Northland and Karangahake Gorge,New Zealand

New Zealand seems to lack imagination when it come to place names. Northland is not surprisingly the northern part of the North Island. And it is more stunning than the unimaginative name would suggest. Planning has become something of a dirty word for us so we pretty much picked our campsite halfway through our first…

Auckland,New Zealand

We take back what we said about cities. Auckland is fantastic. We arrived exhausted after an epic 20 hour journey from Singapore which included an overnight stay at Brisbane airport. We had booked into The Oaklands Lodge Hostel in Mount Eden which transpired to be a large hostel in a residential area which looked as…

Brisbane, Australia

Yes we (that’s me and me Sheila) did indeed pay a visit to our old penal colony. Sady it was just a flying visit. We had a quick look around the area we stayed in but sadly the shops were all closed. Only the dunnies were open. I did however go walkabout and got rescued…

Singapore

Singapore had made us realise that it is not the cities which give us the most enjoyment. Cities have in fact become like a pitstop. A place to grab essentials and recharge a little. Which is a real shame because as an individual experience cities like Singapore are clearly great, but in the grand scheme…

Kota Kinabalu

Our accommodation in KK was Lucy’s Homestay, a backpacking guesthouse run by a lovely Malaysian woman called (you may have guessed this…) Lucy. The accommodation was pretty basic but we felt we had struck lucky as Lucy is somewhat of a legend it seems. She has been running her homestay for 17 years and as…

Wandering thoughts, “funny” pics and a complete misunderstanding of the Irish…

It has been suggested that we have been a bit lax in chronicling our progress of late. This is true to a small extent as a week on a virtually deserted beach does encourage a certain amount of relaxation. But to a greater degree this has been caused by poor internet connections. The Thai Islands…

Sepilok, Sabah (Malaysian Borneo)

A fair few of our destinations have a very specific theme. Cambodia was all about the temples and Thailand was all about beaches. For us Borneo was all about monkeying around. We flew from KL and landed in Sandakan on the north eastern coast of Borneo. We then grabbed a taxi to our B&B in…

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

After a fantastic few days on the beach we moved on to Malaysia. The journey from Ko Lanta was very easy as nearby Krabi has an Airport. So no scary bus journeys this time. Kuala Lumpur, or KL as it is usually known is an intriguing city of mixed ethnicity. This is best reflected in the…

Ko Samui to Ko Lanta

Getting to Ko Lanta was never going to be straight forward. The journey was to take us right across Thailand by way of the catamaran, two buses, two minibuses and two ferry journeys. We arose at 6am and we were picked up by a coach at 7am and taken to the dock. Having swallowed sea…

A Quick Update

This morning we left the incredible island of Ko Lanta in Thailand and flew (via Krabbi) to Kuala Lumpur. Photographs and words to follow tomorrow hopefully.

Ko Samui, Thailand

After Ko Tao we were wondering if we would find the quiet beach front location we were looking for. But after some research on our new destination we were hopeful that we could base ourselves in a good location. Things were definately looking up too as the catamaran journey to Ko Samui went swimmingly. No waves and…

Ko Tao, Thailand

After the traumatic catamaran journey to Ko Tao, we couldn’t wait to check into our accommodation, lose the backpacks and hit the beach. We had pre-booked a basic bungalow a few minutes walk from Sairee Beach, which is Koh Tao’s main beach and not too far from the pier, so we thought it would be…