Bay to Bay, with a Volcano on the way!! After our lovely trip around Hobbiton we high tailed it in the van all the way to Whakatane. Whakatane (pronounced Fa-cu-tar-ne for a reason we can't work out) was mainly populated by inbreeds. Seriously, some of the oddest mofo's you could ever imagine were sauntering about town like they ran the place. According to our little tourist box it is the norm in Whakatane to walk about in your swimwear for most of the year. W...

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson vs. Frodo the Hobbit: On the Craters of The Moon So according to Declan's Kiwi friend from Perth, the Cook Strait, the crossing between the north and south islands, is the roughest in the world. Well as Declan told Paul in Perth, there is no worse journey than the Holyhead to Dublin crossing with Big Joe at the wheel!! Our crossing was perfect, as near to sublime sailing as a gigantic car ferry can be. The only small problem was the ...

3 Blowholes, A Heli-Hike and A Skydive So were finally in Franz Josef after a harrowing half hour with Melanie at the wheel. On our drive into town we stopped off at the Helicopter shop and confirmed our trip for the following day. While finding a campsite we drove past the heliport and spotted about 5 choppers taking off and landing. That'll be us tomorrow we thought. Tomorrow became today and we geared up for our heli-hike. For those that don't know what ...

3 Bungys, A Luge and A Labyrinth Fresh from our time down in Milford Sound we headed back the way we came. Once again someone who shall remain nameless put in an almighty shift and drove the whole way from Milford Sound to Queenstown. Now even thought its only 350km, there isn't one stretch of that road that's straight. It's either, up/down a mountain or winding round corners and even with the spirit of Colin McRae steering us, it still takes about 5 hours. The...

3 Mountains, A Fiord and A Chocolate Factory So we left Perth and headed over to Melbourne on what was quite simply the greatest plane journey imaginable, Virgin Australia, take a bow. Why are you heading to Melbourne I hear you ask? Well, we've started our return journey home; this voyage includes a whistle stop tour of New Zealand and China then back to 'Blighty' just in time for Christmas. "Haere Mai" Welcome to New Zealand, a country adorned with quit...