Leaving on a jet plane!

Wow SG is amazing! The culture the city the people the foods the atmosphere! SG is a small but safe clean and friendly city/ country with lots to do and see. We Flew from perth to SG and landed at 10pm and we go stuck straight in with figuring out how to get to our hostel. Luckly everything is in english as its a widly spoken language. Our hostel is called sleepy sams, its a nice asian style hostel located in a high muslim area with SG's biggest mosque just 30mtrs away! So at 5.30am and 7.30pm we have the muslim alah preech! very loud but very creepy,but treatred with the up most respect as we are in there country now. With no shoes to be worn in the hostel or rooms or dorms its run by two SG's ladys and its our cool clean haven in a sticky hot SG!

So for the last two days we have been walking and eating so much!! buts it so cheap and easy to find good food! Apparently quite expensive for Asia but compared to over rated Oz its bliss. Our first full day started with a train ride straight into the city centre and a visit to Chinatown. There are lots of original old buildings around this area, along with Buddhist and Hindu temples. We visited both temples. In the Hindu temple there were food offerings everywhere and incense burning everywhere but everyone there was smiling and happy. The Buddhist temple was very very grand with lots of gold everywhere. You could buy your own Buddha Shrine for as little as SGD 6000 or even SGD 35,000. We decided to save that for another day!! Leah had to wear long skirt and pashmina to cover and exposed skin apart from her face. We stopped for a chinese lunch which was the best chinese we had had in ages! and a beer, just in time for the massive thunderstorm and heavy rain. We watched for about an hour and decided umbrellas were the only way we were going to get around so we bought two for $5 each, it is the rainy season afterall. Besides it is that hot that it doesnt really matter if you get wet. So we headed back to the hostel for a quick cold shower and we were back out for tea about 9pm in little india! I had butter chicken curry and leah ate all of the naan bread!! We were probably the only white people apart from one or two dotted around. It was good, we felt like we were fully submerged into the culture. Its funny how one area of the same country can be so diverse from the next.

The next day we headed to Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles who landed in Singapore in 1819. Here is where the cocktail the Singapore Sling was invented we could of had one for about $200 but that was a lot of food and a bed for a week so we gave it a miss and just wiped our dribble and walked on!. We were also tempted to partake in High Tea here but the cost put us off slightly! $40 slightly... It is a lovely hotel though with the famous Sikh valets and butlers. We went to a Hawker centre which is basically a food market where you can buy really cheap food. We had a few dim sum and noodles etc and a couple of Tiger beers of course, hic hic we got drunk, s owith a full belly we staggered back to our hostle in the 35c ans 100% humidity at 11pm!!zzzzzzzz


Our third day here we headed to the Harbourfront and took a cable car to Sentosa Island. The views on the cable car were amazing. We could see all of the loading bays and about 800 shipping containers in which/was one of the biggest shipping yards in the worldand one played an imprtant roll in the import and export of goods and links back once when the brithish empire was in full swing. It was so so busy. When we arrived it was very touristy. Everything once you are on the island costs. We decided to take a short walk around and the hop back onto the cable car. The ride on this alone was worth coming to Sentosa.

The next day we took the MRT, their underground train around for some exploring. As we were on the escalator towards the platform our train was about to leave. Alex decided to make a run for it. He made in on.......Leah was a bit behind. She got her umbrella through the door before they closed. As the umbrella was tied around her wrist an emergency tug was required, the umbrella snapped and the MRT sped off with Alex on it and Leah looking lost.... Luckily another train arrived 10 minutes later and a hysterical reunion was had at the other end. Please be aware the MRT doors will close no matter what is in between them!! So we headed in to the very centre of ML to see where on one side of the river is the old ML and on the other side is the modern ski scrapers divided by only a small river. We spent hours wondering and exploring and as it got darker the city came to life in a mass of neon lights, lady boys, resturants and music.

Our journey to Malaysia was to be made on a coach. It had to be said a very nice coach with big reclining seats. It took us 6 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur. We had two immigration stops before heading in Malaysia. The drive was relaxed on quite motorways, until we approached KL. It was just a quagmire of unmoving traffic and constant beeps of horns. After 7 hours on an air con bus the heat hit us like walking into an oven. It took us about half an hour to find our hostel. The hostel itself was very nice and the staff were very friendly. It was totally different arriving here though. Being a muslim country, there were women dressed in full burkha clothes. Leah was getting a fair bit of male attention here as she was blonde, fair skinned and dressed in western clothes. The Malaysian government recently attempted to bring in death by stoning for adultery here, which thankfully wasn't accepted by the public but it just shows how strict a muslim country it is. They follow the Sharia Law.

Behind our hostel, just in view as we showered everyday was a group of ladyboys, trying to earn a days wage!!! The tight miniskirts and stilletos weren't very convincing though!! I think Alex had a wink or two!!!(at him not to them i might add) KL was quite dirty and very smelly. The sewers were just open ditches at the sides of the roads. There were rats everywhere. Spitting very noisily as if you are hocking somethig up from the pit of your stomach is also very common everywhere. You have to try and switch off from it as you are eating your food. One waitress did it in full view of a restaurant in the sink for people to wash their hands in. It was hard not to let your disgust show as to them it is perfectly normal, but we didnt eat there again!

We only had two days in KL so we did the usual chinatown tour, which was another experience. People almost chase you round the market trying to get you to buy one of their 'rolex' watches and 'Gucci' bags! We got up early at 6.45am to get to the Petronas Towers to queue for the tickets to go up. We went up at 10.30am. You can only go as high as the skybridge though which is about halfway up but the views are still amazing. As we only had two days we did as much as we could and hit up bars ,pubs, clubs, shops and as much culture as we could stomach!But the cheapest one was always culture as all you had to do was walk in the local remote areas!
So one day we jumped on a local bus and fumbled through with some basic local lingo and broken english and headed to the Batu caves a masive hindu shrine in a cave the size of old trafford! I was a grand thing to see but sadly we were typical tourists for a moment and were happy to watch and take pictures of the wild monkeys playing and drinking out of bottles like little humans sad hey!! Note: I had to drag Leah away!

After KL we took a night train to Penang further north in Malaysia. We didnt sleep much even though we had a bed as the train was so old and rickety and noisyand we had to sleep with our bag on our beds as they could be nicked.Again we were the only westerners on the train so everybody was looking as per usual but we didnt mind. We arrived at 5.30am in a place called buttersworth and had to find the local ferry andcatch it accross to the island of Penang and head to Georgetown. Georgetown is not the best place to be at 5am!! so we looked for saftey in a cafe or anything with a security guard but had to make do with a busy bus stop instead! When we made it to our hostel it was dinghy, like a prison cell, the toilets were downstairs in the cafe's kitchen!!!! We didnt sleep that well here either as we were on a really noisy road. We didnt do much here. To be honest we didn't like it and also didnt feel safe at all so we cut it a day short and headed to Thailand on a 10 seater minibus. yee ha!!

We are now in Australia and we have landed firstly in sydney. We had an amazing view of the harbour bridge and the opera house as we came in to land. It was nice to step outside and feel some warmth after the cold weather in New Zealand. Our hostel was based at the railway station and even had trai carriages as dorms. We took a brief walk around town near our hostel the first night. What we couldn't help but notice was how few Australians were around and a high level of asians were in the city. Had we landed in sydney?

The next day we headed for the harbour bridge. You could do the walk over the top for $169. We decided we would still get an amazing view from walking across the footpath. We got wonderful views from the middle as we looked over towards the opera house and the skyline of the cities skyscrapers. We took a steady walk after the bridge through an area called The Rocks. This was an area of the city where the first settlers lived. It has lots of old british style terraced houses, many built by british immigrants. Many old buildings have been replaced by high rises and multi storey car parks but it still holds an olded worlde feeling to it. We then headed to the opera house. It is a huge bulding, with the roof covered in 70's style cream tiles. We decided to book for a show whilst we were there. We sent a while taking the usual tourist photos and watching the many boats on the harbour.

Our hostel was relatively quiet with not a lot going on at night. Most peopele were either watching TV or on their laptops which everybody seems to have with them. Most nights we were so tired from all of the days walking we were ready for bed by 10pm anyway!

We spent a day looking around all of the museums, visiting an old jail museum and the oldest house in sydney based in the rocks. It was built by Irish immigrants and is still kept as it was in the 1920's. We visited he botanical gardens which were nice to walk around in the basking sun! It was in the gardens where we saw hundreds of massive bats flying around and hanging from trees. It was weird to see them in the middle of the day. There were also Cockatoos and giant eels in the lake.

Bondi beach was a must as it is what everyone seems to talk about when they go to Oz. It was a large beach, very clean with massive surf. We walked the coastal cliff walk to Coogee Beach which was 5km away. We passed many other small beaches and even saw a homeless guy that had set up home on the edge of a cliff with all sorts of random ornaments and household objects in his 'house'. When we arrived at Coogee we both fell in love with it. It was a lot smaller than Bondi but the sea was calmer for swimming and it had a uch nicer feel to it. It was here that we met up with Jo and Simon, drank one too many beers and ate a fantastic thai. There are plenty of places to eat and drink in Coogee even though it is a small town.

We spent a few days on Coogee beach chilling in the sun and jumping the massive waves. One thing about many of the beaches in Australia is that if you lie down with your eyes closed, you will hear nothing but english and irish voices. I think there were probably more engligh and irish than Aussies. Me and Al were beginnig to wonder in any Australians live in Sydney. We met up with Jo and Simon again and they cooked us a lovely meal (thanks very much guys).

We went to a shakespeare show at the opera house. It was a bizarre play but well worth going. The theatre was smaller than we though it would be but I think we were in one of the smaller ones. When the show finished we took a walk along the very busy harbour front and had a drink and dessert on a waterfront restaurant. If we were on holiday with plenty of money you couldn't go wrong with the amount of restaurants to eat in and bars to drink in.

On our last day we took a tour to the Blue Mountains. We stopped at a Wildlife Park and fed Kangaroos, petted Koalas and wombats. It was good to see many of the native animals that we had only ever seen in pictures before. The views once at the Blue Mountains were spectacular. The eucalyptus trees give off an oil which when mixed with the air creates a blue haze. They are so big you could spend weeks and weeks walking the forests and still not even covered half. We took a walk in the forests and also rode the steepest train track in the world. It was well worth the trip to see.

We left Sydney after 11 days and headed to Canberra, the capital of Australia. It is a purpose built capital as they couldn't decide between Melbourne and Sydney. It is relatively small compared to Sydney and is comprised mostly of government buildings and a few corporate offices. Everything is very sterilse and it is very obvious that it is purpose built. We visited the parliament buildings and even saw the Aboriginal Tent Embassy which is basically Aborigines who have camped on Parliament land for the last 20 years. I think it is a form of protest as they feel they are not represented in the government. We walked around the houses of parliament which is generally the same as in the UK but instead of the house of lords they have the senate. Everything is very modern compared to our houses of parliament.

Our next stop was a 9 hour coach drive to Melbourne. We took an overnight trip hoping that we would sleep most of the way. Needles to say we didn't sleep much. We arrived in Melbourne tired and hungry. We had about a mile walk from the bus station to the hostel. When we arrived at the hostel they said we could go straight up to our room which we were pleased about as we were ready for our beds. As we entered our room the first thing that hit us was the stench. It stank! The reason why it stank was hat there was a homeless person wa ssleeping in one of the beds with every possession she owned stored in a trolley piled on her bed. The curtains werent closed when we arrived so we cosed them, though we decided there wasn't much point as there were more holes in the curtains than material. Our pillows and duvets were stained yellow all over. We were so tired we just lay on the bed and went to sleep. When we woke up the homeless person had gone. We tried to find alternative accommodation which we did for the next day so we had to say the one night.

After the first day of finding somewhere else to stay we went to the YHA. At least we knew it would have standards. After arriving we went to the Vic Market. You could buy every item of food you could ever think of and more! We had a good look around and then took a short walking tour of the city. The weather in Melbourne was wet and slightly cold. We spent an afternoon in Lygon Street which is the Little Italy of Melbourne. There were pavement cafes and pizza dough everywhere. You could watch pizzas and pasta being made through the windows. We stopped at a little cafe for homemade pizza and pasta, it was absolutely delish! As Alex was ill we had a fair bit of early nights, which was good as beer and a night out aren't cheap here at all.

We had a flight booked from Melbourne to Adelaide, as we felt like a 13hr coach ride would be too much to handle! After a 40 minute flight we made it to Adelaide where we were greeted by Craig. A short journey in the car and we arrived at Craigs house. It was luxury to have a nice double bed, clean hot shower and home cooked food for a week. We were so grateful to have that for a short while. The first night there we headed to a belgium bar for a beer or 10. Me and Al stuck to the Stella, though by 10.30 and one short bus journey later Craig was on the side of the road chundering up his pommes frites! The next day Craigs mum treated us to a gorgeous roast lamb dinner which was the best meal yet! We had a day to Mclaren Vale and did some wine tasting. The wine tastes a lot nicer than what we usually drin at home. We were told that Jacobs Creek in Australia is the lowest end of the wine scale, so apparently thats where we are going wrong!! We headed to a look out point called Mt Lofty, where we marvelled at the views of Adelaide. It was such a sunny bright day that we could see for miles and miles.

It was whilst we were here that Craig and his girlfriend Irene decided to join us on our trip to Ayers Rock. We flew to Alice Springs. Alice is a very small town. There are lots of Aboriginal locals that sit around day and night, many drunk on the grass and the side of the roads. Although they recommend not to go out at night we didn't witness any trouble. The next day we drove to Kings Canyon. On the way here we saw many mini twisters that they called wurly wurly's. The bright red sand created a big tornado high in the sky. Al actually chased one to try nd get inside one. Thankfully they move faster than they look and he didnt manage to catch it. The temperature was 46 degrees. We took a short walk about 40 minutes long into the canyon. It felt like a 50 mile treck it was that hot. Dangerously hot amlost and it isn't even summer there yet! We drove and drove and drove a few humdred km's to just make it to Ayers Rock in time for sunset.

It is an amazing sight. In a way it is kind of weird that a single rock can attract so much attention but until you see it you won't appreciate its beauty. As the sun went down what started off as a bright orange colour, quickly turned to red, dark red, brown then black. You colour actually see the colours changing. We camped at ayers rock resort that night. The starts at night were amazing. We say so many shooting stars we lost count, and it was so hot, it makes a big change to be camping in the heat instead of the cold and wet. The next morning we got up at 04.45 in the morning to get to the rock for sunrise. As we approached there were coaches and car loads of people bracing themselves for the rocks change in colour. Although sunrise was also beautiful to watch, sunset was slightly more impressive.

From Ayers Rock we headed back to Adelaide. This was indeed a 2 day drive on long straight, hot roads. We passed many many dead kangaroos, our car was even splatted by one as we decided to stop alongside one as a truck ploughed straight through one! Not a pretty sight or smell. We arrived after a 9 hour drive to a town called Coober Pedy. It is only there because of the opal mining, so apart from the mines there isnt a lot there. A lot of the people that live in the town have their houses built underground to keep cool in the summer months. As it reaches the high 40's the underground houses stay at around 23 degrees all year round. We stayed in an underground apartment. It was kind of weird staying somewhere where there are no windows and holed in the roof for air. It was a lovely place though complete with pool.

We left first thing to make the final leg to Adelaide. Apart from a lot of long straight roads, the journey was pretty straight forward. We arrived back to Craigs house in time for tea and a hot shower and early night. Craig and his family wanted us to experience a true aussie bbq on our last night, and guess what? It was rainy and windy!! Just like a good old british barbie!!! Never the less there was plenty of Kangaroo steak to go round! Thank you very much Craig and family for the great stay!!!!!

After a delayed flight to Perth, (tye navigational system failed twice so we had to taxi back to the airport to change planes. Good old Quantas!) we arrived and checked into our lovely old colonial house hostel. It was only small and quiet but really nice. Whilst in Perth we unfortunately lost approximately 1 day trying to get our paper tickets home as we had changed the date from Bangkok to London. It is now the 12th December and we are in Singapore and we still do not have our tickets home!! Good old STA Travel!!

My (Alex) over all feeling about OZ.....Its ok, the weather and the beaches are amazing but its very similar to home with a distinct feeling of vastness. The grass an't allways greener on the otherside.....This my opinion tho.

SOUTH ISLAND (Heading south)

Picton a small place boring and small. So we passed through and headed to place called Nelson again a nice place but small and not much to do buch a really nice place. we stayed in a hostel called 'guest house' a weird place dirty and full of hippys smoking weed, but it was only one night and it was cheap!! so while we were there we visited the middle of NZ the exact point between north and south geologicly it was fun and cheap! After the walk we were both so tired we ate tea which was noodles and soup (yum) and went to bed early so the next morning we left and headed to a place called Greymouth.

Greymouth is small and is a and is mainly a mining town that is owned by the chinese, because what they do is buy the town and its mining rights and ship all the coal to china and store it in huge depos because they know one day it will be worth a lot and they will have most of it!! Clever....
While we were there we got really drunk as there was not much else to do!!! and left the next day...and that was greymouth.

After greymouth was a place called franz joseph, its a tiny but interesting exciting place with the feel of a french ski resort. We stayed in a place called chateau franz a kinda ski resrt place a real lively place with one bar but a busy place. So franz joseph has a thing called a sub tropical glacier ( a big piece of ice traveling down a hill)one of only three in the southen hemisphere the other one in chilli its 17km long 5km wide and 1000m deep and travels about 6 mtrs a day so it takes about 6 years for a pice of it to travel from the top to the bottom, (yawn) any way we decided to climb it! So we rented all the climbing gear boots cramp ons ice axe coat and pants! we hitched a ride to the closest point to it and walk up to the face which was a 45min walk alone got on with the climb. We climbed hiked walked crawled away around it from 9am till 4pm with a group of other people who were climbing that day and let me tell you it was amazing!! It was like being an ant on an ice cube!! (see pics) huge holes of ice that fall 200m+ down and cliffs we hade to climb 50m+ and gaps we had to jump only 1m wide but 100m down. Cool.
After that the rest of the days were spent relaxing and doing walks and free things in the day followed by getting very drunk at night. Perfect

So as we head south it gets colder and colder its about 10 degrees at the mo burr!!

At the the mo we are in Fox Glacier a small cold wet town with not much to do.....Today 16/10/08 we went to a massive lake to see the reflaction of mt cook the tallest mountain in NZ ( mt cook is around 3500mts tall, snowdon is 1000mts tall) do the maths. Leah is cooking pasta and iam updating this! yumm more pasta!

So today 17/10/08 we left fox and headed 100km south to a place called Wanaka, wanaka is a beautifull perfect/ picturesque place next to an alpine mirror lake with reflective views of mt cook and mt tasman two of the highest snow caped peaks around, perfect. So we arrived at 2pm and at 2.30 we had booked our sky dive and now at 5pm we are sitting in the hanger waiting to go on our plane and jump 13,000ft (the internet is free while we wait!!) and we can both honestly say leah is pooing her self and iam buzzing we nervs!! its $486 but that with a full dvd and pictures so in pounds its about 180 with the exchange rate.... so if this is the last thing i say or do then i want gaz to have my caravan and pit bike and my dad to have my mountain bike and my car can go to Ian k!! leahs leaving her car to mella and buddy is being flown to spain and cassy given away for dog meat!!! ha ha only joking i hope.....

Well we survived the sky dive!!!!! It was amazing!! we'll let the pictures do the talking..... It was the scariest but most amazing thing we have ever done. Leah was that scared she threw up after she had done it! To celebrate surviving we enjoyed a lovely thai meal washed down with a few beers.

Queenstown was our next destination, and our favourtie so far in New Zealand. We were told by llots of people to just stay one night and leave as it is expensive on drinks and it will sap your money. Thankfully we ignored this advise and stayed 5 nights. It is one of the biggest towns in NZ but is probably more like the size of Llandudno. It was like a picturesque ski village with big mountains either side of a beautiful lake. It had a unique feel to it, very laid back but otherwise hard to describe. If we were going to work and live anywhere in this country then it would be here. Our first day we decided to save on the $44 gondola ride and walked up a nice big mountain to where awaited the famous luge. A luge is like a toboggan almost but raced on a tarmac track and a lot faster. Very very good fun and we were bith running round like a pair of 12 year olds. It made the long hard steep walk well worth it. It was on this day that we discovered a place called Fergburger. They served the biggest and nicest burgers with every topping imaginable. We only just ate one between us. From this day we became addicted and out of the 4 days here we had 3!!

We decided as it was our last night with everyone together from the Magic Bus we would embark on a sample of the famous nightlife. There are about as many bars and clubs in Queenstown as there are in Llandudno as well but very good. We ended the night in a bar called World bar where they served you cocktails in teapots!

Whilst in Queenstown Alex hired a downhill mountain bike and played on big big jumps for the day. Needless to say he was like a kid in a toy shop!! Leah was the mule for the day carrying such supplies as drink, food and ermmm first aid kit which thankfully wasnt needed. Queenstown at night was very nice to walk around. The lake lit up from the waters edge restaurants and bars was beautiful. It was still cold in Queenstown but the sun gave that lovely glow to your skin even so.

After Queenstown we headed to Dundedin. We were told it had strong scottish heritage. Well from driving in it looked like Stoke and it didnt get much better from there. It rained the whole time and there was nothing to do. We were in a scruffy hostel with very poor facilities. We were glad to leave.

On our way to lake Tekapo we visited the steepest street in the world. It didn't look as steep as we thought it would. Leah actually thought Carmelas hill was steeper!! Although after walking to the top it did leave us gasping for breath. Lake Tekapo was a beautiful very small village. There was 2 hostels a very big lake, a small shop and a few bars. They had a very small church on the waters edge with enough room for about 20 people inside. Apart from that it was just a place to relax and chill out for a few days and enjoy the views. Leah was ill here so we spent a few days just chilling out.

Out last destination, Christchurch. We spent a couple of days viewing the cathedral, the square and a lovely weekend market with every foodstall imaginable. We were here for 5 days . After 2 we had seen everything we wanted to tried to get earlier flights but couldnt so chilled for a few days.

Our overall impression of NZ was that it is a beautiful country with magnificant views, mountains and lakes. Not umsimilar to parts of Wales but on a much bigger scale. As the population is very small you can drive for hours and pass a few villages like ghost towns and still arrive in a town with 1 bar (every town has a bar no matter how small), a shop and a hostel and a few houses. Often they had a eery feel as they were so empty. The country also has an 80's feel to it with the decor, fashion and haircuts......lets just say the mullet is still alive. There are lots of adrenaline activities to do here and with a deeper pocket we could have partaken in many many more than we did. We were ready to leave after six weeks and are looking forward to our adventures in Oz!

Hello from new zealand!!

As you can guess we are now in new zealand on the north island and its freezing!! After we left fiji 30+ weather we flew to Auckland and landed in about 9 degrees burrrrrrr but it was a nice change all wrapped up for winter like at home, but we know we'll be in Australia and it will be close to 40 degrees!!! ( Cant wait!)There are two islands north and south island. North is very volcanicly active and the south not so much but both amazing! Nz is 12hrs ahead of the uk.

One thing about new zealand is that is is very very much like home the people the weather the way of life food, clothing the over all feel is nearly identical!!! Its like wales but on steroids and better! Apart from the cars!!! everybody drives holdens!! big V6 or V8 saloon beasts!! or ford falcons big V8s super charged beasts!! they really do like there big v6 v8 cars as well as scoobys and mitsys evo's!! i could go on and on but i wont!!

So we spent a few days in Auckland not doing much apart from earing out drinking and going to the pictures, and meeting a really cool bunch of friends.One of our most liked things we did was we all went to the "Ice bar" its called minus 5 bar. Its a bar made from ICE everything from the walls to the glasses the sculptures and the bar!! it was pretty cool!! We could only stay in there for about 30min as it was actually about -20!!

After a few days in Auckland looking at the city and all its shops and bars and getting used to the cold weather we headed up to the bay of islands and the most northern point in NZ cape reinger. We hired a campervan called rocket and drove around the sights for 5 days. The roads were really slow and the corners were almost 360 degrees round. We drove for hours without passing another car. As we neared the most northerly point with a quarter of a tank of fuel left we thought it wise to pull into the petrol station that said last one for 60 miles. When we pulled in all the pumps said out of fuel....we couldnt believe it. If we ran out of fuel we really would have been stranded in the middle of knowheres ville!! Anyway we took a steady drive back the next day and made it to the next fuel station!! When we reached the most northerly point on NZ it had a end of the world feel to it like there was nothing beyond the land just sea!! Whilst up in the north we decided it would be fun to try out sand boarding. The sand dunes were huge and took ages to walk to the top. Leah was raring to go and once at the top, jumped on the board head first and flew down the dune. About halfway down the board started to turn and flipped leah like a rag doll into the air. She flipped about 4 times before landing in a heap on the floor. She had sand everywhere up her nose, her eyes in her mouth. She hurt her neck, arm and shoulder and that was the first and final time she attempted sand boarding. Al obviously did it cool as a cat without any souvenir injuries!!! It was here that there was a 90 mile beach, called suprisingly 90 mile beach. We didnt take the camper on there as many many vehicles have been lost to the tide.

Our camper van was cool it even had a DVD player in it. Leah didn't get to drive much as Al liked being behind the wheel!!(Also leah cant drive) We headed back to Auckland for 2 nights before heading off on the Magic Bus we had booked for the remainder of our time here. We got on the Magic bus at 8.00am on the 1st of October. We had a driver called umpy and we swear she was the stig. She took corners like she was on the Nuremberg track!! We travelled all day until we got to a town called Whitianga. We quickly had started to notice that what they call a town here consists of about 10 houses 2 hostels a fish n chip shop and about 5 pubs, they like their ale here!! They are mostly strange little hick towns apart from the cities. It was here that we met our fellow Magic bus family. Helen, Leanne, Jenny, Katy, Steve and Nic. We all got on really well and it was from this night on that a dangerous amount of card drinking games started. Alex acquired the nickname of Ahmed as he could never remember anyones name.

Our next stop was Waitomo. Another very small town with two hostels a few shops and lots of shops selling cave trips. We stayed in a lovely YHA that upgraded us to private chalets, luxury compared to the dorms we usually had. It was here that we took a black water rafting trip into the glow worm caves. We had to wear full wet suits, helmets and white wellies and walk half a mile through fields. Now that really was a random sight. We looked like a group of teletubbies coming of the grassy mound!! We each had a large black inner tube that we had to sit in inside the cave. Once inside the cave we saw the glow worms. Now as a child and once having a glow worm toy Leah thought this was great fun. It was until the guide explained that the little fairy light effect that the glow worms gave was from their poo and not the glow worm itself glowing. What a let down. We were stood in a freezing cold damp cave staring at glow worm poo!!! Once on the river in the cave in our inner tubes, the water was freezing, we gently floated downstream until we reached the waterfall where we had to jump off backwards and slides and all things wet. Anyway we made it out alive and they gave us hot soup afterwards and it was very good fun!! (See pics) We also witnessed possibly one of the most bizarre things, a rabbit being sheared?? Yes a rabbit. They tied its legs up and used sheep shears to cut it and then they made hats, coats, scarves out of the rabbit wool.

The next day we headed for a place called Rotorua. This smelly town was quite a large place with lots of bars and shops and many many smelly thermal mud pools. It was a shame that all of the mud pools were at least 75 dollars to go in which we found disappointing being as these are natural pools. We went white water rafting on our first morning here. (See photo bucket pics) It was sooo much fun. There was only me and Al on the raft with the guides. They took us under waterfalls tried to sink us and throw us out of the raft. It is definitely something we both want to do again!! That evening we went to a traditional Maori night were we saw a tribe that is still going today we saw how they lived ate and survived then afterwards we go to eat from a hangi ( an under ground oven) the next day i (Alex)went and played with a 4wd on a proper 4x4 off road course!!Amazing huge steep muddy slopes with massive water pools at the bottom were the water came up to the windows over logs over huge boulders all in a Suzuki jimmy!! I didnt expect the little thing to do it but it did, it won 4x4 of the year in 2002 apparently???! So the rain kept coming and coming!! and once again our sky dive was put off and we were all gutted.....

Taupo was next a small town famous for its lake ( lake taupo) which was/is a mouth of a volcano which has now filled up with water creating lake taupo 100km long and about 50km wide about the size Singapore and they have not found the bottom yet and its over due an eruption!! sweet. The town itself is small but ok if it was not raining... It was time to save money for a few days so we went to pack 'n' save (like our old kwix save) and stocked up on food and supply's and attempted to wait out the rain for a few days for the sky dive, it kept raining. The rain was not a bad thing, it made the water a bit more interesting at a place called huka falls a massive waterfall/ torrent of water that plunges through a narrow cleft in the rock just out side of taupo (when a say massive i mean i cant describe it so the word massive will do) then in the after noon we decided to turn it up a notch and go paint balling in the mud!! yer!! lets say i old got shot twice and leah got picked on he he! no to be fair everyone got a good beating with a few shots to the ass and head, it was a blast and we going to do it again soon!! ( see pics)
The day after we went to a free natural geo thermal spar it was a 30min hike in the rain to the pools, but it was really good and free!! The water was hotter than a bath which we sat in for about an hour in our swim wear in the pouring rain. ( see pics)
We like taupo....

So off to wellington the capital of NZ.
Wellington smaller than Auckland is the capital. Its a nice place with good night life, good bars a good feel about the place, but at the end of the day a city is a city and most citys in the 21st century in the 'western world' are all the same, Mc donnalds, KFC, taxis pubs and clubs, and shopping malls, once you have seen on you have seen em all. Oh and its most recent claim to fame is the premieres of 'The lord of the rings' if you are in to all that?!....
So we stayed two days and we went out one night to a night club. we spent a day sight seeing and doing the free stuff like the 'te papa' museum all about culture and the maori culture..... apart from that not much else to do apart from spend money so we went and got ready to leave to cross on the ferry to picton. A 3 hour ferry crossing to the south island.
Apart from wellington being the capital its the link between the north and th`e south island.

At the moment we are in the south island traveling around and are in a place called wanaka in the southern alps on the west coast.
And have two weeks left until we leave for OZ where its 30+ at the mo burrrrrrr......lol

Well we made to Fiji!! Everything in fiji runs at fiji time which is a bit like spanish time! things get done when they get done as there is no real rush about anything in fiji. So slowing down to fiji time was a bit hard at first but now we are so chilled its taken me all day to write this far......
Bula is the main word it FIJI it means loads of things! but it is a positive word! it can mean Hello, Yes! Amazing! Life! Iam happy! Iam excited! Joy! you get the picture.

Any way Fiji is amazing! its every bit the perfect beach and blue sky you can imagine or have seen on the telly! The people are so friendly and happy i think the uk should try it! Everything is cheap as the exchange rate is so good except the beer and water!!!! And the weather!! its been sunny every day! 30+ perfect blue skys and warm water so warm i wish it was a bit cooler! ( not really)

We spent the first day on the mainland getting over the jetlag and then headed to the island the next day. It was amazing. We spent 4 hours on a big boat that goes past the yasawa islands to get to our first island by a small little boat That the locals come and get you in!. On the way up we say island so tiny you could wak them in 10 minutes and giant turtles swimming in the sea. We arrived to our first island where we had a private bure. It had no electric and we had to turn on the shower and wait 10 minutes before the water came out!!! The family were very ffriendly and the nights entertainment was sitting with the family drinking their speial drink Kava. The drink doesnt really do anything except make your tongue numb and it tastes like mud water. MMMMMMMMMmm.

We headed to another island the next day Called corral veiw. We stayed here for 5 nights. It was lovely, although everything cost 2 dollar!! They had lots of activities and a volleyball match everyday against the Fijians. They had an albino Fijian working their which was the weirdest thing we have ever seen. We did lots of snorkelling around the coral reef and saw bright blue starfish and lots of Nemos. Alex also went for a trip to the swysla Cave which is an underwater cave that you have to swim underwater tunnel to another cave to about 3 mtrs.... (Have you ever seen the film The decent?) any way it was amazing!!! apart from when you pop out in the other cave it is pitch black!!! and there are spiders on the wall!

Any way after corral veiw we went to a resort call the bay of planty! which sounded better than it was. but the whole place only held 7 people in it so it was very cosy, the view were amazing as our dorm was up on the hill in the jungle!! aghhh! But the food was good and the beds were clean. We only stayed there one night as i (Alex) was ill, very ill. I had caught some sort of food posioning and was livving in a world of hell! i was ill for 5 days but lucklyy i had imodium and some re hydrate things called dioralite which saved me! ( thanks mum and leah, they came in handy).

So the next stop was island long beach! it was a resrt on a very long perfect white sandy beach, perfect for getting myself better, so me and leah just chilled topping up the tan and watching the sun set from our private hut!! (see pics) So we had our tea and settled down for the night as there was no entertainment and no power so we read by oil lamp. So up the next day with our next island in sight....

White sandy beach.... You can guess the set up, another perfect beach, white sandy perfect clear water and sun sun sunsunsun. This was the first place the food started to get better as the further north we were the food was bad, but here was good!! fish loads of fish and salads and potatos and all the fresh fruit you can eat! Perfect... The night entertainment was dancing,mainly the bula dance which is the Fiji isalnd dance, (go on you tube and type in bula dance) which was a right laugh as there was us two and two germans and about 10 Fijians, so the morning came and we were waitin to hop to our next island bounty island.

Bounty island aka 'celebrity love island', the one with Calum Best and Abi Titmuss, yes we were there!!! The place looked similar to when it was on TV but they had removed the massive beds and the kitchen has now been turned into a bar! It was here that we did scuba diving. Leah has a fear ofthe sea so it was quite scary for her. We saw amazing coral and fish and lots of sea cucumbers!! We definately want to do this again, maybe our PADI. We went 9 metres deep. No pictures as the camera would only go 3 metres deep. The food here was lovely we even had a menu and a coice of what to eat! We stayed in a 40 bed dorm which was basicaly a barn almost with a load of bunks. They had turtles on the islnd which they had rescued and we both held one. We loved it here but we were both ready to leave and get ready to head off to New Zealand. We had not had a warm shower for nearly two weeks as they only have cold water on the island, apart from the lst one so we were ready for some home comforts on the main island. Chips and a warm shower!!!!!

So we are doing our laundry today and getting ready to head off to New Zealand tomorrow. But sadly we have had a few losses along the way.... Leah has lost her travel towel and ive lost my trusty red puma hoddie!! it was my only bit of warm clothing! but most of all we have had money/cash stolen from us, $300 USD 150 new zealand and 150 Australian!!! some people hay!!! and we were so so so caerfull god dam it!!!!!!!! We have the fleeces ready as it will be cold!! Keep a look out for our next blog soon from new zealand!!!!

Also here is a link to some moor photos as my bloh is full for this month!! enjoy!!

http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e204/alexstudly/

Alex and Leah

P.S email us direct it would be nice to from you guys!!

So it all began at 9.15am at Prestatyn train station where we boarded the train to London. The tube we needed was closed due to engineering works so we were stuck in Finsbury Park for an hour while we waited for a lift. This felt like we were already abroad!!
Anyway our flight left Heathrow T5 at 11.35am, which meant we had to be up at 4.30am YAWN!!! After an hour traveling through London we arrived at Heatrow, we were slightly aprahensive as to whether our bags would arrive as we had heard nothing but bad news about the new terminal.....they arrived.

We flew for 11hrs to San Francisco and arrived at 2.15pm, but i still had pass port control to get through!! would i be stopped and taken in to a small room or would i get through?? We i'm glad to say i made it through!! Not even a question or funny look!! Perfect!With the temp at 30 degrees along with serious jetlag and made our way to the hostel. On arriving at the hostel we paid and found our room there was nobody else in our 4 bed dorm and we were hoping that we would have the room to ourselves. Resisting the urge to fall and sleep on the lovely metal bunkbeds, we dumped our bags and went into the sunny town of San Fran. We made it until 8.00pm until we finally sucummbed to the land of nod...........until 12.30am when our roomies arrived. Two guys from Venezuela with the worst case of flatulance I have ever heard in my life!! Anyway the rooms in the hostel are cean safe and home for the next 5 days.

Day 1 started with free pancakes that the hostel provide......actually no the day started when Leah who shot out of bed and announced she had locked her padlock keys in her locker along with EVERYTHING! Alex came up with the genius idea of asking reception if they have any bolt cutters. Apparently people do this all the time which the made Leah a little less stupid!! so we got up and then went to catch the old fashioned tram to Fishermans Wharf where we saw Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, the view was amazing! We then walked to Pier 39 where there are around 500 sea lions chillin, catching some rays and spitting on each other and making lots of noise. They don't really do much apart from swimming and spitting and sunbathing but we watched them for about an hour........how sad are we. (Joke) We then went to see the bubber gump shop were they make all things shrimp, like shrimp on toast shrimp burger, shrimp stew, shrimp kebabs, shrimp with rice ,pineapple shrimp!!! you get the picture!! So we then made our way back to the hostel on the tram! yay so much fun...!
When we got back to the hostel we got ready and went out for tea and headed to china town for some cheap tasty food!! We ate the whole meal with chopsticks......arent we clever!!! When we finished we headed back to the hostel passing a shop selling cameras, I Love San Fran T Shirts and fridge magnets, another shop featuring cameras, I Love San Fran T Shirts and Fridge magnets....I think you get the picture...like something from a Scooby Doo cartoon!

Day 2 The visit to Alcatraz! We boarded the ferry at 11.30am, not before another visit to the Sea Lions!!! We arrived at Alcatraz the only way you can, by boat and walked around the island for 2hrs looking around the cell houses etc. It was kind if creepy standing in the spots where inmates had killed people in cold blood and looking at bullet holes and bomb shrapnel where the Marines had to be called in when all hell broke loose during riots. The pictures will do the talking.....Over all it was really cool and is a must for anyone coming over to San Fran

Day 3 We cycled the Golden Gate Bridge! We hired 2 bikes and headed towards the famous golden bridge. It was a scorcher of a day and Als slightly ambitious plan of a bike ride around marin county didnt quite go to plan. We did make it to the Marin Headlands view point looking over the bridge and the bay. The view was absolutely amazing. We sat and ate lunch admiring the beautiful view. The pics are taken where sat for lunch. We found it quite amusing (sickly) that there were crisis counselling telephones on the bridge for where people can call if they are about to jump 200 metres into the sea. There was a sign to say jumping will lead to death...........wasn't that the point????? After the ride we headed back to the hostel for some tea. We were both amazed at how the chinese dominate the huge kitchen with their massive banquet style meals everyday. There are loads of them, seriously their backpacks must be half full of chinese 5 spice and noodles!! Then we headed to bed at about 8pm because we were so tired!

Day 4 & 5 Today and tomorrow are going to be rest days. Chilling out, doing laundry, updating blogs, recuperating energy. We are going to go to a old fashioned burger bar tonight where they serve it in baskets and will probably play fusball with a few bottles of beer in the party room in the hostel!!!

Arguments = 0
Farts = 80 (not from us but our smelly roomies)
Home Sickness = Not a chance
Next Stop = Fiji
Time left= about 5 3/4 months

Anyway guys look out for our next instalment!!! Chow for now LT and Al x x

Well it begins. We (me and my loverly girlfriend leah) leave the UK on the 2nd of sept 08! for an adventure of a life time, starting in sanfran USA, then to fiji then to New zealand then over to OZ. Some of you may allready know some of you may not, so i'll be up dating my myspace and Facebook profiles with pictures and storys and blogs as we travel with nothing but a backpack and and a pocket full of money! so stay tuned to my blogs to see it all unfold!