I don't think we're in Kansas any more!

Welcome to Oz!

We arrived in Australia on 17th May and our 1st taste was of Sydney airport, as we were getting our connecting flight to Perth.

Lovely airport, 'nuff said.

We stayed just outside the city centre of Perth in the Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese district, which was a bit like being in heaven, with all the great food on offer in the restaurants and cheap supermarkets.

The first really striking thing here is the birds and we do not mean the Australian women!

Whereas in London the most exciting bird you'll see is a pigeon, here there are beautiful white and brilliantly coloured parrots that are as common as pigeons back home.

The city of Perth was alright, but the highlight of our stay in Western Australia (W.A.) was our 3 day jaunt to Margaret River and the Wine Tasting Tour.

We stayed in a fab B&B, right in the heart of all the vineyards, a perfect place to pick up our tour. Bushtucker wine tours collected us on their bus and took us out for the day. Our driver and guide was a chap called Sylvano, although Shivani insisted on calling him Sylvador - we still haven't got over her speech impediment!

At lunch we realised why it was called "Bushtucker Tours". We tried a variety of bush foods anti-pasta style, including Kangaroo and a couple of brave souls even had the raw Widgety Grub on offer.

Anyway, 4 vineyards, 1 cheese factory. 1 chocolate factory, 1 brewery, 32 wine tastings and 6 beer tastings later, the bus was very noisy. We blame the Irish group on the tour!

One day we saw a whole load of Kangaroos in the wild, so Andrew tried to sneak up to them to take a photo. We're not sure what gave Andrew away, either his pungent aftershave, or shiny bald head, but the roos made a run for it, so the photo's are from a distance.

As with all good things, they must come to an end, so we headed back to Perth and our Motel, who had kept our room for us. On our last day however, we had an unexpected brush with wildlife - a small mouse had found it's way into our room, just as we were due to check out, thank goodness!

That's it for today's entry. We are currently in Melbourne and it is a fantastic City, very different from Perth, but we'll tell you all about that next time.

Bay of Islands to Auckland

Above you'll see a few more photo's from The Bay Of Islands, plus we had to get one in there of sheep, just to remind you all that we in New Zealand.

The happy chappy with his arm around Andrew is Jason Szabo, who was mentioned earlier in the blog for collecting us from Aucland Airpot on our arrival in NZ. When we finished in The Bay Of Islands on 15th May, we drove down the East Coast, arriving back in Auckland and back where we started at Apex Car Rental. Dropping our trusty Nissan Wingroad back, Jason kindly came and collected us from Apex and took us to stay with his beautiful wife Clare and even more beautiful children Charlie and Thomas in their home in Mission Bay.

Whilst there we got to explore Auckland a bit better (and in the sunshine), plus Jason and Clare took us to see a rugby match on 16th May in the evening.

It was great fun, even though Andrew spent most of the night trying to explain the rules and what was happening to Shivani and was getting it wrong himself most of the time!

A massive thank you to Jason and family for putting up with us for a couple of nights and good luck with your own return to the UK.

Finally, do take a look at the map of New Zealand to see where we have been, as that now concludes our tour with Australia beckoning.

Bay of Islands

Sorry the last entry was so riddled with spelling and grammer mistakes, but it was done in a bit of a hurry and so is this entry, so apologees in advance!

The Bay of Islands were amazing, so much so that we stayed here for 4 nights, the longest, we've stayed anywhere in New Zealand.

The weather was on our side and did lots of things for the 1st time here, such as:

Seeing Dolphins in the wild (a 1st for Andrew at least)

Seeing Penguins in the wild

Seeing stingrays in the wild

Being an integral part of the crew on a yacht (Andrew more integral than Shivani!)

Shivani eating fish!!!!

Just have a look at some of the phot's to get an idea of what we have been up to.....

Sneak Peak of Bay Of Islands

Have a look at this 1st teaser picture from The Bay Of Islands and this other photo we took of a chap who we believe to be a cross between Andrew's friends Dan and Matt. We have named him Damat!

We have also made it easier to leave comments on the blog. Just click to leave a comment and you should no longer have to sign up and input a password. Happy Days!

Motueka, Abel Tasman, Nelson, Wellington, Napier and Hamilton

We've done a lot since last posting, but we'll keep this brief.

We drove to Motueka and based ourselves there for a couple of days. After hunting around for accommodation we found a couple of nice place to stay. One was a backpackers, where we could have a double en-suite room for $60(about 24quid), but Shivani didn't fancy hanging around with soap dodgers, so we opted for the nicer and more expensive nearby hotel with 40" flatscreen TV, Spa bath and luxury kitchen. So much for that budget of ours!

The next day we headed up to a plave called Marahau, which is the base for exploring Abel Tasman and got a water taxi up to Bark Bay, a favoured walking spot. We then walked back through bush, across streams and over a swing bridge, which really did swing(Sivani was very brave!). Once back in Motueka we treated ourselves to a bag of greasy chips and settled in to watch Lord Of The Rings on the flatscreen mentioned earlier.

After all that we drove to Nelson the next day, which was pretty uneventful and prayed for good weather for the following day and our ferry crossing.

At the port in Picton, before the crossing we had a bite of lunch at a traditional Indian restuarant, where Andrew had the best chai he'd ever tasted in a restuarant, but still not as good as Ila Ji's!

We crossed to Wellington nice and calmly, which was good after our lunch and arrived in Wellington.

Drove to Napier the next day and stayed in a B&B recommended in the Lonely Planet Guide called "Sea Breeze", where the rooms are themed. We stayed in the Chinese room, just to get us in the mood for China later on our trip. Napier was nice and styled in art deco, but as the weather was not great we didn't hang around.

We drove to Hamilton the next day, which is pretty much just a stop-over town and then headed up to The Bay Of Islands, which is where we write this from.

It is beautiful here, but more of that in the next blog.........

Video (hopefully!?)

Fox Glacier, Lake Matheson and Tauranga Bay

On our way to Fox Glacier we picked up a hitch-hiking couple, Lila and Scottie, who had been waiting for ages after having done a 3 day hike. We chatted to them for the while and discovered they were Kiwi, exploring their own country and realised we do not do enough of that ourselves, so vowed to do it when we get back. This completed our good deed for the day.

When we arrived at Fox Glacier it was late and dark, so we checked into Fox Glacier Holiday Park on the cheap. To describe our accommodation as Ikea on a budget would be generous, but at least it was clean, convenient and even more importantly; en-suite.

The next morning, after lots of convincing from Andrew, we embarked on a guided hike across the Glacier - see pic and vid(if Andrew managed to upload it properly)

For two people with a fear of heights, we did not do too badly, navigatimg steep climbs, sheer cliff drops, walking through streams and across make-shift foot bridges. The hike took 4hours non-stop, but was worth it for the views and experience. Plus we got a certificate to prove it!

Arriving back into Fox we then headed to Lake Matheson and had a very much earned lunch in the cafe there, overlooking fields and mountains. The walk around the lake was awe-inspiring and definitely one of the most picturesque places so far.

Following an earlier recommendation from Emma and Simon we made our way up to West Port on the coastal road, but headed to stay at "The Great Beach House". We arrived under the cover of darkness and struggled to find "The House" so popped into "The Bay Restaurant" to ask for directions. The friendly chap Peter, told us it was his parents place and pointed us in the right direction. The Great Beach House is owned by Michael and Yvonne, who welcomed us into their absolutely gorgeous home with fantastic Kiwi hospitality. We went back to The Bay House Restaurant and had the best dinner, then retired to Beach House. We awoke for breakfast on 5th May and had breakfast with our hosts; the best breakfast we've had on our journey so far. (The home-baked bread was the best thing since sliced...... you get the picture!) Michael then kindly dropped us off for a walk around the bay, which finished a fab start to the day.

Queenstown (cont.), Milford Sounds & Arrowtown

After updating the blog last time we were absolutely starving, so went to place called Ferzburger, where Shivani had a politically incorrect, but delicious, burger called a "Bun Laden". We carried on exploring Queenstown and stopped of at a bar called "Monty's" with a roaring fireplace - see pic.

On 1st May we left Queenstown and drove to Te Anau, checked in to a charming Japanese B&B and settled in for night ready for our journey the next day to Milford Sounds.

2nd May took a scenic 2hour route to Milford Sounds and joined a cruise around the sounds out to The Tasman Sea, with spectacular views. We stopped of at an underwater observatory, where Andrew was in his element looking at all the fish and crustaceans 3 floors down. We both decided that when we got back, Fish & Chips had to be on the menu!

We then drove to Arrowtown - a beautiful village outside of Queenstown and were told how lucky we were to see the town during Autumn, as even native Kiwis (that's New Zealanders, not the birds!) plan their holidays around seeing the amazing colours in Arrowtown at this time.

It has to be mentioned that during our time in New Zealand and all the driving around we have been doing, there have been some amazing views of snow capped mountains, aquamarine lakes, rivers, streams, rapids, waterfalls, rain-forests and birds of prey. Simply breath-taking!

3rd May, after having brunch with the locals and walking around Arrowtown, we left; destination: Fox Glacier