Our arrival in Auckland was pretty stressful! We'd booked our first few days of activities around the fact we only had three days to get to Nelson and before then we wanted to do the Tongariro crossing, south of Taupo, which was supposed to be the best one day tramp in New Zealand. Our timing became even more tight when we found the only ferry we could get to the South Island was early Christmas eve morning, so we had to spend that night in Wellington. This left ...

We had to spend a couple of hours on the catamaran again to go south to Octopus resort on Waya - an island further south than Nacula. Accident-prone-me managed in this time to shut the bathroom door on my heel and make it bleed lots! It was nice however to finally be able to satisfy our ice-cream craving and get a blast of air-con before again being dropped off in a small tin fish and taken ashore. This time it was just Arwa and I going to the resort, but the ...

So Pete being the lovely, caring, older brother he is, caught the bus with me to the airport - took hours, can understand why he opts for taxis! - and then waited for me in possibly the largest check in queue I've ever seen! It seemed there was only a problem with my flight, the rest of the airport was pretty much deserted. The flight was fine, but frustrating, as after not getting round to watching "the dark knight" for months and refusing to watch it ...

I've got quite behind with the old blog so this is a long and rambling account of the last 2 weeks on the East coast!I wanted to get out of Hervey Bay as soon as possible but unfortunately there wasn't an Oz bus the next day so I made the decision to fork out for a greyhound. I'm quite glad I did, as it confirmed my suspicions that greyhounds are dull, lifeless buses and its worth making the investment in the oz bus which is lots more fun! It helped me get to Noo...

The next leg of the trip took me to Hervey Bay which is one of the gateways to Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world. I was joining a group to do a self-drive 4WD tour - the only mode of transport suitable for the bumpy tracks on the island. The tour was organised by the hostel so when we arrived they told us to get to know each other in order to choose our own groups for the trip, so I bonded with a couple of swedish girls and Johan from Switzer...