Just a few photos from way back at Christmas when we took a trip to Tassie. It's a brilliant place for a week or two's exploration if you ever get the chance. The people are just ridiculously friendly too. Top tip would be to fly in nice and late. We didn't get to the Hartzview winery until about 1 am and by that time it seemed as if the whole landscape had come to life and started bouncing around! There were wallabies everywhere and we also saw brushtail possums, a tasmanian devil and a beautiful owl. We'll be posting some pics [View Full Entry]

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Chengdu, Xi’an and Beijing - three cities of immense importance in China’s history. All three were past centres of imperial power and maintain their importance in the modern era. Obviously, it’s now Beijing that is pulling the strings, and they give them a good old tug on a regular basis. The only English language TV channel in China is the internationally broadcast CCTV9, and their news reports are the mouthpiece of the central government relaying their policy to the world. Each political piece is formulaic - foreign leaders are always at pains to support the “One Chin [View Full Entry]

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The standard of hawking up in China is truely world class. Sweet old grannies give you a toothy smile in the street and then turn away to noisily flob onto the pavement. The central government has tried to stamp it out (in Shanghai and Beijing at least) in preparation for the 2008 olympics. Fat chance - these guys are pros - if they can't hawk it, it probably wasn't worth hawking in the first place. Our scenic boat trip down the Li river from Guilin to Yangshou was punctuated by regular ripe phlegm expulsions. Sitting downstairs admiring the beautiful scenery, it [View Full Entry]

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Asia can be a pretty bewildering place for us lao wai (outsiders). If you're one of those people that loves being out on a limb then China might just be the place for you. It's those moments when you're not really sure what's going on but you've had to throw your hat into the ring - you don't quite know where you're going to end up or what's going to turn up on your plate - they tend to be the experiences that you will ultimately remember most fondly. Learning to just go with it and enjoy the unknown is one [View Full Entry]

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There always seems to be surf somewhere on the Victorian coastline. Shark attacks are rare so you're pretty much safe - except that you normally have to contend with some monstrous waves coming in off the Southern Ocean. The recent Ripcurl-Pro surf contest at Bells Beach was blessed with chunky surf with 3 metre faces of water. That's all very well for Kelly Slater et al. but we are much happier at the sheltered spots favoured by mere mortals! We have spent many a happy day riding down the face of waves, being dumped and thrown around and even occasionally fearing [View Full Entry]

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It's not so grim oop north. NZ's North Island contains the bustling metropolis of Auckland, the laid back capital of Wellington and a whole lot inbetween. We started in Auckland, where we met up with Jezz and Pen, who flew in from Melbourne to join us for a while. We headed up to the Bay of Islands, a favourite weekend destination for Aucklanders due to its fantastic weather and picture-postcard coastline. We had four perfect days in the bay, the highlight of which was sailing around in a catamaran accompanied by Bottlenosed Dolphins. They grow up to four and a half [View Full Entry]

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Our first impression of the South Island was that it looked a bit like the English Lake District. Well, that's true to a certain extent but while England has been lounging on the sofa, watching the teev and eating endless jaffa cakes New Zealand has been making the most of its gym membership and is now looking pretty buff. Ths Southern Alps run 650 km down the west of the island forming a rugged spine of wilderness. Almost every corner (and there's a fair few of those on the curly wurly southern roads) reveals jaw-dropping scenery. It's no wonder that Peter [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour tout le monde! We're in the Archipel de la Société, where Polynesians ride bikes whilst clutching baguettes, eat croque monsieur, play pétanque and listen to accordian music (well, sometimes...). The laissez faire attitude comes naturally to Polynesians so it seems to be quite a good match. Indeed the Polynesians here voted to maintain their association with France in a referendum in 1958 (mind you, that was five years before the French started detonating nuclear bombs in the Archipel de Tuamotos). As far as the French are concerned Polynesie Française is another part of France itself [View Full Entry]

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The Cook Islands are about 13 degrees east of the international date line. They are some of the last places on Earth to see the dawn of the new day, being 10 hours behind GMT. They are only four hours ahead of east coast Australia, though there it's tomorrow. We find it's best not to think about that too much - it frys our fun-sized brains. It seems appropriate that these islands should be out here at the end of time. We sensed the isolation when we flew in from Easter Island, through Tahiti. For hour upon hour there is nothing [View Full Entry]

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Rapa Nui - Te Pito o Te Henua (The navel of the world) - Isla del Pascua to the Chileans - Easter Island to you and me - the land of the bigheads (we thought that we might fit in well here...). It's one of the most isolated places on earth, the closest neighbours being 1,900 km away on the Pitcairn Islands of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Details are shaky but people probably first arrived here between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago. For over 1,000 years the early Polynesian settlers probably lived in total isolation from the outside world until [View Full Entry]

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