Our last night's sleep in Manila was interrupted by the football - Phil set an alarm to wake up for the Champion's League final at 2am! (Luckily we had a TV in our room so Elly was able to dose through it!) Man Utd didn't play well and lost - Phil was not a happy chappy and the day did not improve much from there... Almost straight after the match had finished at 5am we checked out and got a taxi to the airport. We needed to get cash out, as we knew that cashpoints would be almost non-existent on Palawan [View Full Entry]

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Our flight to Singapore went by very quickly and we landed at Singapore Airport which is ridiculously big and slick, complete with orchid gardens, koi carp ponds and free internet and massage chairs. Good news as we'll be spending quite a lot of time there over the coming months! We flew on to Manila on a very full plane in which we were seemingly the only non-Filipino people. We caught a taxi from the airport and during the ride got our first impressions of Manila: just as manic as we had expected - congested traffic, mad driving, neon lights and sweltering [View Full Entry]

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We caught an early Jetstar budget airline flight to Sydney. The descent into Sydney Airport was great with views over the harbour. Once we'd checked in to our hostel we went for an explore, walking all the way down George Street to the harbour. It was somehow really surreal to be standing looking at the Sydney Opera House; such an iconic building you've seen images of hundreds of times and associate with "the other side of the world"! It looked pretty stunning in the late afternoon sun, set against a clear blue sky. We found an Asian food court for dinner [View Full Entry]

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After leaving the relaxed atmosphere of the Sanctuary Retreat, we headed south down the coast, stopping in deserted Townsville (the capital of Queensland) for lunch before pressing on. This leg of the drive seemed to take forever - endlessly long stright roads with flat expanses of fields filled with sugarcane stretching into the distance in all directions. It had taken around 7hours in total to reach Airlie Beach (equally long drives in NewZealand didn't drag on as much, presumabley because of the spectacular scenery). The town is completely geared towards tourists, with every building a "Tou [View Full Entry]

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As soon as we stepped outside of Cairns Airport the heat hit us - we had forgotten what 30 degree heat feels like! We picked up our hire car to find it wasn't a little "Manual Hyundai Getz or similar", but an enormous automatic Toyota. It has a huge boot, speed tracking, cruise control and is generally too big and fancy for us two to be rolling up to cheap hostels in! Aside from the scorching heat, our first welcome to Cairns came from a noisy group of Spectacled Flying Foxes (bats). We were parked under one of their trees which [View Full Entry]

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For the long journey to the glaciers we again decided an overnight stop half way was needed, this time in Greymouth. We set off in the bright sunshine stopping at Iramahuwhero Point for lunch and spectacular views down the wild West Coast - huge waves and weathered limestone cliffs. In the other direction you could see the snowy peak of Mount Cook in the distance, New Zealand's highest mountain. A little further down the coast we walked the Truman Track: a short walk through the bush and we emerged onto a wild beach where, even on an otherwise calm day, the [View Full Entry]

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From Kaikoura we drove to Nelson, we arrived late and left early as it was a practical way to break the long drive to the Abel Tasman National Park. The next day we had the most uneventful day of the trip so far: we drove along the coast to Marahau - a tiny town at the start of the National Park. As we arrived we saw lots of kayakers setting off up the coast and we were glad it wasn't us as it was raining pretty heavily! We then booked our 3 day kayaking trip with a company specialising in Freedom [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Picton, only to drive straight through and head south down the east coast to Kaikoura. Only a few minutes outside Picton we were surrounded by vast expanses of vines with tall mountains in the distance. The rolling hills and mountains in the foreground were dry and yellow rather than the lush green slopes we had been used on North Island. The coastal road towards Kaikoura was beautiful, with high snow capped mountains dropping dramatically to an azure sea. In the afternoon we walked the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway; along rocky beaches past seal colonies and then back along the [View Full Entry]

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We continued on our travels towards Napier - famous for its high concentration of Art Deco buildings. The city itself was built almost over night in the 1920s after a massive earthquake had obliterated the original town. We explored the city through a self-guided Art Deco Walk to find some of the more interesting frontages and Elly had her first ice cream of the holiday! The hostel was pretty good for the money and happened to be in an Art Deco Spanish Mission style former hotel, right in the centre. The next morning we awoke to another sunny day and wandered [View Full Entry]

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After a blissfully relaxing time in the Coromandel Peninsula we headed south towards Lake Rotoiti, passing through "The kiwi capital of the world", Te Puke. The studio at Lakestay Rotoiti where we were staying was beautiful - set right on the shore of the lake. On arrival we jumped stright in the kayaks to explore a small portion of the enormous lake. It was gorgeous- forest lined with hot springs bubbling at the edges, warming up pockets of the water. The next day was incredibly relaxing and lazy - beginning with breakfast down by the lake watching the black swans and [View Full Entry]

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