We decided to leave Chandigargh in search of somewhere a bit quieter and a bit cooler so we thought we would head north towards the Himalayas. We had heard from a lady on our plane to Chandigargh that the best way to go north was by the 'toy train' from Kulka. This seemed like the best option as the train ride is meant to be very scenic whilst the roads are windy and busy. The day started off well with a tuk tuk to the train station and we caught the first train ...

We had a bit of a mammoth journey from Auckland to Chandigargh involving a sleepless night at auckland airport, then a 6am 4 hour flight to Brisbane, a 6 hours waiting at the airport, a 7 hour flight to Singapore, then another 4 hours waiting at the airport followed by a 6 hour flight to Mumbai. By this point we were a bit disorientated from passing through too many time zones, eating too much plane food and generally not getting any sleep so our first challenge ...

After 3 slow hours on the ferry (unluckily sat next to the noisy children's play area) we arrived in the capital city of Wellington. We picked up our new car - a very tiny Toyota Corolla and headed into the city to see the sights. Our first stop was unsuccessful- £3 for 30 minutes parking and we thought that our car had broken down as it wouldn't restart! It turned out that you have to put your foot down extra far on the clutch as a safety feature, sounded a bid...

After leaving Dunedin we headed north along the coast with a stop to see the Moeraki rocks (perfectly spherical metre wide rocks formed by by debris accumulating around a pearl) and the town of Oamaru (for a cheese platter direct from the factory) before heading inland through some stunning glacial scenery to Lake Tepako. The lake is incredibly blue due to a fine sediment in the water which refracts the sunlight and it's a beautiful spot. After polishing off the ...

We left Te Anau and headed south to drive along the 'Southern Scenic Route'. The first stop was at a place called Tautapere for lunch, apparently the place has world famous sausages so Ben put in a request for an early lunch. These turned out to be ok but we were a bit disappointed as they are nowhere near as good as the Jones farm sausages! We continued on to Bluff and did a long walk along the peninsular in the hope of seeing some more brown seals but they must...