Island hopping: 2 weeks of bliss 27.04.09 - 11.05.09 Life on a beach is pretty tough. There's a wide range of hard core activities to occupy you through the day - swimming, sunbathing, eating, sleeping, reading and snorkelling. All of this in addition to the 'event' of the day - walking to the shops to buy water. SO you'll forgive me for not giving a blow-by-blow rundown of the last two weeks which we have spent on the Thai islands of Koh Phi Phi, Koh Tao and Ko...

Jess and I have converted to Islam. Unfortunately this is not by choice, but from being slowly broken down by 4.15am awakenings to the sound of a seriously tone-deaf muezzin. There's nothing for it but to get up on our cigarette-holed sheets (it's far too hot for covers) on JL Jaksa and join in. In retrospect, we're pretty lucky that it wasn't until the last leg of our whistle-stop Java tour (and Indonesia for that matter) in capital Jakarta that we've been stat...

BALI : 08.04.09 - 16.04.09 We flew into Bali the day before Indonesia's general elections, the third since the country became a democracy in December 2006. While we were glad that there were no incidents (like those going on in Bangkok at around the same time) in Seminyak, where we planning on staying a couple of nights before making the day's journey to Gili Trawangan, evidence of the elections was everywhere - from the military patrolling the streets right dow...

If my Aussie trip were a book, it would be My Family and Other Animals. Gerald Durrell has nothing on me. In the last three weeks I've experienced swarms of bats, giant golden orb spiders (apparently the females massively outgrow the males), sharks, crocs, cane toads and let's not forget the mozzies. Not to mention my darling, but toothing, new baby cousin. If you could see me now, flying to Singapore en route to Denpasar, you'd probably think I were auditioning ...

I've got to admit there have been times when I've wondered why I ever started writing a blog - it's hard to condense over a month's activities into a spare ten minutes every now and then. But there's something about travel that makes it easier to write and now I'm sitting on a two hour train from Sydney to Blue Mountains, I thought I'd give it a shot. Where on earth to start? First stop, Christchurch. Jess and i set off on a 3 week trip which, i'm assured, many ...