oldfarmers

We arrived in Hong Kong on Sunday morning and met up with Dave on Hong Kong Island. He showed us round the markets where they sell live fish and the meat is just hanging up outside the shops. It doesn't smell very nice in the summer. We went to see the big Buddha on Monday and met up with Rob Wills in the evening at a very cool bar on the 30th floor at 1 Peking Road - a great place to watch the 8pm laser light show. On Tuesday we went up to the Peak Tram which has been running for more than 120 years, there were some great views from the top. In the afternoon we went shopping in Stanley Market to get some bargains. That's it, holiday over... We caught the 23.25 flight ... read more

9pm Tuesday night told that our flight was cancelled but we should be ok to stay at our apartment. 10pm, another call- we need to Evacuate Wednesday morning to Mossman. 3am Wednesday morning, news looks bleak, mum and dad contemplate driving south but don't have enough fuel to get away from the cyclone so decided to stay. 7.30am loaded car and headed north. They were were talking of a 6-7m storm surge and as our apartment was beach front it was not a good idea to stay. Mossman was 12.5m above sea level. Evacuation centre at Mossman State High School was filling up but we managed to get a gym mattress to sleep on and there was los of other children to play with. We had to saty there all day but the weather ouside seemed ... read more

We flew from Sydney to Cairns then drove up the Captain Cook Highway to Port Douglas. Our appartment was fantastic, especially afer 2 weeks in a camper van! We were right next to the beach and the water was 30 degrees C, very warm. It was stinger season so we had to swim inside a netted area to keep safe. On our first full day we went to the Barrier Reef on a catamaran called the Aristocat. We went snorkelling and saw a puffa fish, loads of clown fish and mum and dad saw a turtle. We drove up to the Daintree National Park (tropical rainforest), it was very green and wet. We went on a boat trip and saw loads of crocodiles on the river, we didn't do any swimming here! One day we went ... read more

We drove to Cheviot to meet up with some friends, Nicola and Percy. They were going to take us fishing and out on their boat but because of all the rain the river was too high and muddy. Last weekend would have been better, Nicola had caught a 15lb salmon but at least we got chance to try it, very tasty. We went to Christchurch and rode around the city on the tram and we saw a lot of buildings that had been affected by the earthquakes. The next morning we went to the gondola which took us up the side of the old volcano which had formed the landscape of Christchurch. We then drove to the airport to return the campervan and catch the plane to Sydney. We had driven over 2000km while we were ... read more

We stayed at a campsite in the rain forest and it didn't stop raining all night! We booked a helicopter trip over the Glacier but the weather wasn't very good so we could only have a short flight and we didn't get chance to land on the glacier itself. The glacier is always on the move and travels between 1.5m and 3.5m per day. We drove up through Arthur's Pass towards Christchurch and met some very friendly birds called Keas. They came in our campervan and pecked at the tyres and when we drove off they were still on the roof!... read more