Blogs from Kiribati, Oceania

We spent a pleasant day in Bora Bora again taking advantage of all the water has to offer. It seems that $5 is the going rate to get to a beach on these islands. We like being there on the weekends because that is when the Tahitian families come to the beach. Mostly they just spend the day in the water playing with their kids and chatting with their neighbors. It is a most pleasant way to pass the day. One of the staff was swimming in the lagoon when a dog came by and stole her sarong. Fortunately, a local guy caught the dog and returned her cover-up. I think it wasn't the first sarong that mutt had swiped. After leaving Bora Bora we began our trip north. On the way we crossed the equator ... read more

We made the most of our last day in New Zealand. Right next to our hotel is the Antarctic Adventure Museum. Cool place. Worth checking out and right next to Christchurch Airport. We watched the penguins swim and get their lunch of live fish. Then had just enough time to be a part of an Antarctic storm in the Snow and Ice Experience exhibit. We put on these big heavy parka's and entered this room filled with snow and an ice slide. The room darkens, the wind starts to blow and the temperature lowers to about 10 degrees F. Pretty cool way to spend some time prior to getting on our flight to Auckland. Our itinerary took us with Air New Zealand from Christchurch to Auckland with a point of entry to the U.S. in San ... read more

After a nearly 400 mile sea journey, we arrived at Palmyra Atoll, roughly 1100 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands. Palmyra is a US territory, a US Wildlife Refuge and national monument. Partly owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy, its an amazing low lying volcanic Atoll, home to hundreds of thousands of pelagic birds, and covered by dense jungle and Coconut palms. Palmyra is really a group of smaller islands, and was nearly cleared of trees during WW2 to facilitate use as a military base, a project that dramaticaly altered the atolls ecology and landscape. 70 years later, nature is coming back in force, but many old war relics such as gun turrets, bunkers and ammo magazines can be found all over the atoll, mostly covered in thick jungle growth, giving the island a weird ... read more

6.11.2011 Off to Taupo today pronounced 'toe-paw', where I had planned to do a sky dive! We stopped off at some bubbling mud pit and a red wood forewst for a walk on the way. After a long think Sophie decidede to join me at doing a skydive. I think she didn't want me doing it on my own and missing out. The weather was on and off so we had to waot around for a couple of hours till it cleared, which built up the suspense a little. Sophie was nervous and she wasn't hiding it. Half way through watching a film and we got the call to get our jumpsuits on and get ready. We were fitted with our harnesses, goggles and helmets by our instructers, and the people we were jumping tandem with. ... read more

Before leaving, certainly in Australia at least, if I mentioned to someone I was going to Christmas Island, the inevitable responses revolved around asylum seekers. Eventually I had my stock standard repost down pat: "Mate, if we manage to spot any Tamils, Afghans, Iraqis or any other boat people for that matter, on the Christmas Island I'm visiting, then they've boarded a boat that's overshot the mark by about 10,000 klms. Pull out an atlas and you'll find that Christmas Island Part 2 is one dot in the mighty nation of Kiribati, smack bang in the middle of the deep blue Pacific Ocean. Then again, even sprouting the word Kiribati would usually lead to some puzzled looks, maybe because they had never heard of it, had no idea where it was or perhaps more realistically they ... read more