lauraandandy

Our flight from NZ to Fiji was in the day which made a refreshing change of not having to hang around for a night flight. There was not any time difference coming from NZ to Fiji so we are still 13 hours ahead of the UK. Arriving in Fiji we headed to the travel agent and booked a weeks stay on an island and our last week back on the mainland. We stayed in Nadi that night and wondered into the main town, as it was sunday not much was open and there was nothing special to see. The next day we were ready to go on a small boat to the island Malolo at Walu beach resort. However in the morning we were due to be picked up at 9 and catch the boat at ... read more

After arriving in Auckland we had a few days to explore the city before catching the stray bus. The city itself has the largest population in New Zealand however the city centre seemed very small with one main street. So after a couple of days we were ready to leave. We had booked onto the stray bus which is taking us all the way through to christchurch. So on thursday we hopped on the bus to our first stop Hahei. Our accomodation for the night was a small orange caravan which was cosy. From Hahei we walked to Cathederal Cove to enjoy the beach and scenary. That night at low tide the bus driver took us to hot water beach, which lies on a fault line. So at low tide you can dig a hole in ... read more

We arrived in Hervey Bay on Wednesday to start our Fraser Island trip on Thursday. Before we headed over to the island we met up with the rest of the group we would be there with for a briefing and to organise our food for the trip. On thursday we were up early to be ready for the 8:30am barge over to the island. In total there was 13 of us going on the tour including our guide so we loaded up our vehicles and headed over to the island. The tour was a self drive trip so there was two 4x4 trucks and the guide up front leading the way. Andy took the opportunity to do the first bit of driving as he was the only guy in our vehicle that was able to drive. ... read more

Moving on from KL we spent a few days chilling out in Melaka before we were to move on to Singapore. Melaka was the nicest place we had been to in Malaysia. Melaka historically was an important trading port and consequently over time had been occupied by many countries such as Britain and Holland. So this town had many cultural influences and a vairety of colonial buildings which gave it character. We stayed in an old Chinese medicine shop which had been converted into a hostel, which had a pleasant rustic feel to it. On the friday and saturday we were able to experience the market down Jonker street. Here we tried a speciality called Cendol, which is a combination of shaved ice, syrup, pasta and kidney beans... The ice and syrup was nice and sweet, ... read more

After a long journey from Koh Tao on the night ferry and a mini van the next day to cross the border we were into the next part of our trip, Malaysia. Our first stop was a place called Pulau Penang an island off the west coast. The island was alot bigger than we thought with many high rise buildings. Here we spent a few days wondering chinatown mostly and little india. On one of the days we also took a trip back across to the mainland a place called Butterworth to organise the bus for the next part of the journey. There weren't many sights to see so one afternoon we went to the cinema. Our next stop was Pulau Pangkor another island off the west coast but further south, this island was alot smaller ... read more