Wellington to Wellington… Done!

From the Marlborough vineyards to the Marlborough Sounds, we crossed the notoriously rough Cook Straight that separates New Zealand’s two islands.  We hit it on a good day (as on a bad the swell can reach 15m!) and it wasn’t long before we pulled into…..WELLINGTON!!!  We spent the next few days exploring the capital city and meeting up with friends (and the Mayor!)  The windy city is also known as the cultural hub of New Zealand, so with this is mind we embraced the movie scene and went to see…Bruno!! We were slightly more cultural when we visited the Te Papa museum which is exactly how a museum should be – with lots of lights, things to touch and buttons top press! Friends we had met in Turkey took us on a ‘tikitour’ round the city before taking us out for what all New Zealanders do at the weekend – go out for brunch.  It’s fair to say the two Wellington’s are worlds apart, in distance and in style!

But this wasn’t the end of our journey and we drove North to Taupo where we took to the skies for a 15,000 ft skydive.  After waiting tentatively for the weather to clear (having a round of golf to pass the time) it was all go at 3 o’clock.  We spent a while getting prepped and changing into our jumpsuits before meeting our skydiving buddies and boarding the plane.  We spiralled our way up to 15,000 ft, taking in the spectacular views, as it wouldn’t be so leisurely on the way down! As the hatch opened and bodies started flying out the plane, the nerves truly began to set in! Kirsty was second and all too soon she was being told to  dangle her legs out the plane! It’s impossible to describe the feeling as you accelerate to 200kph, your face being pulled in all sorts of directions by the speed and you’r desperately trying to breathe properly! The immediate freefall was the quickest minute of our lives and when the tug of the parachute comes, there’s a definite sigh of a relief and you have time to soak in the views as you glide back down the earth.  By the time we were floating, safe in the knowledge that everything had inflated when it was meant to, we watched the sun set over the mountains, the lakes, the forest and the ocean – wow!!  By the way, in the video below we’re the second and fifth (last!) to jump…  kirsty’s not actually smiling, her face just got sucked into that position – she’s 100% terrified!!!

Still on a high we backtracked slightly to get to Tongariro National Park, home to ‘the best one day walk in New Zealand’  We were, however, rewarded with cloudy skies, rubbish visibility and persistent rain and the walk didn’t really live up to it’s high billing.  So we drove our wet selves to Rotorua, a place you can smell before you can see due to the fact it’s a hot bed (haha) of geothermal activity.  The stink has, however, created some pretty spectacular sights and we headed out to Wai-O-Tapa where geysers explode, mud pools bubble and hot springs steam.  Once the smell had got too much, we left to go to New Zealand’s biggest city and our last stop – Auckland.  Here we indulged in some shopping and general chillaxing for the last few days of our mammoth journey.  Oh, and we should probably mention the rugby.  We watched the All Blacks take on bitter rivals, Australia (with Jon Grace!) in the opening game of the tri nations.  The AB’s ground out a victory, which was a fitting end to our time in New Zealand, and the trip as a whole.  Wellington to Wellington – done!!! See you in a few days!

Roving With Roy

Airport disaster number 2: on arrival at Christchurch, Jamie’s bag popped out nice and early but unfortunately wasn’t followed by Kirsty’s…As the empty carousel went round and round it became clear that one piece of luggage had decided to hang around in Sydney for a bit longer!  What stafted as a bit of a nuisance turned into a full on inconvenience when it still hadn’t turned up a week later.  Kirsty’s one outfit wardrobe was struggling in the New Zealand winter and her £16 emergency fund from Jetstar didnt go very far.  Still, we battled on and it was a happy day when it finally arrived (missing only one thing – one of Jamie’s souvenirs!  We felt right at home in Christchurch, a city which bears a string resemblance to Britain, overcast skies included.  Also in town were the All Blacks and we definately passed a few suspiciously beefy boys in tracksuits that day.  Christchurch was also where we met Roy, our travelling companion for the next month.  He’s a nice kiwi boy that takes unleaded and also happens to have four wheels!  We decided that a campervan was the best way to explore NZ so for the past two weeks we have been cruising around the country, stopping where we please and generally making things up as we go along.  We had a rather shakey start as Jamie was verbally abused coming out of the carpark and told to ‘learn how to f**king drive’!!  That he did and we were soon motoring towards Lake Tekapo, a beautiful turquoise lake with an idyllic little church perched on its shores.  Next stop was Mount Cook and whilst we didnt summit this time, our boots got a workout on some of the surrounding walks.  We headed up the Hooker valley to the frozen glacial lake where the constant cracking of ice and small avalanches echoed through the silent surroundings.  If we’re sounding quite brief it’s because NZ’s trump card is its spectacular natural beauty everywhere you go and if we told you about every time we stopped the car to take a photo, we’d be here for decades!

Driving past Twizel, Omaramu – for some emergency warm footwear, Lake Pukkaki, we reached Queenstown, dubbed ‘adventure capital of the world’  Saving the more exciting things for the way back we went on an ‘extreme’ walk around the beautiful bay.  Our next destination was the stunning Milford Sound via Te Anau and the notoriously dangerous but amazingly scenic Milford Road.  We arrived in tact and boarded a boat which took us out to the Tasman sea under glorious blue skies, under waterfalls and past seal pups who had come out to say hello.  We had noticed by now that the New Zealand folk are among the friendliest we’ve met on this trip – one example being the lady at the information centre in Te Anau who lent Kirsty a pair of traniers for the weekend and even gave her directions to pick them up from her back garden, all after meeting us for the grand total of about 10 minutes!!

We returned to Queenstown and this time indulged in some Jetboating up the Shotover canyon.  Close shaves and 360′ spins are all good fun and the heart starts pumping when you see the red paint from the boats scraped onto the rocks!  Driving from Queenstown to the West coast was a bit of an adventure, having to fit snow chains twice ans crossing a pass that was borderline closed.  We managed to stick to the road as others around us didnt.  You can probably gather that the NZ winter is a bit nippy and we were thankful for Roy’s plug in heater!  The West coast is home to two famous glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef and we visited both, donning crampons for Fox and doing a pretty cool glacier walk (excuse the pun..!)  We were lucky to find some ice caves which we scrambled through completely enclosed by the blue ice.  We stopped at Greymouth, which was grey, Nelson, and NZ’s smallest national park, Abel Tasman.  We explored the coastline in kayaks, passing amazing beaches abd paddling alongside hundreds of shags (they’re birds!) The weather was in our favour and we had a great day out on the turquoise waters.

Our last stop in South Island was the Marlborough region famous for its wine.  We gave Roy the day off and switched to two whells to cycle round some of the vineyards.  7 vineyards and a liquor store later we decided to call it a day and the 40+ wines we tasted meant we slept well on our last night in the beautiful south.

Aussie Rules

From Singapore to Sydney, we spent a great 5 days with family enjoying the comforts of a sofa, a double bed and home cooked food! Despite being there in the middle of an Australian winter, we still fitted in a birthday trip to the Blue Mountains which looked eerily beautiful in amongst the mist.  We also experienced an Aussie Rules football game and witnessed the Sydney Swans loose to the Melbourne based Collingwood Magpies.  After a quick run through of the rules we were ready to go and really enjoyed a few hours of Aussie mayhem!  Exploring the city was great fun, wandering around the iconic Harbour bridge and Sydney Opera house and taking the ferry across to Manley where dedicated surfers were out catching the waves.  Darling harbour was the setting for a catch up with two Sydney-ites we had met in Turkey and India and we reminisced over some cold beer by the harbourside (only in Australia could you drink outside in the depths of winter!)  No Sydney would be complete without a visit to Bondi beach and seeing Koalas and Kangaroos so we paid a visit to this famous stretch of sand and hung out with the hopping marsupials at Koala Park.  We also had a chance to catch up with relatives from down under who we havent seen for years which was lovely.

All to soon it was time to say goodbye and we boarded our flight to Christchurch to begin the very last stretch of our journey…

Singapore Fling

We arrived in the squeeky clean city of Singapore and settled down in Little India, which for the record is nothing like actual India!  Arriving late we werent very tired so went for a midnight shopping spree at the Mustafa Centre, a 24hr shopping mall that is suprisingly busy in the wee hours of the morning with people stocking up on toiletries and electrical appliances!  Battling through the humidity, the next day we wandered through the Botanical gardens, along the swanky shopping streets and down to China Tpow, taking refuge every now and again in the numerous air conditioned shopping malls.  As we weaved in amongst all the high rise buildings and past old colonial buildings, we found ourselves down by the marina and, much to Jamie’s delight, the Formula 1 race track.  And as all tripd to Singapore demand, we stopped off at the Raffles hotel for an extortionate Singapore Sling.  Although it cost more than our accommodation for the night (!) and was quite disgusting, we made up for it in the amount of monkey nuts we consumed, where you just throw the shells on the floor to join the ever expanding piles under your feet!

To appreciate the city’s magnificent skyline, we climbed (I say climbed – we got the lift) up 70 floors to the top of the Swiss Hotel which gave an amazing view over the awesome city.  Despite the heat, we both thoroughly enjoyed Singapore and if we were rich enough to indulge in the many, many shopping and eating delights that abound, it would have been even better!!

Monkey Business

We left island life, heading further south to what the adverts dub ‘Asia, truly Asia’ – Malaysia.  Dumped in Kualu Lumpar in the early hours of the morning, we grabbed a few hours kip before setting out to explore.  First stop was China Town for some breakfast – Rice and pork (!) and then on to secure our tickets to go up the Petronas Towers (for Jamie to get his engineering fix!)  With this booked we hung around the swanky Golden Triangle, and area that holds the fashion houses of Gucci, Hermes and Chanel as well as Accessorize, Gap and Marks and Sparks!  Our afternioon trip up to the skybridge at the Petronas Towers afforded great views over the city which I’m sure are even better from the top!  That evening we headed back to China Town which was buzzing with street vendors and stalls selling clothes, watched DVD’s and anything else you might possibly need.

It was a short but sweet 48 hours in the capital, but it was time to head east where the exotic allure of Borneo was calling.  Not sure what to expect we touched down in a roasting Kota Kinabalu (even the place names are exotic!) and starting investigating.  Although the capital holds nothing that special it does have excellent medical facilities (as Kirsty discovered..!) and a pretty awesome night fish market.  With only a week on the island, time was of the essence and we headed swiftly out to the Kinabatang River and the surrounding rainforest.  After a bus and a boat ride we reached camp spotting lots of birds and monkeys on the way, including the proboscis monkey, possibly the ugliest looking primate that exists! A night boat ride was a great experience as we rode gently down the river, the sky studded with stars, our guids pointing out wildlife along the way.  After surviving an epic rainstorm that night and the tree that fell down right next to our hut, we took to the water once again in search of orangutans.  We kept our eyes peeling for any flashes of orange and we didnt have to wait long before we caught a glimpse of these adorable animals swinging between the trees.  As they moved from branch to branch you cant help but feel sad when you hear the chainsaws in the distance and everywhere you look palm plantations are taking over the native rainforest.  Not all of Borneo has suffered, however, and the drive back towards Kota Kinabalu offered spectacular views of pristine rainforest that was truly wild and beautiful.

Borneo’s other big hitter, Mt Kinabalu was now awaiting us and we arrived at the park psyching ourselves for the 4,000m ascent we were to embark on the next day.  Having lost most of our fitness from the Everest trek, the sheer uphill climb was tougher than imagined (for Kirsty at least!)  After climbing what was effectively a 1200m staircase, we reached home for the night.  I say for the night, which is perhaps a bit misleading as to reach the summit for sunrise, a 2 am start is required! Donning our headtorches, or mobile phone light in Kirsty’s case, we began the ascent that involved us hauling ourselves up on rope for about 3/4 of the way.  We were incredibly unlucky with the weather and reached the peak in a torrential downpour and a sunrise that wasnt really there! So it was a quick stop at the top before heading all the way back down to the park.  Weather conditions aside it’s pretty cool to say you’ve climbed the highest mountain in SE Asia! It was back to Kota Kinabalu for the last few days to rest our feet before our next destination – Singapore.

Life’s a Beach

We drove past Tesco’s, Boots, McDonalds, Starbucks…where are we you might ask? Thailand of course! Bangkok to be specific. We arrived in the capital, for the second time, and headed to backpacker central, Koh San Road – a very bizarre place! Hundreds of travellers fill the street browsing the endless T shirt stands, Thai girls in non existent dresses try to lure you into their bar (many with slogans such as ‘very strong alcohol’ and ‘we don’t ask for ID’!!) and of course the standard fat Western man with his teeny tiny Thai girl attatched to his arm! Koh San Road is a bit of a freak show, but it was home for the night and the next day we spent exploring some of Bangkok’s sights including the huge golden reclining Buddah and Chatachak market in the hope of expanding our DVD collection with numerous cheap movies. We arrived on a dud day, however, and all that awaited us was stall upon stall of plants and garden equipment! Somewhere the parents would probably have enjoyed a lot more than we did!! A lot of people dismiss Bangkok as a grubby capital, but compared to cities like Delhi and Kathmandu, to us it felt squeeky clean and pretty!! Strapped for time we dicided to ditch culture and head to the beach instead. So we spent 4 days on the beautiful island of Phi Phi, admiring the clear sea as we rocked from side to side in a hammock, beer by our side. Under the amazing Thai sun we explored nearby coves and islands by longboat, snorkelling along the way, but the real highlight has to be Maya Bay where Leonardo DiCaprio set up camp for the film ‘The Beach’ back in 2000. Safe to say, it is one of the most beautiful places either of us have been to, the white sand and clear turquiose sea looked just like a postcard, yet the photos don’t even seem to do justice to just how gorgeous it was!!! Sorry, I’m gushing!!! Coming back from our boat trip we watched the sun set in one direction and the Full Moon rise in another. In Thailand, the full moon means one thing and one thing only – party time!! Although most people headed to Ko Phangan for the official Full Moon party, Phi Phi hosted its own version with a lot of music and a lot of fire! The island was a great place to chill out, eat amazing Thai food and we even managed to find a huge screen playing the French Open (we did say we had forgone culture for this part of the trip…!) All too soon it was time to say goodbye to island life and we boarded the night bus that would take us to Kuala Lumpar.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the strange goitre-like growth on Jamie’s chin in the video isn’t the result of too many green curries, but is in fact an infected mosquito bite – nice!!

Angkor What?!

Short but sweet, Cambodia was where we got to see the spectacular temples of Angkor. The site is huge so we tuk-tuked out to the far temples, of course taking in the most famous, Angkor Wat. Our favourite, however, was the Byon temple with hundreds of faces carved into the rock, staring down at you from above. You really appreciate how old these temples are when you see the giant tree roots forcing their way through the cracks in the stone. The second day we used man power and cycled to the closer temples, including the Tomb Raider temple (to use its official name..!) made famous by Miss Croft/Jolie. Sods law, the day we cylce we get caught in a couple of torrential downpours and no amount of hiding in the bushes could shield us from this rain! Oh how the locals laughed!! To soothe our aching feet we made an appointment with Dr Fish…who is he you might ask?! He’s not so much a doctor, but a tank full of flesh eating fish!! Supposed the eat away the dead skin leaving you soft and supple, we decided to give it a bash. I can see why this therapy hasn’t taken off in the UK but having hundreds of fish muching on your toes was an experience none the less (albeit a very stange one..!)

Monsoon? What Monsoon?!

We clicked our bodies back into place once we arrived in Vientiene, a clean and modern city but ultimately quite boring. We hung around long enough for Jamie’s material he had bought in India, and lugged around, to be turned into a custom tailored suit! We then hot footed it up to Luang Prabang, a charming French colonial town on the banks of the Mekong river. In amongst general relaxation, we visited the Wat Xieng Thong temple and made the sweaty climb up to watch the sunset over the town. We were up early the next morning to witness the unique tradition of alms giving as the monks from the local monasteries parade around town in their saffron robes, collecting food. We hope our donation of instant noodles will be put to good use…!! Next stop was Vang Vieng, which couldn’t be more different from Luang Prabang. We weren’t even trying to kid outselves that this was the ‘real’ Laos as it seemed the whole of England had migrated here and Friends was playing in every bar! But it is the place to go if you want to go tubing – the ‘sport’ which involves sitting in an inflated tractor tyre and floating down the river, stopping off at the numerous bars along the way. As we glided leisurely along, basking in the sun, we wondered where the supposed monsoon had got to, the weather has been nothing short of fantastic – we have the burn marks to prove it! From party town to small village we found ourselves on Don Khon, one of the 4,000 islands that are created as the Mekong spectacularly fans out. It was lovely getting back to nature, quite literally as we were woken by cockerals every morning, and we hired bikes to explore every nook and cranny of the island. Even in a remote location such at this, Jamie was able to find someone who had heard of the Champions League and spent a rather depressing night watching it with a group of locals and the whole of the island’s mosquito population. Never mind, the thought if Angkor Wat kept him going.

Vite Nam

We should probably start this entry with our little mishap at the airport… Arriving with our big rucksacks, the scene could not have been more different to the chaos that had greeted us on previous visits, in fact all that was missing was the tumbleweed. After tentatively enquiring with the lone steward, we were politely told that our flight no longer existed, and hadnt done for the past six months; a fact completely unbeknown to us. To their credit, Thai airways had moved us onto the next flight and put us up in Kathmandu’s original five star hotel (complete with bell boys and a chauffer driven car!), totally free of course, with complimentary dinner and breakfast, all in the space of about 20 minutes. Feeling we had done rather well out of the situation, we took full advantage of our ‘misfortune’, leaving the next morning for Thailand and a brief stopover in the capital city.

Arriving in Vietnam, we based ourselves in the charming old quarter of Hanoi, a fast paced city with a real buzz to it. Here, motorcylces and bikes rule the roads while the pavements are packed with plastic furniture, the kind a five year old might play with, around which locals munch on a bowl of steaming pho (noodles) or com (rice). We must have looked like giants sat hunched over the minature tables, but who cares when the food tastes as good as it does?! Another of Hanoi’s cultural ‘mut sees’ is the water puppet theatre; novelty value will get you so far, but an hour of wooden dolls thrashing about was testing!!

Our first excursion out of Hanoi was to the Perfume Pegoda and was the first chance to see the Vietnamese countryside, which is truly beautiful. We were rowed up the river, gliding gracefully through the water surrounded by lush jaggedy hills. After a brief stop at one of the temples, we cauight the cable car up to the main shirine enclosed inside a cave, with Buddhist monks praying and chanting, before heading back down the waters. Our next trip was to Halong Bay, probably Vietnam’s most famous destination and our most anticipated. We spent two days sailing through the sparkling waters in amongst the huge limestone formations that jut ouf of the sea. Stopping to swim and kayak beneath the baking sun, it was two days of pure bliss and a night on the boat made the trip even more enchanting. Strapped for time, we quickly moved on to Mai Chau, a wonderfully relaxed rural village full of rice paddies, water buffalos and chickens. We hired bicycles and cycles 42km around the surrounding villages, stopping off to refresh ourselves with some local beer – we wern’t brave enough to sample the local tipple that evryone else seemed to be trying in shots at midday!!! The scenry was amazing, the paddies were an insane shade of green and it was lovely to be somewhere so calm after the madness of Hanoi. Rushing back ready to catch the night bus to Loas, we arrived only to be told that our visas weren’t ready and so we were left with an extra day in Hanoi – not such a bad thing as it just meant more time to indulge in the delicous food! When we did finally leave the next day on our mammoth 22 hour bus journey, our mode of transport wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for. It was a local bus, which is fine, what was not fine, however, was the huge mound of bricks that were piled up on the floor that meant we were unable to straighten our legs for the duration of the trip!

Vietnam was a beautiful country, every bit as exootic as we had imagined and although we are hopping swiftly through SE Asia, the tasters we’ve had so far are very promising…

On Top of the World

After a night packing haphazardly in the dark, the morning of our trek got off to a not so smooth start.  Kirsty awoke before the alarm – unheard of and can only mean one thing (sketchy buffalo dumplings the night before perhaps?!) and Jamie’s nose started gushing blood.  Bodily problems aside, Kirsty’s bag zip decided to break again, so whilst she tried to fix this, Jamie ran off to the cash machines that decided not to give him any money.  On top of this, the ‘guaranteed’ laundry service had failed to do our laundry (the same had happened in Varanasi – these clothes were pretty dire by this point) so we were about to begin an 18 day trek with absolutely nothing clean to wear.  It was all going swimmingly.  Nevertheless, we set off to the airport to be greeted by an unusually busy departures lounge and mounds of luggage – an ominous sign.  Sure enough, after 4 hours of waiting we were told all flights to Lukla were canceled due to bad weather – oh joy.  Keeping our fingers crossed, the next day we headed to the airport for a second time and fortunately luck was on our side.  The propeller driven flight lasted 45 terrifying minutes but we landed, in tact, on the world’s steepest runway.  Scrambling among the plane wreckages than line the airstrip (only joking) we had a quick bite to eat before hitting the trail for the first time.  The initial days walking was pleasantly downhill but the 800m ascent to Namche the following day certainly gave our city legs a workout.  We had our first taste of high altitude headaches and our first taste of the surprisingly god altitude cuisine (sherpa stew has become a firm favourite).  Being this high required an acclimatization day so we joined the yaks on the path to Thamo, where we joined the local monks in a cup of Tibetan tea and some boiled potatoes!! We were climbing again the following day en route to Kumjung, stopping off at the luxurious Everest View hotel for a hot lemon served in a wine glass (!) and to admire the panorama of Everest and co.  As we left the busy Everest trail, we arrived at Dole where we met our fellow traveling companions to be – an eclectic but very fun group of people that included a mother daughter combo (on their way to meet daughter’s boyfriend who is climbing Everest), a pair of Aussie rockers not afraid of sampling the local brew, and a Californian distance runner who was always streaks ahead of the rest of us!  On our first night together we huddled round the wood (and by wood we mean yak poo) burner taking it in turns to join the Nepali’s in a local dance (we both managed to escape this!)

We arrived again, in dribs and drabs, at Machermo (home of the supposed Yeti) and the next day at Gokyo.  Set on the edge of a series of turqouise glacial lakes, this was one incredibly beautiful location and the whole reason for venturing up this valley.  With Kirsty’s feet in tatters, Jamie headed up to the fifth lake to drink tea with a group of Kazachstani’s hoping to summit Cho-Oyu.  Kirsty meanwhile was being force fed vodka and Parma ham (?!) by a group of jovial Russians.  Drinking at 4800m isn’t usually reccommended by the guidebooks but we were up bright and early the next morning to climb Gokyo Ri (5400m) at 5 am.  It was a relentless uphill struggle but worth it as we sat and enjoyed a Snickers surrounded by some of the world’s highest mountains and gorgeous lakes.  Given the early start we had time to trek to Dragnag, crossing Nepal’s largest, and lunar like, glacier where a bowl of steaming sherpa stew awaited us!  We woke up prepared for what was likely to be our toughest day as we were about to cross the Cho-La Pass, and boy were we right!  We were ‘eased’ into it with a 2 hour uphill slog before reaching the bottom of what can only be described as a good 100m of near vertical rock.  Trekking turned to scrambling as we spent the next 2 hours picking our way to the top (5420m)  The hard work paid off as we crossed the immense glacier – truly beautiful.  We were also given a digestive by a rather dishy Swedish boy, which made Kirsty’s day!  What goes up must come down, as they say, and a steep descent eventually brought us to Dzongla, where much needed food and rest were had.  The next day was, thankfully, much, much easier and after a few hours walk we reached Lobuche, back on the Everest highway.  The appearance of 3  Mountain Rescue helicopters reminded us just how dangerous this altitude is, but fortunately aches and pains aside, we were both feeling fine.

From Lobuche we moved to out highest sleeping altitude, Gorak Shep, at 5100m.  Powering through, we walked through the snow to Everest Base Camp, which had seen a huge avalanche that morning (everyone was ok).  A sea of tents covered the icy floor, including one that was wafting a rather nice smell of apple pie our way, so we indulged – apple pie at Everest? You can’t not!!! Location is no obstacle for the Base Camp bakers!

The next day we dragged our weary bodies up to Kala Pattar, 5545m and 50% oxygen, where the prayer flag bedecked peak await us with fine 360 degree views.  We had finally made it to the highest point of our trek and we felt pretty flippin’ proud of ourselves for reaching it!!! And the thought of a solid downhill journey also put a smile on our faces! It only took a few days to descend and we celebrated in Lukla with a Starbucks coffee (totally genuine of course…!!)

We had walked in total, almost 6,000m into the sky on an amazing trip – although it was lovely to arrive back in Kathamdu and indulge in a hot shower and a fresh pair of socks!!!!