Well, I wasn't blown up in Mumbai. I was woken at 5 am by the first hordes of passengers coming for their early flights. Mine was not to be until 11:30. Good job I checked though, for despite having confirmed my flight only 3 days before, it turns out Kingfisher cancelled it and had put me on a flight at 2:30 pm. Not wanting to spent any more mind-numbing hours in this hole of a terminal I convinced them to put me on the 10:10 flight - result. The military p...

So, no sleep for the last night in NZ due to the unearthly time I had to be at the airport. A couple of flights, easily summed up as: Christchurch to Sydney at 6:30 in the morning, on to Singapore (a temporary measure so that Qantas crews don't have to overnight in Mumbai; really encouraging, guys) and then on to Mumbai only an hour late, at around 10 pm. Watched a lot of films in the 13 hours in the air. An easy trip through customs and onto the shuttle bus t...

Today was a long drive. Roughly eight hours across (I hate to be repetetive) brilliant countryside. We started by doubling back up the Kawerau Gorge past the site of 'that jump', through the Lindis Pass and into MacKenzie country. Pretty good views of Aoraki (Mt Cook) along the way, and we stopped at Lake Tekapo for lunch at the Church of the Good Shepherd and a bronze dog. In Christchurch, there was just time to visit the cathedral and go for a walk along th...

Sooo... Base have a lot to learn about computers. Yes, guys, they will occassionally fail. You will need to have a way of dealing with this. Then, Tom will not be annoyed about having to check out and find a different hostel because you couldn't extend his stay by an extra night. Not much else happened today, mainly sorting in readiness for India. Time to say goodbye to some folks - let's go to World Bar.

Today, so people have been telling me, I was due to see the most beautiful spot in New Zealand which, let's be honest, is an absolutely massive build up. Question is, do you now want me to say those people were correct or that they were wrong? Dodging this question I can at least say that it is a very pleasant place, although more accurately it is a fiord as it was formed by glaciers (sounds are formed by rivers). Just on the road there are numerous views of m...