Tuesday 25th November 2008 Me and Vicky caught a flight from Dunedin today to Auckland. It was sad saying goodbye to Shelley and Will, but we will meet up with them again in Sydney so thats cool. We flew to Auckland then got the bus up to Whangerei where Vicky's mate James picked us up, and we went to Iman's house for the dinner and a few drinks. Its going to be really weird not being on the Stray bus anymore, its such a routine and seeing the same people every ...

Friday - headed up to Abel Tasman today, and we stopped off to do some wine tasting at Hunters vineyard in the Marlborough region, and have 7 samples of wine. I am really not taken by New Zealand wine, have found it really hard to find nice wines over here, and considering I'm a bit of a wino (as most of you know), its sadky lacking in quality. Thats not just beacuse they are the cheap house wines that the hostel bar offers (they really do taste like cats piss), ...

Right, well left Kaikoura Tuesday morning and drove up to Picton. On the way stopped off at a remote location off the coast and took a walk into the woods where there was a large waterfall and dozens of seal pups playing and swimming around in the water. They get escorted there by their parents, then the parents go off on a 3 day feeding trip, and the pups are too young too be left on the rocks, so they all play together in this remote place that only a handful o...

Well I'm now in New Zealand, and what a trip here!! I had to get the night bus back from Kyoto to Tokyo to get the plane, so another 8 hour journey with no sleep, after discovering that my legs have been bitten to shreds by mozzies. Those b*****s must have been mutants because these bites are HUGE. I did the sensible thing and bought a mosquito clicker device that gets rid of them, but do you think I packed it? NO - of course I bloody didn't. I truly am amazing. ...