Maori than Meets the Eye I know, I know: I haven't updated this in a while, but I've been having far too much fun touring around New Zealand's North Island. In the past two weeks I've seen caves lit up like a night sky with little glow worm stars, walked through Mordor, used lakes as my own personal washing machine - in one case this was performed under the watchful eye of the local boat club setting up for the day's races - and lived the sober version of the Ja...

Vegemite Migration My time in a land down under is nearly at an end. I board my plane for Auckland in around 9.5 hours, and to be frank I'd like to go to bed now. But cruel is the brain that whirs under this newly trimmed barnet of mine as it seeks to make sense of Australia and her place in my rankings of travel destinations. This is doomed to failure. Especially at nearly 2am. I suppose the first thing to note is that most people will be horrified that I hav...

Chariman of the Board Today I surfed. Well, today I stood on a board. Well, to be honest, today I fell off a board a lot. My ribs feel that they've been whaled on by an angry dwarf and I have contracted 'The Rash', an apparently common blight of every grommet who's dry behind the ears. I'm in a bad shape indeed. The day started off early as I shanks ponied my way into Central Sydney. Our driver, Marty, pulled up looking every inch the gnarled, blonde-highlighte...

Bondi Addendum Right after I posted the last blog I took a stroll down Bondi - you know, see the sights and all. And I came to one conclusion: about 70% of the people here must hit the gym before they hit the beach. Even the gentle coastal walk leading from Bondi to neighbouring towns is dotted with chin up bars, tricep dips and sit up boards. There was more definition on display than an LG 47LY3DE (it's such a shame Stu doesn't read this blog) and I counted an ...

Surfing on a Wave of Benevolence I arrived in Sydney on Sunday after 12 hours on an overnight coach from Melbourne - my attempt at reducing my already King Kong sized carbon footprint. Every little helps I suppose. The first day, Matt and Naomi (the latter an ex-member of the Elsevier mob) drove myself and Dan - a current subscriber to the Elsevier wage slip - around on a little tour before heading to the pub, which was definitely a very Elsevier thing to do i...