After a week of 'are we leaving or aren't we' in Motueka we finally made a break for it and escaped the vortex, albeit a bit reluctantly. Heather and I decided to leave the car and push on with prams because we were rapidly running out of time to get to the valley and still had two weeks of walking to get to Westport. Mick was going to stay behind and fix the car, hoping to catch up with us in three to five days. We set off in the rain with enough food for six days. A couple of days [View Full Entry]

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Walking the Walk is an environmental awareness walk with the aim of stopping a new open cast coal mine from going ahead in Happy Valley, just outside of Westport on the West Coast of the South Island. Happy Valley is home to 13 endangered species of flora and fauna, including a rare carnivorous land snail and the great spotted kiwi. Walk the walk started in Auckland on January 28th, 2008, the second anniversary of the indefinite occupation of Happy Valley by members of the Savehappyvalley Coalition. I have joined the walk in Picton and we hope to reach Happy Valley, on [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Nelson a bit early to join the walkers, having read the wrong line on the website showing when they were arriving in Picton. They were also running a bit behind schedule. Consequently I had almost two weeks to kill in the Nelson region while I waited. And it's not a bad place to wait. I accidently arrived on St Patricks day and checked into the cheapest, closest backpackers. It turned out to be a great choice. When I arrived the whole place was crawling with drunken green people, at least half of whom seemed to be Irish. After [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick blip down to walk the Routeburn with lovely Brent and Shona. We had a full range of weather, from hot sun to drizzly fiordland mist to rain to 95km gale force winds going over the pass. Good times were had by all. I love Fiordland. :) [View Full Entry]

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Well, I'm home again. I hope everyone enjoyed the blogs. My last few days in UB passed pretty quickly. Cate and I visited a few temples around the city, ate at the nicer restaurants and generally lazed about until it was time to leave. Cate flew out on the twelfth and the next day I got up early to catch the train to Beijing. I'd met two Australian girls at the hostel who were going to be on my train and in the same carriage as me. Maree and Carol were both highly energised people, especially Carol who was entirely mad. [View Full Entry]

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Our western adventure into Altai Tavan Bogd national park didn't start quite as we'd planned it. The idea was to ride into the park accompanied by the furgon and all our lovely gear and to spend a week of relatively luxurious camping in the mountains, riding on ahead of the car each day. The pass over the mountains to get into the park was steep but everyone seemed confident that the car would make it. Since it had been snowing, though, the pass was no longer open to vehicles so another way in would have to be found. We weren't able [View Full Entry]

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There's not much to be said about the Eagle Festival except that it was undoubtedly the best festival in the history of the universe and two of the best days of my time in Mongolia. Awesome, awesome, awesome. What follows is a brief outline of it's coolness. We all woke up bright and early in Ulgii in anticipation of the festival. I think I was more keen than the others. Sam and John both seemed prepared to be disappointed but I had faith that nothing involving numerous golden eagles could be crap. We'd stayed the night in a shitty hotel but [View Full Entry]

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I've decided to put three seperate experiences into one blog, under one heading even though it's not strictly chronologically correct. But it sums up the wonderful hospitality we received from the Kazakh people nicely. The following events took place over a period of 9 days. When we woke up after our first night in Altai hotel it was to crystal clear blue skies and only a little slush on the ground to show for the sleet the day before. It was still cold but it was that crisp, dry cold that is so much easier to cope with. We met our [View Full Entry]

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The last three weeks have been amazing. So much has happened in such a variety of landscapes that I'm putting them into seperate chapters for your enjoyment, rather than lobbing a huge and potentially mind-numbing blog at you all at once. Our journey begins with an(other) epic road trip. This time we travelled across the northern reaches of Gobi. Gobi simply means 'the desert' and encompasses a surprising variety of landscapes. I never expected to like the desert but I've fallen in love with Gobi. I wish I had more time to go further in. As it was, we barely brushed [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick update before leaving for Altai. I went out to Hustai Nuruu National Park to visit the Przwalski horses and was successful. Also saw some rare red deer a-calling (it's rutting season) and sillhouetted against a rising sun on a mountain ridge. Very intrepid did I feel. Still haven't seen any wolves... probably because it is a years good luck to see one but 7 years good luck if you shoot one. I have seen lots of marmots though. Funny wee things... they look like wombats with long tails. The Przwalski horses were great. It was a buzz to [View Full Entry]

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