We spent a few nights over Christmas in Whakapapa, a village which in the winter is a ski resort but in the summer serves as a hub for mountain enthusiasts and tourists hoping to walk the Tongariro crossing, one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” which had been described to us as “the best 1 day … Continue reading Trekking in Tongariro →

Rotorua is in a very active geothermal area and staying a little bit away from the town itself was a wise choice as the sulphurous smell can be pretty strong and unpleasant at times. We did, however, want to go and take a look for ourselves at some of the geothermal activity in the area … Continue reading Rotorua Waters, hot and cold →

After leaving the Coromandel peninsula we made our way down to Waitomo. We had booked a session of ‘blackwater rafting’ in the Waitomo caves. The caves are famous for the glow-worms which light up the cave roof and walls but we didn’t want to ‘just’ walk through the caves so, true to our outdoors adrenaline-junkie … Continue reading Blackwater and Hobbiton →

We spent a couple of days in Bangkok, one of which we spent sorting out our various bits of camping, hiking and kayaking kit that we’d brought and making sure they were clean and dry before their trip through New Zealand customs (and biosecurity screening!). We rewarded ourselves for this hard work with a trip … Continue reading A new adventure in New Zealand →

After three days of doing nothing but sitting on various means of transport we were surprisingly tired. We decided to spend our first day in Chiang Mai by reverting to being proper tourists and investigating some of the local sights. We walked into the old town, which is a walled city surrounded by a moat … Continue reading Adventures in Chiang Mai →

We had formed a plan of how to spend our last week in South-East Asia. We would visit just 2 more cities, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand before catching our flight out to Auckland, New Zealand. However, our journey to get there would be part of the adventure. People who blog travel details (not … Continue reading The slow boat up the Mekong →

We left Sapa the same way we arrived, on an overnight train. This time we arrived into Hanoi at 5:30am, and had booked a flight straight out again to Luang Prabang in Laos. We’d had a great time in Vietnam, and probably stayed longer than we’d originally intended, as we had nearly run out of … Continue reading Don’t Laap on about it →

After the success of our trip to Cat Ba Island, we decided to continue our enjoyment of the outdoor activities available in Vietnam with some trekking in the Sapa region. We caught the bus / boat combo back to Hanoi, and settled into our cabin on the overnight train up to Lao Cai. We had … Continue reading It’s exactly like walking →

We considered the train journey (a total of approximately 39 hours) up to Hanoi which would have given us chance to see more of the country, but in the end (with an eye on our visa restrictions and our time left in Asia) decided to fly from Ho Chi Minh city up to Hanoi. Being … Continue reading How long in Ha Long? →

We caught the Giant Ibis bus (other companies do exist, but this was the recommended, if slightly more expensive, option) from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. Crossing the border into Vietnam was uneventful and the bus staff handled most of the formality while we enjoyed lunch at the café/duty free shop in no-mans-land! With … Continue reading Touring around Ho Chi Minh City →