New Zealand is reknowned for its abundance of extreme sports and we've already had numerous opportunities to get involved here in Auckland. We could have bungeed off/abseiled down/walked along the skywalk at the Sky Tower today but we rejected all those lightweight pursuits for a spot of hardcore sock shopping. Oh yes. The temperature is a few degrees chillier here and I only brought two pairs of socks with me whilst Jim's are an international health hazard. We s...

With predictable Samways resistance to change, I'm having a rubbish first day in New Zealand. It's not fair to blame the entire country for it, especially as we only arrived here at 5.30pm local time. I'm just absolutely knackered from having no sleep recently and being cooped up on the plane over from Melbourne. And I am massively regretting not reading up on the country before we arrived here because I'm feeling a bit at sea, not knowing where anywhere is or wh...

Well, it's nearly the end of our final day in Melbourne, and in Australia! Today we hopped on the tram to St. Kilda, the seaside suburb south of the Yarra River in Melbourne. We even got an accidental tour of North Melbourne as we got on the tram going in the wrong direction and were too chicken to get off! It's been a while since we've been lost... I've not missed it! St. Kilda is a bit shabby and kitsch, what with the slightly tired Victorian villas and old sc...

I have just returned from what I can honestly say was one of the best experiences of my life! We went on a three day/two night 4WD safari to Uluru National Park with Wayoutback Adventures, being picked up at 6am on Wednesday at Alice Springs. There were a group of eight of us plus our fantastic tour guide Tony, a proper outback adventurer with a massive beard and a penchant for Marlboros, Red Bull and the taste of kangaroo flesh... By 7am we'd already stroked a ...

We've arrived in the Northern Territory now, flying up to Alice Springs this morning to go on our tour of Uluru tomorrow. It's been a bit of a nothing day really as we've spent the majority of our time travelling or waiting to travel. Alice Springs looks nothing like anything we've seen in Australia so far (it's arrid and orange) which is great. However, it is very remote and essentially just a jumping off point for excursions to Uluru or King's Canyon so there'...