A new country!!! Well...Australia started badly. We landed at about 11pm on 1st October - this was after 2 hours in Queenstown airport, 2 hours on a plane, 10 hours in Auckland airport and another 4 hours on a plane. We were tired and I was feeling a bit grumpy; getting to the hostel and sleeping was all I really wanted to do. So when customs refused to let my wood carvings from New Zealand into the country I was very unimpressed! Sooz and I went through differe...

So, our journey continued into the South Island. Once off the ferry it was back on the coach for the drive to Nelson. We were staying at Tahunanui Beach (you've got to love these crazy place names - almost as good as Penny Come Quick Mr Baker!). It was already quite late by the time we arrived, so it was Dominoes Pizza for dinner then some chill out time with the group. We were all up early the next day for various activities, most of which were cancelled due to ...

Kia ora! Our stay in New Zealand was kicked off by a very long flight (almost 13 hours!) from LA...we left just before midnight on 17th Sept and landed at around 7am on 19th Sept. Skipping a day entirely is quite an odd feeling! First impressions were that Auckland was goind to be very helpful; the airport was full of free leaflets and guides telling us what was on offer. We took a bus into the city and found the hostel. Clearly it was far too early to check in ...

We flew into LA on 12th Sept, couldn't quite believe that it takes almost as long to fly from the East to West coast of America as it does to New York all the way from England. This was our first Qantas flight and we were impressed. Lots of middle aged male flight attendants though which seems odd! The flight came in at a reasonable time, but we waited over an hour for the shuttle bus to our first hostel to pick us up. A couple of phone calls and a conversation w...

Okay, I've only just decided to do a blog (3 weeks into the trip!) and it seems a shame to skip the states entirely, so this is my attempt at filling in what we've been up to so far. I know I'll forget loads because this stuff feels like months ago now, but I'll try to give you the basics of what we saw where! We landed at JFK airport on the 7th Sept, slightly delayed, after a long and boring flight and a sad weekend of goodbyes to all you awesome guys back home...