redhead87

The last post for New Zealand :( Its going to be sad to leave such a beautiful country but I have had a brilliant last few days and they have definitely left me wanting more! When I was planning our time in the North Island I realised we were going to have too many days in Auckland so decided to look for something a bit different and came up with Karamu Trail Trek. This farm based accomodation is about 15 minutes west of Hamilton and is a perfect location to recharge the batteries before hitting Auckland. When we first arrived, I opened the car door and was instantly greeted by a gorgeous black labrador, who I have since discovered is more of an attention seeker than Tiggy! After checking in and popping into town to get ... read more

Waking up at Lake Tekapo I looked out of the window and was amazed to see that beneath all of yesterdays cloud, there was a brand new layer of snow on the top of the mountains! This may sound boring to all of you in England, but to me it was still exciting! Dave and I ventured out to walk into town, me wearing two jumpers, which I have not done since Chengdu, and visited the Church of the good Shepard and the local bakery. We then returned to Lakeside Backpackers and made use of the quiet time in the common room, planning the next stages of our trip, before the next bus load of Magic people arrived! (Magic is one of the hop-on hop-off buses that tour the island) Next morning we left Lake Tekapo ... read more

Sorry for the massive jump from Kuala Lumpur to Kangaroo Island but I have become a bit lazy with writing my blog! I left Adelaide on Thursday morning after a very enjoyable and relaxing stay with my Uncle, Jo and Amy. It was lovely to be able to relax in a house, play fetch with the kittens and play lots of games with Amy! While in Adelaide I caught up with my mountains of washing, visited the delicious local food market and made a trip to Glenelg beach to enjoy the sunshine, very cold sea and yummy fish and chips. To get to Kangaroo Island we caught a SeaLink bus to the ferry port at Cape Jervis and then jumped on the ferry for a slightly choppy ride to the island. We then caught the shuttle ... read more

First of all, sorry that it’s taken me so long to get round to writing this blog! The time seems to be flying past and I forget how much I have done since the last post! I left Kanchanaburi to get the bus to Nakhom Pathom (as this is the nearest train station with departures to the south) on 31st October. The train left at 9.15pm and I was very grateful to be able to climb into my bunk as somehow I had managed to get us to the train station 4 hours too early! We arrived at Surat Thani at 7am and then took a minibus to Ban Takun where we were picked up by Limestone Lake Tours who were going to look after us for the next few days, as part of a tour ... read more

17th October - Leaving the Panda base After our final day of sweeping up bamboo and feeding cake to the Pandas, Trang and I packed our bags and were taken from the Panda base, back to Ya'an city to catch the bus back to Chengdu. Everyone came to wave us off which was lovely and I will miss the constant chatter that the group provided. When we arrived back in Chengdu we checked in to the Traffic hotel again and treated ourselves to some much missed western food for lunch! The afternoon was just spent killing time and we returned to Dave's Oasis for more pizza in the evening! 18th October - Flight to Bangkok!!! Sophia, our real gap guide had arranged for her husband to take Trang and I to the airport the next ... read more