We got back to Sydney for Christmas and had a wonderful Christmas with Simon’s folks. They made us feel part of the family and they are just wonderful people. On Boxing day we started it with a run and a swim and then we went up to friends of Simons. They have a ski boat and Simon had organized for us to go skiing. We had a very early start the next morning(04:00 wake-up call). This was so that we could be on the water when the sun came up and the water was...

For those of you who don’t know this yet I met Anna on my China trip and we hit it off, to the point that we decided that she should fly out from Paris to meet me in Sydney. We arrived at the same time at the airport and got picked up by Simon & Trinks. The day after arriving we got ourselves a hire car. We then headed up to Newcastle to go and visit Martin & Louise who were on the China tour with us. We stayed over with them at their house and had ...

After arriving in Picton I decided to take the Queen Charlotte drive, which goes past the Queen Charlotte Sound. Again I was impressed with the county’s beauty. I decided to drive to Mautueka. Here I got the idea to do the Abel Tasman Coastal walk. I managed to book this online and so went and did some shopping for 4 days of walking. I was quite excited about the walk. I had a feeling it was going to be very relaxed walk. Walking, tanning & swimming in ...

I arrived in Auckland and picked up my hire car. I only had 15 days for New Zealand and so had some driving to do if I was going to see anything. I left Auckland at 16:30 and drove to Raglan that is on the West side of the North Island. It is supposed to be the top surf spot. Unfortunately it was a cold and miserable afternoon and I was not going to get my kit off for a swim in rough sea. I decided to get a take away pizza and do some reading of what I wanted to ...

The next day I flew to Cairns as I had booked a live aboard trip scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I had also, by chance, booked into a backpackers that Marcie & Arron had booked into. They are a couple that did the Vietnam trip with me. It was great to catch up and we spent the following day together. My trip started that evening. I boarded the Taka boat and was greeted by a very friendly bunch of staff members. We went through the routine of getting div...