I arrived into Dalat ahead of schedule - which only ever happens to me when I get a night bus and therefore arrive when it's still dark, so I whiled away an hour reading until the sun came up! I decided to walk into town. I reached the centre and went in search of some lodgings - it was still Tet - this thing drags on - and there was no accommodation available - I tried about 20 hotels! I decided to go back one of the first ones I'd tried who said she might hav...

I arrived into Ho Chi Minh Airport (after a brief stop in KL) on the morning of Monday the 23rd of January. I was pretty tired, very excited and truth be told a bit nervous - it had been a long time since I'd been in a country where I didn't speak the language and Vietnam is pretty infamous for people hassling you and trying to separate you from your money by both legitimate and not so legitimate ways! I hopped into a taxi to the city centre and made my way to ...

The weather in Abel Tasman had been fantastic - the New Zealand summer I had heard so much about but witnessed so little of but as we travelled down to Kaikoura it got worse. I had booked a whale watching trip but had heard the weather was due to get worse and was worried that it may have been cancelled - I went to the whale watching company who said they didn't know if the afternoon trip would run but I could change to the midday one - so off I went. Kaikoura i...

I arrived into Nelson on the Thursday afternoon - although I'd been here 6 years ago I didn't really remember it very much. This is actually where I was when I got my degree result back in 2005. I wandered around that evening and then just chilled out back at my hostel. The following day I was off to Abel Tasman, I got picked up at the hostel and we headed to the Park. At the park HQ I met my guide and the 2 other people doing my trip - we got our equipment toge...

I spent another night in Christchurch on my way back north - there was no earthquakes this time well at least none that I felt or head about! From Christchurch I headed up to Picton where I was going to be picked up for a dive trip. In the Queen Charlotte Sound in 1986 a large Russian cruise ship the Mikhail Lermentov sank because a local pilot (person who guides a boat not someone who flies planes) made a massive error in judgement and tore the hull of the boat ...