Australia, Singapore, UK, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Australia again.

Leaving the warmest May in NZ ever and arriving into the coldest May in Australia... bit of a shock to the system! Sydney however was first stop, and was still nice 'n warm - just how we remembered!! Had a great time revisiting old haunts and saying g'day to old friends (thanks for having us Charnoiette!)... then onto Melbourne which really was freezing for a mini Bags family reunion. Luvly. Few days mincing around the city, and trying to thaw out before heading on to Perth - luckily (or not so luckily) just before Tiger Airways got temporarily shut down for 'safety issues' (ARGH).

We loved Perth - beautiful beaches, cool CBD, Freo (and Little Creatures brewery), and SUNSHINE! To be returned to.....Next stop Singapore, which was a lovely relief beer price wise! We enjoyed a couple of days mooching around before a quick trip back to the UK....sorry for our carbon footprints! Had a great (brief) time back home before packing our bags once again and hitting the road, a quick stopover in Colombo - amazing food, beer and pool and catch up with friends then onto 2 weeks in Bali. Phew. Time to chill out! Bali = lots of snorkelling, beach sitting, bit of hiking, lots of Bintang and even more food. Man, that Indonesian food is good!! Our aussie visas miraculously got finally issued the day we were due to fly on - talk about good timing!

Final destination for a while - Perth once again.... our new home for the next little while :) Looking forward to it!

Final weeks in NZ

Time to discover the delights of the North Island, luckily the winter held off and we travelled in the hottest May on record in NZ - none too shabby!! Leaving the grapes behind, but with wine in hand we headed to Napier - the art deco capital of NZ, followed by a few days of tramping in Te Urewara National Park - where unfortunately the sandflies were starved of human flesh (us being the only ones in the entire park!) so naturally they took it out on us - argh.

Enjoyed a bit o thermal action in stinky Rotorua before heading to Mt Manganui - awesome surf beach and even more awesome weather - mmmmm. Next stop the Coromandel Peninsula - a land of sun, sea n sand.... did a nice little 8 hour stroll up to the Pinnacles too - spectacular views, very Lost World-esque.

Onwards to north of the north - The Northlands - where the beaches were even more stunning and even more deserted. Attempted some independant caving too.....with only our mobile phones as torches - luckily the glow worms lit the way. Fun times over, time to sell good ole Venus back in Auckland.... which proved to be no easy task, multiple price cuts, advertising attempts, avoiding of scammers and two car fairs later we managed to get rid of her - phew.

Bye bye New Zealand. Next stop 'Stralia!

Life at Flatpoint

Leaving shaky Christchurch behind, we hit the road yet again in search of sun, sea and flushing toilets. Heading up the east coast we made sure we sampled as many vineyards delights as possible in Blenheim (wine country) to educate and prepare ourselves for our new job at Flatpoint farm and vineyard. Next, to Abel Tasman National Park for one of the top walks in the country with jaw-droppingly pristine sandy beaches and sunny skies (glad we didn’t do the whole walk though….9hrs was enough for us!). Met up with Jayne and Sash to travel to the very north of the south island to uber remote Wharariki beach and Pupu springs (the clearest springs this side of Antartica!).

Made it onto the ferry crossing to the north island after only 27 breakdowns (oh Venus, have you had enough of us already??) and enjoyed the sunrise crossing almost as much as the dolphins seemed to, who were playing in the ferry’s surf all the way to Wellington. After being messed about by greasemonkeys, we made it along the 60km gravel track from civilisation to Flatpoint Station (our next job venture) where we were immediately handed a glass of wine on arrival, a sign of things to come! The 9,000 ha coastal estate holds 4 holiday homes, a golf course, air strip, 16,000 sheep, 8,000 cattle, 1 pig and very very few humans (only 6 permanent residents). What have we got ourselves into!?!

The next two months were spent grape picking, gardening, cleaning, pig feeding and seal dodging (our new home being very close to the beach). One month solid work (and extreme isolation) was clearly too much for us and we needed a weeee break, so headed to Whanganui and Tongarairo National Parks. The volcanic Alpine crossing was a definite highlight (Mt Doom territory) as well as the spa and beer afterwards naturally. Also headed up to Lake Taupo and the thermal extravaganza of Orakei Korako (a less touristy but equally steamy and pongy version of Rotorua).

Back to work another month and the amazing microclimate of Flatpoint continued to shine down on us. Jayne and Sasha joined us again for a spot of grape picking with some Irish backpackers and gourmet paua dining (unfortunately grape picking fell on Jaynes birthday but made up for it in evening celebrations with more tasting of Flatpoint’s own wine). Every man and seal at Flatpoint seems to own some form of aviation machinery- Sarah managed to bag a free flight and lesson in a gyrocopter (cross between a helicopter and plane….but nothing like either, which is why Matt could not be persuaded to have a go!).

After an excellent sunny Easter, we have decided it is time to move on before we completely lose our human social skills!! Civilisation here we come………

Life in Christchurch

Hard to know what to say to sum up our 2 and a bit months living in Christchurch - some of the photos show what we got up to and some trips we made in the area pre quake. Christchurch itself was a lovely place to live, with great beaches and nearby mountains to explore. We ended up finding a really good house on Manchester St to live in with a great combo of French, Scottish, Irish and Kiwi housemates (our house quite often resembled the UN!). We had some great times there pre-quake, even started to get used to the aftershocks relating to the September quake, but nothing quite prepared us for Feb 22nd. Although it was very sad leaving Christchurch, it definitely felt like the right thing to do to get out of there, and for all those who have to stay we wish them all the best, hopefully life there will begin to get a little easier as soon as possible. Power has now been restored to almost all the city, so the next step is getting all the Eastern suburbs back on water, then follows the big job of sorting out the CBD.
Next for us.... a spot of grape picking on the North Island, to be surrounded by trees is defintely preferable to buildings for the time being!

The Big South Island Roooooooad Trip

With a happy fully serviced Venus we hit the road.... first stop Lake Tekapo, and what a drive, snowy mountains and thousands of lupins - luvly. An absolute beaut of a lake too, crazy turquoise waters which we couldn't resist leaping in (being glacier water we were pretty darn quick to leap out again). Then onto Mt Cook National Park, found an awesome campsite at the base of a huge snowy mountain, and the weather was amazing. Did several 'tramps' around the mountains there, probably ended up being the highlight of the south island! Tasman glacier was nearby too with a lake filled with ye olde icebergs (obviously we couldn't resist shouting 'icebergs dead ahead...'). Heading on down the coast, there was loads to see en route, like the elephant rocks, odd limestone cliffs, old whale fossils and of course a whole lot of penguin spotting! The Otago Penninsula was definitely THE place to see wildlife, we stumbled across loads of blue penguins, some rare yellow eyed ones too, seals, sealions and very impressive albatrosses (which unfortunately seemed to aim at us!!).

Dunnedin was the busiest place we saw in a while, and we particularly enjoyed the cheap chocolate in the cadburys shop (pretty much the only thing here that we can say is cheap!). Further on round we did more wildlife spotting in the Catlins, and lots of walking around in the rain.... which is where we first realised Venus is most definitely not a waterproof van! After hitting Slope Point, the most southerly point on the South Island, and a suitably cold and windswept end of the earth type of place, we headed to the bright lights of Invercargil - the 'butt' of many NZ jokes.... we could see why! mwahaha.

Spot of caving in Clifden and a chuckle at the Clifden Suspension Bridge (home from home... though they spell it wrong!) then onto wet wild Fiordland. We luckily got a break in the crap weather for a cruise around Milford Sound- beautiful, and the bonus of all the rain was that the sandflies didn't stick around all day (plus the van got nice and clean!). We camped one night in a remote place in the mountains, with one 10km track being the only way in or out of the camp. A gigantic storm hit in the night, we got told in the middle of the night we had to move the van to higher ground, and the whole campsite flooded. The nearby river had burst it's banks, and the rain just kept pelting down. Their prized 1000 yr old tree then came crashing down blocking our exit out of there! There were loads of other landslides further up the road too.... safe to say no one was going anywhere for a while! Luckily it was a nice campsite with a kitchen and a fire, so we all huddled there revisiting the joys of jigsawing!! Eventually we all got escorted down off the moutain, all quite exciting and all that rain made the waterfalls uber spectacular!!

After conquering Ben Lomond it was Christmas time in Queenstown.... possibly the only town in the world to have zero Christmas decorations anywhere!! So not a particularly Christmassy Christmas, but we enjoyed some lugeing down a mountain and some frisbee golf fun, plus of course lots to eat and drink! Headed over to Glenorchy next to do some of the famous Routeburn Track (apparently number 10 in the world's top ten walks), it was lovely though four hours in the rain turned torrential so the last four hours wading back to the car were slightly less lovely! Doh.

Thought it was about time to do some wine tasting, so headed to Bannockburn area, home to muchos wine (and finally some sun!!) so had a lovely old time there, then on to Wanaka for New Years Eve fun - supposedly the most happening place around for nye!? Barbie, band and fireworks = good stuff.

Onwards up the west coast to glacier country. Unfortunately most of the walks up to and around Fox Glacier had been washed away by all the rain, but we did manage to get up close and personal with Franz Josef glacier = very cool. The hot glacier pools there were lovely too. The van by this point was well and truly fed up with the wet conditions and not only leaked everywhere, but the engine conked out several times a day - all a bit hairy when we were passing up and over Arthur's Pass!! We made it back over to the East Coast - phew! What a trip!!