our trip was to the Hunter Wine Valley. We thought that we would base ourselves in the town of Cessnock, as it is very close to the winerys. When we had said to the girl at the car hire place that we were going to Cessnock. She laughed. A lot. She was from near there and the town was politely described as having a very small gene pool. Rightyho. We went on a wine tour in the Hunter Valley where we visited may boutique winerys. The tour guide asked if there was anywhere in particular where we [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Sydney airport and cleared through in record time (not like when you watch Border Security), they did have lots of sniffer dogs around the lugguage carousel, though and then we took a double decker train (which was a novelty) to the city. Day One City Bus Tour. Surprise, surprise. We got off the bus at Sydney Harbour and I "laaaaaa'd" outside the Opera House (I have no shame) and then look what happened. We went to the Sydney Harbour bridge climb office to enquire about climbing the bridge, costs, what we need etc and as luck(!) would have [View Full Entry]

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LAKE WANAKA After leaving Franz Josef we had a stop off at Lake Wanaka. We chose that location as it was halfway between Franz Josef and Dunedin (our next main stop). We picked a cheap backpackers from the internet and booked a lake view room. Yeah right, we thought, that will be a great view. Not. We were wrong. We had an uninterrupted view of the lake and mountains. Wow. It was great. That was all we really did in Lake Wanaka cos we were both feeling a bit poorly and I mean actually poorly, not hungover poorly. Luckily it was [View Full Entry]

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Driving South on the South Island is a very interesting experience. There are only 1 million people living on the whole island, so they don't like to take up to much room with roads and such like. So much so that at one point we were sharing a bridge with train tracks. Right. As you do. Franz Josef. A town named for it's glacier. It is a pretty unique area as we were staying in a hotel next to a rainforest and ten minutes down the road was a glacier. So, as we were eating lunch we had to decide whether [View Full Entry]

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Nelson - Home of the Mac's Gold beer brewery. The only reason we came to Nelson. So, we arrived in Nelson at about 19:30 after our ferry trip and a two hour car journey. The town itself Paul describes as a seedy English seaside town. We did find a nice part called Harry's Bar where we had some beers and our tea. Here we discovered from the barman who used to work as a Mac's Gold beer brewery tour guide that Mac's Gold beer brewery no longer ran tours and the brewery itself had almost entirely relocated (Paul's lip went a [View Full Entry]

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Wellington is the capital of New Zealand is a busy port city with a pretty quayside. Paul felt a bit claustrophobic there after all the open and quiet places we have been through (is the city kid finally slipping away?) We stayed in backpackers near the ferry terminal (ready to catch the ferry to the South Island the next day). As you can see from the picture below, we had the room we asked for (double ensuite) but it wasn't quite what we were expecting...as Paul is the oldest he got to sleep in the top bunk (they are the bunk [View Full Entry]

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Napier was flattened in an earthquake in 1931 so was rebuilt in the 1930's thus creating a really pretty Art Deco town. This town is also surrounded by winerys. Yes, it's true. Napier is in the Hawkes Bay region (you may have heard of this area...). So, our city tour this time consisted of a tour of the winerys complete with tastings and explanations from our tour guide Vince Piccone (an excellent fellow and very knowledgable). However, it was a bit scary as Vince liked to suddenly and randomly pick on someone to answer the question of what their favourite wine [View Full Entry]

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