Newcastle to Brisbane (Fri 9th - Tues 13th Jan 2009) On the road again. We have hired a car (Kia ) from Europcar in Newcastle and plan to drop it off in Cairns 3000 kilometres north of here in 11 days time. For the past 5 days we have been wending our way slowly up to Brisbane. Our first stop was the surfing town of Crescent Head to pick up Gwen's son Graeme who has been travelling all round Australia for the past month. He had just completed a surfing course an...

Newcastle (Sun 4th -Thurs 8th Jan 2009) It's been a nostalgic few days in Newcastle. 22 years ago I spent a year with my family in this part of the world on a teaching exchange. I worked in a TAFE (Technical and Further education) college in Newcastle and we lived in a small town called Tanilba Bay 30 minutes north. These past few days have been spent revisiting old haunts and meeting old friends. We have been staying with Bob and Lorraine who stay in a lovely s...

Sydney (Mon 29th Dec - Sat 3rd Jan 2009) Arrived Sydney Monday lunchtime after a 3 hour Quantas flight from Auckland. After the relative luxury of our Auckland apartment we are back to slumming it. Our hostel in central Sydney is rather depressing. It's a very busy, noisy place with loud music blaring from morning to night. I wonder whose idea it was to play loud music at breakfast time. We also seem to be the only people over 25. Our room reminds me of a prison...

Auckland (22nd Dec - 29TH Dec 2008) Arrived in Auckland after a short 90 minute flight from Christchurch on one of Branson's airlines Pacific Blue. Auckland is easily the biggest and fastest growing city in NZ. Its population of over 1 million is more than double the population of the whole South Island. For the past week we have been living in relative luxury in a serviced apartment (Quest) in downtown Auckland. It has separate living room, bedroom and kitchen...

New Zealand - South Island (Fri 12th Dec - Sun 21st Dec) We have spent the last 9 days travelling around the South Island. We reached our first destination Nelson after a blustery 3.5 hour ferry crossing across the Cook Strait followed by a 2 hour car journey. A notice board in a local park claims that the first ever rugby match in NZ was played here but then I heard a similar claim in another town later that week. We climbed the nearby hill which has a statue a...