We flew into Christchurch on the South Island, a town more English than England, and pretty much immediately headed away! We had a 'Juicy Crib' campervan on hire for 2 days (aka a people carrier with a double bed and outragous paint scheme) and headed for Mount Cook, camping at a lake at the base of Mt Cook. The lake looks like it is filled with turquoise paint due to the minerals dissolved in the water. We drove to Mount Cook with its snowy peaks, and then moved...

The last day in Cairns was sad especially as Lindsay spent all of it in bed sick after one last sample of the free backpackers meal in Rhino bar. It tasted ok at the time but made her very ill, so Ian packed up the campervan - our mode of transport down the East coast, and shoved Lindsay and her sick bowl into the van for an 11 hour road trip to the Whitsunday Isles. Lindsay perked up a bit after reading in the Lonely Planet that the islands are the Australian ve...

We are coming to an end in Cairns. The last few weeks have flown by with Ian working as a kitchen hand in various hotels around Cairns, having realised that being responsible for nothing more that the cleanliness of plates is quite good for de-stressing yourself. Lindsay continues to work as a waitress cleaning up after dirty tourists! Damm these tourists! Two major tourist events recently. First was the visit to the Undara lava tubes, where many years ago a v...

18 hrs of flying, 1 hr by train, 4 films, 9 games of battleships and mucho money later, I was back in Cairns. I departed England in freezing temperatures and landed to find 31C. Nice. I am now an unemployed bum. Lins goes off to work and I go shopping. I like this life. We have moved into a new sharehouse appartment as Lins' old room wasn't big enough for both of us. We now live in a building with upto 72 others....and 1 BBQ. To celebrate my return, we took a r...

Lots and lots has happened since the last update. As soon as we arrived in Cairns back at the start of January we celebrated Ian's 30th birthday! Not with too much drinking though it gives him a headache now that he is getting older!! I made him hold a snake at Carns tropical soon much to his reluctance he agreed and had a pic taken. I took the cute option and held a koala. I think I came out the worse though Koalas are not cute they have sharp nails which d...