When booking flights, we spent a long time flitting between Fiji and Hawaii as possible places to stop off on the way back from NZ. We have since heard from a number of people, both on the road and back at home, all about how amazing Hawaii is. So we were beginning to wonder if we had made the right decision in choosing Fiji. As we only had 12 days here, we got everything organised in advance. Whilst planning we realised that this is not a budget-friendly place...

Nic writes… After leaving a slightly rainy Queenstown and saying goodbye to my parents for the last time before they headed back to the UK, we drove north to the eastern side of the Southern Alps. When we visited the western side of the Southern Alps (to see the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers) the weather was miserable and we barely saw the mountains, so we had our fingers crossed. Luckily, the weather was beautiful, which made the glacial blue lakes and white m...

Richard writes... After an enjoyable flight from Brisbane (I watched Mockingjay part 1 and they handed out free lindt chocolates), we arrived in Auckland where we spent a few days relaxing in a very nice apartment and exploring the city with Nic's parents. Whilst in Auckland, we were on the edge of another cyclone (the one that devastated Vanuatu). This was the third country on our trip to greet us with a cyclone, but thankfully we were yet again a good distance...

Nic writes… Our last two weeks in Australia were lovely. We had a hired car, so no worrying about public transport (and petrol is cheap), accommodation was all booked in advance and the weather was almost perfect. We visited the Blue Mountains first, named as the gum trees supposedly give off a blue haze. Our journey out there took us via the Sydney Olympic Park. The Sydney Olympics in 2000 were the first Olympics that captured my attention (and I have been h...

Rich writes… G'day from Oz! We got here a couple of weeks ago, taking a bizarrely inexpensive business class flight from Kuala Lumpur (we felt very out of place among the respectable business people). First stop was Melbourne, an incredibly pleasant (if slightly unexciting) city, where we met up with Nic's parents. We each had a few gifts to exchange, although the contact lenses and fresh clothes we received were admittedly a little more welcomed than the sel...