16 October Nelson We are now in Nelson, New Zealand after 31 hours travelling!! Never again. It is wonderful to be here at last and everybody is so friendly. People walk around with a smile on their face and always say hello. Been shopping today and found it all very expensive. Realaxed and settled in to our new home. It's sunny and breezy today and we've been down to the beach which is a whole five minutes away! Don't expect much over the next week as we tak...

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Sandakan 9 October Awful drive back to Lahad and then long bus journey to Sandakan during which the rigid framed day pack with the laptop and water in it fell from the overhead shelf as the driver threw the bus recklessly round another bend on the wrong side of the road. It smacked onto my head as I sat listening to my iPod. I'd only just peeled off the scab from smacking it in the cave at Mulu! When we got to Sandakan I smacked it on the metal door to the lugg...

Leech bites-0, mossie bites-too many to count, serious head injuries-4 (all Jan!!) Danum Valley 6 October Spent night at Meridien in KK and got upgraded to a club room! After hardly any sleep cos we needed to be up at 4.45, we were amazed at the enormous breakfast that arrived in our room at 5.15! Left for KK airport at 5.45 and had our breath taken away by the sight, from the terminal, of Mount Kinabalu rising from the morning mist. So beautiful. Flew to ...

We have just returned to KK from Mulu National Park in Sarawak where there was no facility to update the blog so here we go….. 2 Oct: Set off to fly from KK to Mulu-both Malaysian Borneo. At bag drop we were told to take our packs over to a scanner across the hall and then bring them back; plenty of time to put into them anything we fancied! Then we had our hand luggage scanned and I had a bottle of water in it and the laptop. The water was ignored as was the ...