There she blows!

One of the few snaps of our mad glacier hike (too busy climbing up, over, through, round, between, accross a large lump of ice to stop and take photos!)

(17th time lucky! Time to get broadband I think!)

Us with our trusty van (the smaller one!), which took us 4,200 kms and only suffered one minor injury when I drove off without unplugging the power cable!

Some giant marbles (the Moeraki Boulders)...

Photos (and home) at last! A bit spaced out after spending what seems like three days on a plane, so straight to some pics now I can get them here!

First stop was Singapore, which we had a pretty good view of out of our hotel room...

Hello All! We are finally in Auckland after our five day mad dash around the North Island. I have to say I'm most impressed with how much we have packed in!

After Wanganui, we went to the Waitomo Glow worm caves, which were fantastic! We went on our tour through the caves to the 'Cathedral', where the Tenors and Kiri Te Kanawa have sung, and a member of our group sang a little hymn for us all - amazing! Then we went on a boat through the caves to see the glow wornms - lots of little blue lights highlighting the caves for us.

We then drove on Rotorua for the thermal pools - all very foul smelling like sulphur! The pools were all sorts of colours, including one which one luminous snot green - nice! We then went onto the Bay of Islands (where James' relatives used to live, but sadly don't anymore!), which were beautiful!

We visited Waitangi where the famous treaty was signed, where basically the Maori gave away sovereignty of their land, in return for 'protection' from the Crown. It was us or the French! We then took a mad day trip up to Cape Reinga, which is the northermost tip of New Zealand. To get there we took a coach along ninety mile beach (in fact only 50 miles long), but had to drive on the sand and sea to get there! Very cool!

We arrived in Auckland last night, and today I have been dragging James round the famous Xena beaches (all VERY interesting) with the black sand, etc. which got all over the van. Luckily, the hire comapny didn't notice today when we handed it in, nor the electircal cabel that James managed to break by driving away with it still attached to the van! OOPS!

Off to Fiji in two days for a short break, and then it's back to the UK by the end of the week! Am typing this whild drunk - i hope it all makes sense! Take care!

Greatings from Whanganui! We're in a nice campsite at the mo... strange I should mention that except that last night we camped in a carpark in the middle of Wellignton!! Very handy for Te Papa in the morning but a little strange! We handily arrived off the ferry in Wellington just as a Rolling Stones gig was kicking out down the road - 45000 people descended on our bus! EEEEEEKKKKK!!!!


We went to the Lord of the Rings exhibition in Te Papa, which if you're a fan is fantastic! All the costumes, behind the scenes stuff (although it's all probably on the DVDs), and a fantastic device that takes photos of you in that weird perspective, so i looked even shorter than James! Very cool for me, but James was bored senseless!

We are currently in the world's most deserted caravan park, but it's clean and we had a good nights sleep (compared with the noise of SH1 !) The roads actually have more than one lane in the N Island, and everyone drives like they do in London, cutting up our 6metre long bus!

Anyway, it's off to Waitomo for the Glow Worm cabes today, and then onto Rotorua for the thermal spas! Huzzah!

Yes Millwall are relegated - you wanna make somefing of it?

Just a quick post today as we need the internet time to work out where we're staying tomorrow night! (There could be a handy place right in the centre of Wellington if we can find the number! That or outside the IBM building!!)

Just had to post about the whale watching though -- we saw FOUR! I went whale watching a few years ago but just looked at the sea for three hours so this was awsome. We went straight to the first one and had seen three withing the first hour! Brilliant. We even saw a masive pod of dusky dolphins on the way back!

A bit of an aside: New Zealand takes "Bio Security" very seriously. Not just at the airport but all over the place, with signs of doom about cleaning shoes, equipment and everything, including dogs which you should aparently leave to dry for 48 hours! So if you ever declare war on New Zealand I recommend just dropping seeds on them!

Looks like we've been neglecting the blog again. Far too busy on our mad dash around the south island; we've now reached Kaikoura, almost round the whole coast to where we started. I'm struggling to remember everything we've done on the way but a few highlights have been the Shotover jetboat, the Franz Joseph glacier, seals and pancake rocks, and we've been to the centre of New Zealand. We did a helihike on the glacier which was a bit of a shock, especially to Jo, since there was no soft tourist option on our hike because one of the two guides was doing a tour for one. That left the rest of us with mad Troy who, it turns out, usually does day hikes... but we only had two hours on the ice! If there was a flat bit he managed to navigate round it completely! It was fantastic though, and afterwards we decided we'd earned our fist night in a cabin, which included a free go in their spa! Nice!

Still no pics- none of these terminals have any kind of ports available! How does anyone post pictures on the road?! Might have to wait until we get home. Hopefully have some good ones if they survive the trip and tomorrow we're off to spot some whales, so should have loads of sea pictures too! (Still, we get an 80% discount if the whales don't show up... or is that a plastic whale I see at three miles due east?!)

Happy Easter everyone!

Doh, no way to load up the photos (all in glorious sunshine of course!) here either!!! You'll just have to take our word for how amazing the scenery is here :)

We've been busy making our way down to the far south of the south island the last few days, probably as far south as we'll get, unless antartic holidays get a bit cheaper! We've also been meeting up with some relos (jt's) on the way; thanks again for the free campsite and lovely meal John and Sandra!

We are now in Te Anau at a very posh campsite (well worth the 5 stars!) and are shortly to go out for pizza, which we've been craving since Singapore! Wonder if they do New Zealand lamb pizzas...

Tomorrow we've booked a trip to Doubtful Sound, so we'll be bobbing about taking in the beautiful vistas for 8 hours (nice break from driving), then afterwards we'll be heading off to Wanake and Queenstown.

Hope you're all well.

Jo and jt

We are here in New Zealand!

Just to recap on Singapore - we went on a night safari on our last night, which was utterly fab! We were in a tram car going through the forest, and some of the animals (deer, etc) just wandered up to the tram! However, the lions, tigers, rhinos, and hyenas were behind suitable fences, so no danger there! Since us Brits are so concerned with the weather, it was amazing to see our first torrential downpour in Singapore - you can literally see and hear it coming, but you can't outrun it - we tried! They last about 20-30 minutes, and it comes down in sheets, and you can't see buildings 100 metres away! Completely mental. However, within 5 minutes of it stopping it's ruddy boiling again!

Another sleepless night on a plane but worth it to be able to step outside without turning into a ball of sweat... and inside without the need for arctic weather gear to protect you from the air conditioning! Christchurch is lovely and cool, and actually a bit chilly! No idea what we are going to do here as we still haven't read the guide books - some winging it will have to occur, which is torture for a planner like me! We are off for some tucker so you lot, get back to work :)

Jo & jt

Greetings from sunny Singapore! It's extremely warm and humid, and we have already worn and washed all our clothes! Still, it beats being at work (ha ha!). Hope you are all well in rainy England. Mwahahahahahah!

So far we have been on a guided tour of the city, only to discover there are no defining landmarks in Singapore. However, food is fabulous, and we are both suffering from rich food overdose or perhaps it was the Singapore Sling in Raffles????!

Hotel is lovely, however we did have to endure the nightclub thumping away for one night before we got upgraded to a fabulous room! The Barnett tradition of whingeing continues!

Tonight is the 'Night Safari' although it could be like my sister's (and my Mum's - jt) infamous whale watching - all watching and no whale!

We will put some pictures up as soon as we find somewhere to load them. Next stop - New Zealand! Yay!

Jo (& jt)

Eeek, still haven't started packing!

Following the Savilles

This time next week we'll be on a plane... for a long time! Looks like it's going to be worth it though...

http://www.savillestravels.com/NZ.html
http://www.savillestravels.com/fiji.html

Can't wait!

What to do in Singapore

We still haven't done too much thinking about what we'll actually be doing when we finally arrive at any of the places on our trip (well, what else will we be doing on the plane?!) but thanks to Hannah, who provided the following top tips, we've got a few more ideas for the first stop! Iparticularly like the sound of the roof-top bar and nature reserve.

• Eat in a Hawker market
• Eat in an upmarket restaurant, e.g. Sebastian's, Ar-Men or PS Cafe
• Look at the views from the top of the Swiss hotel
• Drinks at the post bar, Fullerton Hotel, or the Loof (roof top) bar
• There's the infamous Boat Quay and Clarke Quay
• Go for a walk at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
• Take a stroll through Chinatown
• "Do" Orchard Road

First call for flight to freedom

There are still plenty of work days before the final call but the tickets
arrived yesterday, so it's beginning to feel more real. It won't be long
before I'm standing in a hotel in Singapore having realised what I forgot
to pack; I always forget something when I travel and I'm hoping it's not
something I discover at Heathrow check-in... like my passport for example!

(If you're reading this then, a) the mail-to-blog thingamy works, which is
good because I'm expecting to use it when we're on the road, and b) you
clearly don't have enough to do!)

This is a journey...

...but not into sound, even stereophonic sound.

It is, perhaps predictably, a global circumnavigation, although only just, given that, if all goes to plan, it only includes 3 stops and 1 slight pause on the way. The plan is very simple: starting in Southampton we drive past the very handy local airport (not so handy in this case) to fly from London to the first stop in Singapore. Spend three nights in Singapore forgetting about all that boring work related nonsense. Onward to Christchurch in New Zealand, with a couple of nights to recover from all that flying! Spend the majority of April meandering round New Zealand in a camper van which, it turns out, is almost as long as our house! With luck we'll hand in a completely undamaged van in Aukland and spend a few nights recovering from all the driving! Next stop is Fiji for three more nights trying to forget about the impending return to reality, followed by a tiny pause in LA to swap planes before heading back home to collapse in a big heap!

Hmmm, it seemed a lot longer than that when we planned it! Oh well.

Watch out world, we're on our way!