Coming into land in Queenstown was spectacular. As the plane descended through mountains along a vivid blue lake, we knew we would be in for a visual treat on the South Island of New Zealand! On arrival we once again had to go through some pretty stringent immigration checks to ensure no food or disease was being brought into the country, but after assuring one of the officers that we hadn't been involved in any drug smuggling back in Indonesia, and Sophie offeri...

We arrived back in Western civilisation for our first time in 4 months landing in Sydney on the 30th January. We were both looking forward to things we'd been missing; drinking water from the tap, proper toilets, eating something other than rice, enjoying fish and chips (mainly for Trevor), not standing out like a sore thumb, seeing everything sign posted in English, and there being only one price for everything without the constant requirement to haggle (althoug...

After yet another horrendous Indonesian bus journey of lateness, freezing cold temperatures, stopping to change buses in the middle of the night and all-night-long music blaring out we arrived in Samarinda a little bleary eyed. Having checked into a slightly more upmarket hotel than we would usually stay in, as most low cost accommodation in Samarinda is known to be diar, we then set about the task of finding a guide to do our final activity in Kalimantan with; a...

We got picked up by our guide, Joe, at around 9am, with his wife and 18 month old baby who were also joining us on the drive as her family lived near Loksado. The drive to Loksado took about 3 hours, stopping on the way to look at a diamond polishing workshop, and then for lunch at a roadside warung for Ayam Bakar (BBQ chicken), rice and vegetables. On arrival in Loksado we dropped off Joe’s family and parked up at a nearby hotel before packing our bags and hea...

Feeling excited to be going to see wild orangutans in one of only three places in the world, we were picked up by our guide 'Rudy' along with his 18 year old niece who he was training up to be a guide. We were driven to the nearby town of Kumai, where we boarded the boat that would be our home for the next 3 days. Lacking the luxury of our houseboat in India, our boat was instead small and simple, with an upper deck on which we slept on mattresses, a toilet and b...