THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME After 353 days on the road, 27 countries from start to finish, 2 massive truck journeys, 32 flights and God only knows how many bus, boat, bike, train and tuk-tuk rides we are finally HOME! After a mad-dash through Brisbane airport we just made our connecting flight to Wellington and had a very pleasant final flight over the Tasman right up until the landing which was in true windy Wellington style - lurch bump lurch bump lurch plo...

JOEL'S TEN CENTS It's not every day you get to take a year off work and travel the world and if it wasn't for working in the UAE this would not have been possible for us. We are very lucky! Travel for Tanya was in her blood, as for me not so much! After spending a year 'on the road' I can definitely say it's been an awesome adventure. Every day was so different! Coming from little NZ and not knowing much about the world was a real eye opener for me! You see so ...

MANTAS, DRAGONS AND A PSYCHOTIC TURTLE Flying from Denpasar to Flores we were able to get a fantastic aerial view of the gorgeous islands of Indonesia. As we neared Komodo National Park, the beautiful blue water below had us literally on the edge of our seats. We touched down at the teeny-tiny airport and made our way to Labuan Bajo, the port town and diving capital of Flores. We stayed in a lovely little guesthouse overlooking the harbour and enjoyed both a spe...

SOUL-SEARCHING IN BALI Our original idea for Bali was to avoid the crowded beaches, stay only one night in a hotel in the South and then head straight to the hill-country of Ubud. However after undergoing a two day bus-marathon the plan changed! We slept the night in a little hotel in Sanur on the quieter east coast of South Bali just down the road from a nice beach, some craft markets and lots of eateries - easy decision; we stayed on for a couple of days and e...

SMOKING VOLCANOES, SMOKING PEOPLE & SMOKING HOT CHICKEN! Indonesia, land of the 'biggest' - biggest population on an island (over 140 million people live on Java), biggest lizard in the world (the Komodo Dragon), biggest archipelago (over 17,000 islands make up the country), biggest flower (the Rafflesia), biggest snake (the Reticulated Python which can grow up to 10m long) - this country has an impressive list of superlatives! From Singapore, our first des...