dondon
Donna Merrett Joined: October 9th 2008
Logged in: September 8th 2009
Logged in: September 8th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
snowboarding
Thursday 16th July....Got up nice and early, layered up for our winter sports adventure, and headed to Whakapapa Ski Village on Mount Ruaperu. We hired some equipment and booked a snowboarding lesson. It was so difficult! And despite having, a very short and unproductive lesson, I was still rubbish!!! Jess fared a little better....but only just!!! After our lesson we stayed on the slopes for a few hours and both managed to make it all the way down without falling over! Still had very sore muscles after though! Headed to Auckland on friday... driving day. Went into Auckland city and did a bit of shopping before going to the Rugby - All Blacks vs Aussies. NZ won 19-16, was a great match. We met up with Jess' mate Alex and his mates and went out for ... read more
P1110448
Sorry about the delay folks, but here's all the news up to date.... Left Dunedin with a failsafe plan to get to Fox glacier.....needless to say we hit a hurdle.....or rather a foot of snow hit us and our route!!! We were merrily travelling along the Southern Scenic Highway, stopping off to look at some ancient rock art....sun was shining....then around 4pm the snow started.....and didn't stop!!! We managed to make to a small town called Omarama and booked into a campsite in the nick of time before the roads were shut! With true British stiff upper lip, we cracked open the red wine, determined to make the best of a bad situation! We made a snow 'sculpture', which started off as a snowman, but ended up as a a snow 'penis'...sorry mum! We met a ... read more
skydive!!! Lake Taupo
just a quick blog to put up my skydive pics.....more blog details to follow later hopefully! Sky dive was the most amazing thing I have ever done!!!! It was bloody freezing up there at 15'000 feet, -15 degrees....but worth ever bit of frostbite!!! love to you all don x... read more
East coast seals
Hello!!!! Sorry about the delay in the blog, but internet access is severely limited out in the wilds of south island!!!! Ok, so we went to Kaikoura and did a 3 hour trip on a boat to see some whales....Bloody amazing!!! We were told to expect to possibly see 1 or 2....but we actually saw 5!!! All male sperm whales, and we were about 25 foot away!! Check out the photos.... Then went on a VERY long walk around the Kaikoura Peninsula, which was supposed to take a couple of hours, but it took us just over 4!!!! Needless to say we rewarded ourselves with a much deserved pint of local ale!! Also whilst in Kaikoura, I sampled some AMAZING seafood at a roadside barbecue that was recommended in lonely planet.....I had a portion of mussels ... read more
P1060828
Hello there loyal followers!!! Welcome back to my blog, this time I am once again on voyage of adventure and discovery with one of my best buddies JC!!! Arrived in auckland after a very tiring 24 hour flight, but all thoughts of fatigue vanished when I met Jess at the airport!! Went atraight to the hostel and dumped my bags before heading into town for a few bevvies!! Met up with a couple of mates of Jess, and visited a few random bars...rolled back into the hostel around 3am, and spent a few hours lying on the floor outside our room, catching up on 6 months of gossip!!! Sunday, we picked up our camper, who we have named DeeDee, we decided he was a boy van, but as he was very girly colours, we concluded that ... read more
Patong beach
Well guys, the fateful day has arrived, time for my final blog.....it is a sad day, as I am sure you have all been totally enthralled by my updates!!!! We arrived in Bangkok, early on Saturday morning, after another sleepless night on the train!! The city is huge, and so much busier than the places we've been to so far!!! As we were wandering around looking for a hostel at 08.00 there were still people in the bars - I was very jealous!!! I have to admit, that I didn't enjoy Bangkok too much, all very touristy, and not that much to do. On the plus side, we were staying near to Kho Sahn road, which has a huge market, and I found some cool t-shirts to add to my collection!!! We also took a wander ... read more
P1020195
Arrived in Chiang Mai on 22nd after short flight from Laos, thought it was going to be my last couple of days....but me and Jess have managed to change our flights to stay another week!!! Good job too, as we were due to be flying to Malaysia from bangkok today, and found out that bangkok airport is shut due to political protesting!!! anyway.....we went on a hilltribe trek on sunday, started with a stop at at the Longneck triabl village. All the women wear metal coils around there necks, starting from age of 15. Our guide told us that they were originally to protect them from tiger attacks, but later on they were a sign of fidelity - if a tribeswoman had cheated on her husband, the coil is removed so the whole can see what ... read more
monks!!
Well, what can I say about tubing.....it was bloody awesome!!!!!! short description is, you sit a tractor inner tube, float down the Mekong river stopping at various bars along the way!!!! Each bar has a different adventure ride, either zip wires, trapeze, mud baths of huge slides!!!! we had a go on all of them.....the photos tell a much better story that I could!!!! Hope you enjoy them!!! That was one of the hioghlights of the trip so far, but it left us bloody shattered, we had an early night, then up early for our bus trip to Luang Prabang - a very very bumpy 7 hour ride!!! The roads in Laos need a little attention to say the least. Spent the ebening wandering round the local night market and ate some gorgeous barbecue chicken and ... read more
eco lodge - vientiane
We flew from Hanoi to Vientiane - Laos on the 16th. We'd struggled to find a hostel to book online, so we opted for an ecolodge about 30km outside, and crossed our fingers that it would be ok.....we were not disappointed!!!! After a very bumpy taxi ride from the airport (roads are not very even here!!!) wew arrived in what I can only describe as a little slice of paradise!!! A beautiful resort right on the river Nam Ngum. We were shown to our room, and when the receptionist was far enough away, we started ourown little victory dance!!!! The place was amazing...a wooden lodge with a balcony overlooking the river, just a 2 minute walk from our own floating restaurant!!! We went and had some dinner, seafood soup (yes I'm predictable!!) We also learnt our ... read more
bridge in Hue
Sorry guys, I have been very lame at keeping up to date with my blog, we've been struggling to find decent internet access.....anyhoo.....!!! Last day in Hue, we chilled out and had a wander round the shops amd visited the Citadel which was quite interesting but very touristy!!! So, we left Hue and headed off to Hanoi on yet another overnight sleeper bus, Jess got a ittle stir crazy as you will see from the photos!!! Arrived in Hanoi at 6 am and checked into a really great hostel called Little Hanoi. It was the usual good quality, but what made it better was that the staff were really helpful, and made our stay there really great. Our initial plan was to base ourselves in Hanoi and visit various places from there, but on our first ... read more
