Ah Cusco, what a wonderful place. A bit of a shock after being in Sydney as they are both very different types of cities. Sydney is modern, new and for young people, whereas Cusco is much much older and very cultural - which I love. It was a long journey to get here, after flying to Santiago (note to self, must visit!!!) and having a change over there, then on to Lima which I'm not sure what I make of yet. The area we drove through seemed very poor and it was a h...

I have had a wonderful three weeks in Sydney. My hostel was at Bondi Beach, literally within a few minutes walk until you were at the ocean. I loved Sydney. The city itself isn't my usual sort of thing but it has such a great vibe that I don't think anyone could dislike it. My first few days I spent with a couple of crazy Canadians, Courtney and Terri-Lynn, and the other girls in our dorm, Lisa, Maddi and Jenna. We had a lot of fun together. We spent lots of time...

Queenstown was an amazing place! It was a long drive from Franz Josef though. We even picked up a hitchhiker! Julius from Germany, another backpacker like myself. So after leaving about 9am we didn't get there till maybe 4pm. We did stop at Wanaka for some lunch. We wished we had more time as it looked like a really nice place to spend a few days. Our accommodation was called Villa del Lago, which were lakefront apartments - beautiful views! That evening we had t...

Once we arrived in Greymouth we had a long-ish car journey down to Franz Josef. By the time we arrived and had checked in to our accommodation it was dinner. So we went down to one of the local restaurants for a bite to eat and glass of wine. We had to be up early the next day for a helicopter ride over the glaciers but the weather wasn't looking too great... The next morning we called the company we were meant to be flying with and they told us to come down to ...

So we had a very early start from Christchurch for the TranzAlpine train journey across to Greymouth. It's one of the quickest ways across the South Island but also recognised as one of the top scenic rail journeys in the world. And it didn't disappoint! The train itself was very comfortable and included an cafe cart and an open air cart where you could get an even better view of the surroundings. Most of the middle part of South Island is deserted due to the ter...