The Final Countdown Sorry I havent been blogging much of late, just havent really had the energy to do it but now that I'm just about ready to get on the big metal bird home I thought I'd update the blog for one final time. Since I last blogged I have had a week in Perth, WA which was fairly uneventful. Met up with Gary Grant of chien fame for a couple of pints on one occasion and spent a couple of days on the lovely beaches at Fremantle and Cottisloe. Tried to ...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Having not updated the blog since I arrived in Australia I thought it might be time to let you all know how I'm getting on. Had a great Christmas and New Year with Ronnie and Dave which included copius amounts of alcoholic beverages and a great many laughs as well. Got some fantastic photos and videos of the harbour bridge fireworks that I will get onto Facebook as soon as I get an opportunity. What else have I been doing in...

Farewell Aotearoa Well it's all over for the NZ part of the trip anyway, what a country, what a place to be for a Rugby World Cup, if only it wasn't a damn 20+ hour flight away. Highlights of the journey round New Zealand have to be my first bungee jump, my first zorb, my first luge ride, my first Rugby World Cup game, my first sighting of the teletubby haka and so many other firsts that I have forgotten about as I sit here. Most of all the thing that has made ...

Kiwi Experience III So yeah its been back on the Big Green Bus of Dreams for the last few days, had a bit of time to kill before flying out of Aucklano on to Sydney so decided to head South a wee bit on the Kiwi again. I reckon I should get some sort of loyalty card or free T-Shirt out of them for the amount of time I've spent on this bus, lol. Had a lovely few days in Auckland when I got back from the Bay of Islands and got some pretty good news from home. I n...

Cuddle Puddle Apologies folks forgot to include the small tale of the Cuddle Puddle in my last blog post. Now I had nothing to do with the naming of the team but it did sound pretty sweet and made for a good celebration at the end of the quiz. Oh yeah, the quiz at the Pipi Patch on Tuesday night in which the cuddle puddle managed to be successful. Happy times. 5 rounds, music, name that tune, inventions, films and one of those sheet rounds where the put words, n...