During our travels, we've spoken to dozens of fellow travellers about where they've been and what they've done and ALL of them have said that New Zealand is the most beautiful country they have ever seen. Not a single person has said otherwise. Having had a clear bird's-eye-view of the terrain from the airplane, before landing in Queenstown, and walked around Lake Wakatipu, I think I agree with them too! Upon arrival, I had to throw away my "contraband" Blue Mou...

Yet another sleepless night in a swag spent fighting with my twisting sleeping bag and cold breeze freezing my head and hands. Sigh, I'm just not built for this sort of 'au naturel' outdoor thing. On the plus side, I had plenty of time to spot loads of shooting stars and the Milky Way spilling out across the sky above me and, as this was our final day, I could fantasise about the warm bed and roof over my head in Sydney that night. We were whisked away to watch ...

So, the first night in the swag was terrible. I'm lucky if I got more than 2 hrs of sleep altogether! A swag is an Aussie canvas sleeping bag with built-in padding and a flap to cover your head so you're cocooned in canvas. It looks like something that cowboys would sleep in. You need to insert a sleeping bag inside in order to insulate yourself from the bitterly cold Central Australian desert night breeze which cools down the earth to an unbearable 2 degrees Cel...

Wow, what a day full of incidents! Hats go off to our tour guide Cooper who had to fix our bus, cook our food, keep us entertained, look for Wichiti grubs and dodge various animals on the road including wild camels, rabbits, kangaroos (although, sadly, one didn't make it), owls and cattle! So, our day began at 6am when we were picked up from our hostel. We were off to a bit of a shaky start when Cooper pulled a "Crocodile Dundee" on us and refused to lift our ba...

Wow, talk about Nowheresville! This place has "bogun" (Ozzie slang for redneck) written all over it... We landed at Alice Springs airport and were transferred to our accommodation in total silence by the driver. The place we stayed at, Alice in the Territory, looked more like a penitentiary than a lodge. We ended up in a dorm room with a crazy woman from Sydney, whom I nicknamed "Sydney Psycho", due to her temperament and general insane behaviour and manner. As ...