Geo: 37.6057, -0.991293Our excursion for the day was entitled La Manga and Roman Theatre, what a bore! The guide was quite boring, repeating herself endlessly, gave us a chance to catch up on our sleep on the way to La Manga, which turned out to be a very pretty tourist resort on a long thin spit which has the Med on one side and some other sea on the other, very pretty but unless you were actually holidaying there a bit of a waste of time to visit. We did get out of the bus and walk up a hill to a light house, nice bit of exercise for the day and stop at a cafe for a drink and yummy pastry, I also won the race for the loo out of all the old slow ... read more

Geo: 41.3796, 2.18869Laundry was first priority today otherwise we would be the smelly kiwi cruisers, after vague directions from the hotel receptionist off we went with our massively full backpack.....Stephen decided he was never backpacking! Found the laundry ......we thought ...but no was a laundry service laundry....the man who spoke no English managed to work out what we were after and pointed us in the general direction, a few streets over we decided , still wandered round lost for another five minutes before managing to explain to some ladies who also spoke no English what we were after and after much sign language and a few giggles pointed us in the right direction. A productive hour and a hot drink at a local cafe later we were ready to start our tourist day.Thought we might do ... read more

Geo: 41.3811, 2.18434Last half day in Dubai was a bit of a waste, my rib was the worst it has been since breaking it a week ago and I could barely move so by the time we breakfasted, and packed I was ready to sit and do not much till the transfer arrived just after midday. The same tour company did our transfer as did the other transfer and city tour, this guy was great though, chatty and interesting much more like what you would expect. Economy class for this portion of the trip and we are sitting next to a young orthopaedic surgeon from Katmandu on his way to a conference, so he and Stephen kept each other amused yakking for the first hour, before both fixating on their respective TV screens. I may as ... read more

Geo: 25.116, 55.2007Stayed the night in Auckland at the Novotel Airport hotel, they very nicely gave us a late checkout until 6pm at no extra charge so we got to spend the day chilling out - our room is in the perfect position for people and plane watching. Spent an interesting half hour watching a family - mum, dad, baby, grandma and grandad trying to fit themselves, their bags and about 8 boxes, ranging in size from 60 inch tv to a standard square carton into their average size station wagon. Entertaining as hell, bags in, one box in, bags out, 3 boxes in, baby in, baby out...... repeat, repeat, same outcome, mum and dad gesturing and arguing, grandad has a turn, dad walking away, coming back, whole dance starts again, till finally he rings someone ... read more