Having spent the majority of my time in NZ on the South Island, I flew up to Auckland in the North for the final few days of my NZ trip. It was great to meet with Greg´s mate Kingy who lives there - familiar faces are always a treat in far off lands. I checked into a hostel in the city centre and then set off to explore and see what Auckland had to offer. With a massive sailing and maritime heritage, I wandered around the wharfe and harbour areas, looking a...

5 Days of solid rain! I must be in New Zealand...I think I've had my fair share of good weather over the last few months, so I guess I can't complain. I'm currently in Queenstown, the adventure capital of the Southern Hemisphere. I arrived in NZ last Friday and my aim has been to do a whistle-stop tour of the South Island, before flying up to Auckland in the North Island next week and leaving NZ from there. I spent the first day and a bit in Christchurch, t...

Slightly later than anticipated, as I'm now in NZ, I thought I'd better wrap up my time on Oz with a summary of the last couple of weeks. As many of you will have seen, I tried my hand (or feet) at surfing with surprising success. As you can see from the picture above, I did manage to hit the big waves. [what do you mean that dude looks nothing like me???]. Yes, I've also had plenty of stick for the "bruised toe" incident, especially as it meant I b...

AIRLIE BEACH TO FRASER ISLAND - WHIPS, LASSOES, SNAKES AND DINGOES... I left the Whitsunday Islands behind and headed south in a general direction down the Queensland coast. My tour took me inland, some 200km to a cattle station in the middle of nowhere. To give you an idea of the remoteness of the area it was in - a plane crashed in 1945 in the hills surrounding the cattle station and remained undiscovered until 1993. Sadly, there were no survivors. Plenty ...

I write this blog as I'm about to leave Cairns, on the North East coast of Oz. Well actually, I left there a few days ago now, but here goes...I flew up from Melbourne and arrived late at night to a torrential rain storm. Then I realised it's in a tropical climate and it's the wet season at the moment! Greg's girlfriend Leyen had some time off, so joined me in Cairns which was fun. We booked a 3 dive scuba on the Great Barrier Reef and headed out on the first ...