Hong Pong

(Rich) Hong Kong is far too busy (for us). Singapore is very urbanised but high rise blocks are largely confined to the business district and there are plenty of public spaces. In Hong Kong central everyone seems to live in high rise flats, meaning the streets are always packed, ground level is full of food shops. In many places the hot and humid climate, food waste and pollution means it smells pretty bad.

That said there's loads to do there - particularly shopping (we bought more stuff there than the whole rest of the holiday.) Views from "The Mount" on Hong Kong Island are great, especially at 8pm every evening when the high rise business towers give a spectacular light show.

On day 2 we went to a Zoo cum theme park, which was the best of its kind I've ever seen. Rather than cramming as many animals into small cages as possible and having rubbish rides (a la Flamingo Land when I was a kid) there were only a small number of animal enclosures, each huge and each having some kind of conservation inituiative attached. Highlights were seeing Saw an Hammerhead sharks up close and the Giant Pandas.

That said Hong Kong wasn't our favourite place - 6 weeks is a long time to be away and I guess it was nice to feel ready to come home when we did. Which we are.

It's been the best holiday ever - thanks for sharing it with us.

Paragliding

(Mel) Just got back from my paragliding trip. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for me to jump from Coronet peak so had to do a slightly smaller one from a hill/mountain near Arrowtown half an hour away. Sounds like I am quite lucky though as the wind has been too strong for them to do any jumps in the last 3 days, they risked it with me though and we got a good ride. Was pretty cool floating and dipping around and checking out the mountains - it's such beautiful scenery here in Queenstown. Gliding wasn't scary at all except for the bit at the start where you have to run down and off the hill - very weird sensation. Kinda wish I had time to do a skydive now but I reckon I will do one if I get the opportunity again.

Yesterday we thought we'd be a bit cultured and went on a wine tour. Saw 4 different winerys/vineyards and tasted 17 different wines. Tasty stuff and interesting to learn about it all. Bought a couple of bottles to take home - hopefully we won't smash one like we did when we tried to bring one back from Italy after our honeymoon.

We're off up the mountain in a 'gondola' this afternoon - it's basically a cable car, dunno why they name it after an Italian punt!? We got a ticket that gives us 6 trips down on a 'luge' (kind of tobagan things) and are heading up with some of the others guys from the bus. One more night in Queenstown and then we're off to Christchurch for one day before heading to Hong Kong.

He went up in an aeroplane...

..to 12,000 feet, and then jumped out of it.

(Rich) Tying with snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef as moment of the holiday. I hadn't planned on doing any "adrenaline" activities on holiday but have managed to notch up a few.

Tandem skydiving (unlike scuba diving) needs no skill at all (if you're the passenger). Just jump out when they say, and the big bloke on top of you does everything.

40 seconds of freefall from above the clouds with only the mountains poking up reaching about 130 mph, then gorgeous views as we floated down on the parachute. Slightly apprehensive but the big guy mentioned above had done over 11,000 jumps in 25 years.

Not to be outdone, Mel's doing paragliding tomorrow, jumping off the top of Coronet Peak (about 5000 feet), again with a pro in tow.

Franz Josef

(Mel) Next stop was the little town of Franz Josef, built next to the very impressive Franz Josef glacier. We had a full day walking in the glacier with crampons and pick axes. Another of those 'different planet' experiences as we sepnt a day surrounded by blue ice, exploring crevices and ice caves. You're not allowed to go on the glacier without a guide as it can be unstable/unsafe and in places they have to attach ropes to help you pull yourself up and carve some steps into the ice.

Unfortunately it rained pretty much all day so the views from the glacier weren't as good as they could have been but we still had a brilliant day and didn't mind getting wet. Stayed in a hostel in the rainforest and had a double room after spending the 3 or 4 nights before in dorm rooms. Nice to have a bit of privacy although staying the the dorms has been really good for meeting people.

The Stray driver on this bus is on his last trip as he is changing jobs. We have quite a full bus, with between 15 and 25 people on it at any point and we've had a couple of good nights out with them. Last night we went out in Queenstown around a few bars. We thought we did pretty well getting back to the hostel at 2.30am but the others in our dorm rolled in at 5am and 7am
- still, not bad for the token married couple.

Barrytown

(Mel) We stayed in a place called Barrytown for 2 nights, in a pub which hired out Bob the Builder duvets (!). Again a place in the middle of nowhere with beautiful scenery and lots of interesting things to do. We enjoyed hanging out in the pub with the proper Kiwi locals and 5 or 6 dogs.

We had a great morning designing and carving a necklace each out of bone. 2 of the local guys in the town (of 45 people) have set up a little workshop and helped us to make some really cool (if I do say so myself) Mauri style neck gear. Lots of fun had using the machines and getting to know the guys.

We went to see the 'pancake rocks' - cool rock formations that look a bit like stacks of pancakes. Pretty impressive. Then some of us went for a walk along the beach for a couple of hours which proved to be a great idea. Saw a beautiful sunset, Rich found a nice bit of greenstone (Jade) and we came face to face with a friendly seal which flopped up in front of us.



(Rich) We've been really lucky with wildlife in New Zealand after the whale watching trip got cancelled. Seen native birds in the wild like the Kea (Alpine Parrot) and Pukeko, plus the penguins, and saw some Kiwis in captivity. New Zealand has no native land mammals so birds have thrived, at least until the introduction of deer and possums in the 19th century. We went to a very strange museum all about how all the deer have been shot or rounded up for farming - a process which involved shotguns with nets attached and crazy people jumping out of helicopters to wrestle stags. It's been more difficult to decimate the Possum population (now estimated at 80 million) but the locals have made a national pastime out of trying, usually by trying to run the critters over. Had a possum pie. Tasted like lamb. Nice.

Stray

(Rich) Sorry for not posting for a while. We've been travelling down the West Coast for a week, nearly 300 miles down with a total population of 40,000.

We're with a tour company called Stray who provide the bus but leave you to decide where to stay and what to do. I think it's the best way of getting around when time is short - good way of meeting people too.

We went with Magic Bus in the North Island who are the cheapest, but tend to only go to the most touristy spots. Stray specialise in getting off the beaten track and staying places in the middle of nowhere. Our first night in the South Island was spent at Old Macdonald's farm, just outside Abel Tasman national park, which is gorgeous.

The following day we went sailing in the sea and saw lots of birds, including some very funky penguins (!) and seals.

Wellington

(Rich) Just come back from a Rugby Union match involving Wellington Lions and Tasman Tigers - good laugh, good rugby and cheap tickets. Mel suffered both the sport and the cold for me.

Wellington is smaller than we'd thought but has some pretty cool bits. Spent the earlier part of the day walking up Mount Victoria, perusing the Te Papa Museum and wandering round the weirdest market in the world (I've never seen such junk in my life, and that includes Leamington tip shop.) Off out to eat when we get hungry enough.

(Mel) Our last night in North Island before 10 days or so on the South Island - this is really what we came to New Zealand for so looking forward to seeing the mountains and glaciers etc. We are going to be travelling with 'Stray" - who claim to travel more off the beaten track than some of the other tour buses. Should be good.

3 things about New Zealand surprisingly similar to home

1. Fauna / Wildlife - sheep and cows introduced for obvious reasons, with British grass to feed them. Also Mallard ducks, blackbirds, pigeons, etc, introduced to remind immigrants of home (?).

2. Driving on the left (same as Oz).

3. The queen's face and union flag - shouldn't be surprised but the global British Empire still amazes me.

3 Cool food ideas

1. Tex Mex place with a dish of monkey nuts on every table. You get to chuck the shells on the floor (Taupo).

2. Restaurant which specialises in puddings (around 25 on the menu). Amazing and huge - the tiramisu was roughly double proportions to ther usual one, which on my reckoning makes it about 8 times as big. (Strawberry Fare in Wellington).

3. Another Wellington Restaurant - this time expanding the Tapas idea to non-traditional Tapas foods. A cool way of having several small meals in one.

(Rich)

Waitomo, Roturua, Taupo and Wellington

(Mel) We've spent the last few days travelling from Auckland to Wellington, stopping in some cool places and seeing some pretty amazing things.

My favourite place so far has to be Roturua with all the geothermal activity going on there. It's completely amazing as there are bubbling hot mud pools all over the place with steam streaming out of them. The whole place smells of Sulphur but it didn't bother me as I was bunged up with flu the whole time! We went to see a geyser ''erupt' (with a little help from a guy who turns us at 10.15am every day to put soap powder in it!) and went to an area where you can see about 20 different pools/craters with different mud/water/steam - it was like walking around on Mars or something - a totally surreal other planet type experience - I loved it.

We also went to a Mauri cultural evening in Roturua - which was very touristy but still a good experience. Ate some food that had been cooked underground in the traditional Mauri style and tasted really interesting and smokey and watched a bit of a Mauri performance or the Haka and some other dances and stuff.

In Wellington for the next couple of nights and then onto the South Island.....

Auckland

Did a free day tour of Auckland today and have decided to do a quick tour of North Island with "Magic Bus" and a tour of South Island with "Stray". Off to see whales and dolphins tomorrow and may go up the SkyTower in the evening.

NZ

(Mel) Now in Auckland in New Zealand. Flew out this morning and been exploring this afternoon/evening. We are hoping to go to the "Minus 5" bar tonight to have and icy drink. Just trying to decide whether to do a tour or cover NZ ourselves. Finally found an Internet place that lets us download some more photos so have added some to past entries.

Bye for now....

Dingo no show

(Mel) Well it's our last night in Australia before we fly out to New Zealand tomorrow morning. We've spent the afternoon and evening in Brisbane today since getting a coach here from Hervey bay this morning. Not alot of time to check it out but we had a look around the city centre which was pretty nice. Luckily for us we happened to be here on the night of the start of their 'River Festival'. The opening night consisted of lots and lots of fireworks and some cool fighter jet air displays, finishing with two of them zooming by with loads of fire out the back of them - pretty exciting. Also was loads of street markets and other stuff going on so a good evening out.

(Rich) Fraser island was pretty cool for lots of reasons, but it rained a lot whilst we were there, so I guess we didn't see it in quite its usual glory - more like Britain than we'd hoped. My highlight was driving a 4WD around pretty dodgy dirt (sand) tracks for 3 days, bouncing 10 people around in the back Dr Dre style. We met some great people and had a good laugh but didn't see that much wildlife, and most disappointingly no Dingoes. On getting to Lake Macknzie, one of the world's top 10 beaches apparently, I decided to swim across. A bit scary (no lifeguards) but worth it for the achievement. Next stop New Zealand...