Wine tasting, Hobbiton and chilling with an All Black. Just Another Day in Paradise

Wow New Zealand is AWESOME. It also looks very familiar and from the moment our flight descended into Auckland we started to understand what people mean when they describe NZ as Scotland on steroids!

Our first stop was in Auckland to see Graham, our friend from Uni. It was great to see another friendly face and meet his Kiwi flat mates. It also gave us an opportunity to perfect our Kiwi accents and practice pronouncing the Maori place names. The fact that they say 'ee' for 'e' so 'ten' is 'teen' has provided us with endless amusement.

After a night in Auckland and attending a pub quiz, where we got 'teen out of teen' for the geography round, we borrowed Graham's car (thanks Graham) and headed a few hours south to Lake Taupo to walk the Tongariro crossing. The Tongariro crossing is part of one of the nine 'great walks' of NZ and takes you up and over an active volcano. It was also the setting for Mount Doom and being a huge Lord of the Rings fan I was uber excited. However, NZ weather decided not to play nice and for the first half of the walk, and to the top of the pass, we could literally only see each other! (Which was nice as we haven't seen much of each for the last five months). Thankfully the weather did clear however and the views of the red volcano were epic. We also caught a glimpse of 'Mt Doom' which you can see below! Yippee!













On route down there were various points where steam was billowing out the side of the mountain to make giant cloud of its own. The sulphur smell was pretty disgusting!










We said bye to Lake Taupo and headed east to Lake Waikaremona for some more walking (See how we are struggling with pronunciation)?! But before we were to reach our destination we were giving a class A lesson in NZ's road surfaces. Like us, I'm sure one would assume that when you look at a map and see a major road in a developed country, it would be fully paved and that 100km of distance wouldn't take that long. How wrong could we be! The road was in fact gravel for 80km, took us 2 hours to drive, was ridiculously windy, and we only passed 3 other cars along the way. It was safe to say after about 60mins of this and convincing ourselves we should keep going as it must stop soon, we were starting to s**t ourselves! However, eventually we did see a sign pointing us in the right direction and when we arrived we were rewarded with a fantastic walk and glorious views.




Next we headed off to the town of Rotorua, famous for its geothermal sites and Maori culture. We had read the town smelled, but were still shocked at how much it stank, like stink bombs, by the lake where natural vents in the regions thin crust allow hydrogen sulphide to drift into the air. Apparently you get used to the stench but I'm not sure I could live there!

Despite the smell, the lake in the town was spectacular and along parts of the shore there are lots of areas with bubbling water from the hot rocks below. Of course Beeds and I went straight to start exploring, hopping the fence and duely touching the ground and some of the pools to test the heat. After about ten mins of this and some nearly scalding pools we realised this probably wasn't encouraged and saw the sign saying so when we went back onto the path- woops. Luckily we weren't stupid enough to put our hands in the bubbling ones!




(I'm holding my nose)!



We visited a geothermal site near the town. Now, we are no geologists but it was very cool! We first watched a geezer explode, something which happens daily but the time artificially done adding soap.




A bit like the leaning tower of Piza, tourists got themselves into various positions to make it look like it was coming out their mouths.




Beeds of course took it one step further....




The rest of the geothermal site was cool albeit a little smelly!




Something which was on my to do list for New Zealand was to visit Hobbiton, also known as the Shire in Lord of the Rings. Initially beeds wasn't too excited but seeing my enthusiasm for the slightly overpriced attraction and it being my birthday treat from my Dad he couldn't say no. And thank goodness as we loved it! The tour was awesome taking us round the beautiful rolling hills, hobbit doors, listening to how they made the hobbits look so small and enjoying a drink in The Green Dragon!















We also learned that the farmers who own the land and now tourist attraction, welcome 200 000 visitors a year. They must make a fortune and I bet their neighbours must be more than slightly gutted their farm was chosen as a sight for the film when the surrounding landscape all looks the same!

We headed back to Auckland to join Graham and his house mates for the Labour weekend. This included a beautiful day out to Waiheke island to partake in some wine tasting. The tour of the vineyards was short but sweet. The lure of chilling on a hammock looking out over the sea with Auckland in the distance and a nice bottle of wine stopped us after two! Getting a bit chillier we moved inside where the boys spotted Mils Muliaina. I had no idea who he was, so for those of you who don't know I'll explain he has had 100 caps for the All Blacks, and here in New Zealand would be the equivalent of our Sir Chris Hoy. Mickey and Beeds quickly worked up the courage to ask for a photo with him, but I will fully take credit that our girls innocence of not knowing who he was resulted in him and his lady hanging out with us for the rest of the day and coming back to our BBQ! To much amusement of the boys I asked him what I thought where acceptable questions like 'do you play rugby for New Zealand, do you wear a scrum cap and what position do you play'. In all serious though he was actually a really nice guy and didn't mind one bit when the boys sang 'he scores on the left, he scores on the right, Mils Muliaina scores all through the night'....

After a very hung over Sunday, some frisbee golf in the local park (Beeds threw the longest frisbee EVER) and Beeds testing his hand at spear fishing with Graham and Tim we headed over to Mt. Manganui to visit our friend Karen and the stunning scenery there. We enjoyed a couple of days of walking along the beautiful beach, up the Mt and through an old mining gorge which was just beautiful.





Randomly we also enjoyed a game of lawn bowls. The particular highlight for Fraser here were the sausages, a chat with an old Scottish man and that they give out meat packs as prizes! Shockingly our bowling skills didn't get us any!

After a great 9 days in the north island of NZ we flew to Nelson in the north of the South Island. Our mission for the day was to first pick up our rental car 'Sunny' (Nissan Sunny), celebrate my birthday by treating ourselves to a nice cooked breakfast and then scour the charity shops and NZ's answer to Decathlon to pick up a cheap tent.




Most people camper van it round NZ but being on a seven month budget and deciding we would kill each other in a tiny people carrier converted camper van, we decided camping was the best solution all round. $500 later we were kitted out with our gear and upon erecting our tent that night in a spot of rain, quickly realised that our £50 tent was not in fact a three man, could hardly fit our luxury queen sized air mattress and leaked! However, as we had driven quite far north towards the Abel Tailsman National Park by this point and spent far too long enjoying a birthday cider by the beach, we discovered this far too late and had no other option than to hope the rain stopped and snuggle into our tiny tent for the night. Thankfully it did stop raining, the stars were immense and we slept surprisingly well!

The next day we set off for a fantastic two day walk in the Abel Tailsman National Park and one of the most beautiful coast lines I have ever experienced. The trip started with a two hour water taxi journey up the coast, transporting us and our gear to our starting point. We were very lucky to spot dolphins, seals, blue penguins and various species of birds along the way.




To do the full walk you have to spend at least one night in a cabin half way and be self sufficient. As I'm still nursing my neck and lower back 'back to health' Beedie had the job of carrying the large bulk of our kit and was a bit of a pack yak for the two days! The walk itself was just stunning with the most beautiful golden beaches. We had to time the crossing of certain beaches to the tide being out resulting in us crossing vast areas of tidal sand flats. With perfect weather and some good company along the way we both agreed it was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.












Upon finishing the walk we decided we needed to sort our tent situation out and dashed down the road to the local Warehouse to return our leaky tent in the realisation we better spend a bit more money on our home for the next three weeks. However, being 6pm on a Saturday, the only other camping gear shop being closed then and the following day, and a schedule to travel down the remote west coast imminent, we actually ended up with a bigger version of our original! However, the one thing I do remember from my years of camping as a child is that the inside of tent cannot push up against the outside, so I suppose at least our air bed isn't pushing up against the outside now! Possibly this will save us from any flooding.

Aught well, it's all part of the adventure isn't it?!




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Location:New Zealand

Down Under

We arrived in Perth with Beeds 15kg lighter than when we left the UK and me having ate my first Burger King in at least a decade at Kuala Lumpa airport. Clearly I have been spending too much time with Beedie.

We stayed with Beed's brother and sister in law in Perth and enjoyed a relaxing two weeks. It was nice to unpack and stay in one place for a while. I'm not sure I should admit this, but after four and a half months of having everything done for us, it was great to do our own washing, clean up and of course Beeds loved getting stuck into the cooking. Our first trip to the supermarket, and the prospect of cooking on a BBQ, caused Beedie to nearly have a nose bleed. He took on the role as head chef in the house, cooking plenty of meat including 'roo balls' (kangaroo meat balls) and there was plenty of talks of his future restaurant empire, BDQs.

During our time in Perth we spent lots of time walking along the many beautiful beaches, visiting Rottness Island, catching up with Fraser's siblings, trying to guess the name and gender of our unborn nephew/niece and catching up with my uni friend Ana. I also found a good physio who spoke the same language and was reassured a bit that I probably don't have 'back cancer', 'back disease' or 'osteoporosis' as the doctors in Vietnam liked to tell me.

One of many Perth beaches...





Lancelin beach, an hour north of Perth






Rottness Island


It is law to wear helmets in Australia, but the sun is so strong we had to spice up our already cool helmets with caps.






We saw snake...the darker the more poisoness apparently!


With Ana we travelled two hours north of Perth to Cervantes for a spot of camping. To keep in with Ana's tradition of it raining every time she camps, it absolutely poured! The weather has actually been a lot cooler than we expected, but still beautiful and a nice change after the humidity of Asia. We no longer pour with sweat upon stepping outside! En route to Cervantes we visited the Pinnacles, large rock formations in the dunes. Being the mature adults we are we immediately looked out for ones of certain shapes...





Can you spot Ana and me?!



We spent our last few days being treated by Fraser's siblings to a lovely weekend in the beautiful wine region of Margaret river. There we enjoyed some wine tasting and Fraser took pride in beating Scott at golf every time he played him. (5 times, ok ok, the number is going in - well done Beeds).


















I was delighted to also finally see an alive kangaroo as the other three I had spotted were all road kill. Apparently I also did quite well in managing to get a red back spider on me! Luckily Beeds noticed it and killed it before it bit me, otherwise I might have spent a few days in hospital.

After a great two weeks in Perth we said goodbye to the family and set off to Melbourne to visit Beed's friend Bob from school, and his lovely wife Holly and beautiful little Lola. Melbourne is a really cool city; very metropolitan, multi cultural and has a lot of character mixed in amongst the sky scrapers. We spent a few days sightseeing around the city, were treated to a lovely night at Holly's family beach house and some amazing hot springs, and of course Beeds and Bob spent a lot of time reminiscing about good old Merchi.













Note the spelling Beeds. Not Boggin!



Fraser and Bob cliff jumping!





Bob and Lola


One thing which we have definitely enjoyed about our time in Oz has been spotting the many Scottish names here! We have been to Blairgowrie, Dundas street, Princess Street etc etc and a wee visit to Arthur's Seat!







Tomorrow we head off to New Zealand! Bye for now...

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The rest of Nam, getting 'Asiad out' and fun times in Singapore!

After spending a week in Hanoi we headed off to central Vietnam. We stopped at Da Nang which is famous for its huge stretch of beautiful coastline and for playing host to American soldiers who spent time surfing at China Beach during R&R.

The Vietnamese love Da Nang but comment it has changed 300% in the last ten years. There are now huge five star resorts all over the place and about five miles of non-descript hotels and guest houses running along the coast on the wrong side of a busy road. It seems a shame as the beach is golden, but we felt it has been spoiled by all the buildings. Unfortunately however, it is a major city and has a big hospital and with my back still in a state we needed its facilities! We spent five nights here and enjoyed only two days of sun with the weather in Vietnam really not being on our side. However, Beeds did manage one day of surfing.










At the shop where we hired the surf board we came across a very interesting lady who worked as a translator for the American army during the Vietnam war, aged just 14. It was fascinating as the museums throughout Vietnam very much portray the americans as an evil force during the Vietnam war with no mention of any destruction caused by the Vietcong. However, this particular lady was full of stories regarding the museums cover up of the Vietcong and the many atrocities they inflicted on their own people.

She told us about a time when she returned to her village near Da Nang and the Vietcong knew she was working for the Americans. They handed her a can of coke with a bomb in it and told her to give it to an American soldier. She didn't and instead told the soldier of the bomb, which they detonated in a river. Because of this she was told by the Americans she could never return to her village or she would be killed. For the next eight years she followed the American army working in their camps to stay alive and in her words 'only died once'. Following a convoy she was caught in a bomb, buried under rubble and saved by an American soldier who restarted her heart. She had so many fascinating stories and we sat for about two hours listening to them.

Her shop is full of pictures of the war and of American soldiers who have tracked her down in the last five years, after one ex soldier came across her by chance.




One of the American soldiers who tracked her down had two pictures of the lady as a child next to tanks and gave them to her three years ago.



Next we headed off to Hue. Hue is a beautiful town with an impressive citadel and somewhere were tourism hasn't overpowered it's authenticity. From Hue we visited the demilitarised zones including a 600 metre network of underground and very claustrophobic Cu Chi tunnels.

At the tunnels we had a guide for the day who's English was far from clear leading to some very funny translations. It took our group about two hours to realise that every time she said 'community shoulder', she was actually meaning 'communist soldier'. Being a key part of the history of the war it was very funny.






The below shows where a family of four/five would sleep. I could only get in crouched! Our guide told us up to 1000 people would be in the tunnels during attacks. There was one area for the women to toilet, one kitchen, and one maternity space were 17 babies were born during the war.



Beeds posing next on a U.S tank.



The tunnels exited onto this beautiful beach. Absolutely stunning and completely untouched by tourism!



Next we headed to Hoi An, the tailoring capital of South East Asia, to get some clothes made. With over 500 tailors in the beautiful little French like town, we finally decided on one and enjoyed three days of visits back and forth to get suits and jackets made. The staff were lovely and extremely helpful, however, we did need to be very forceful with what we wanted after they kept making Beeds trousers too tight. When we questioned their skill they claimed it was Beeds 'banana' which was causing the creases and this would change depending on where it was!




In Hoi An we got chatting to some locals and learned of the long hours and lack of holidays employees experience. A girl told us she worked as a waitress seven days a week from 8am-10pm, with one day off and earning just $100 a month. Her rent is $10 a month so it is proportionate, but what sort of life is that?! I can't even begin to imagine!

Our second last stop in Vietnam was two hours south of Saigon. At this point, we had spent nearly four and a half months in Asia and were really getting tired of travelling, the humidity, motor bikes and the crappy weather we were getting in Nam. It'd only be fair to admit there was a good number of daily exasperations of what we thought of the locals, the constant haggling and their CRAZY driving...Me 'it's a f***ing pavement not road' and Beeds, 'argh we just watched that Vietnamese lady pay 12,000 rupees for this salad and you are charging us 20,000 - you are basically stealing from us'! Anyway, thankfully our escape from the city to a beautiful luxury homestay on the bank of the Mekong, could not have been better.

We arrived to find a beautiful big modern house hidden in the countryside and with the staff having no idea we were coming. We love to travel independently and it hadn't occurred to us to phone ahead. Apparently in two years we are the first people to just turn up. Lucky for us the manager was there and quickly sorted us out with a room, telling us we were the only guests for two nights and invited us to join in with their staff party on both the Friday and Saturday night! We enjoyed the most incredible food of fresh water prawns caught next to the house, snails, pork, banana leaf salad and plenty other authentic Vietnamese food. We were also introduced to the Vietnamese drinking culture whereby every time someone wants to take a drink they say 'yo' and everyone must drink! Beeds went through five cans, whilst we were eating and in an hour! I had more sense and pretended mine was full when it was empty...four months of not really having alcohol has not done much for my tolerance levels! One of the staff is called Phook and everyone apart from him was very amused when we translated this into its similar sounding English word! We also learned that they have no qualms drink driving. One guy drove his motorbike into a canal the night before and the police constable enjoyed as many shots of rice wine as the next before driving himself and his 80 year old Dad home for the night!








Our final stop was a couple of days in the capital Saigon (Ho Chi Ming, they seem to call it both). We spent more time at the hospital, ate lots of street food and visited war museums learning about the devastating effects of Agent Orange which the Americans dropped during the war.










Saigon is fun, but crazy (4 million motorbikes) and when our time came to board our flight to Singapore I think it would be fair to say we were officially 'Asiad out'!

Our time in the developing Asia was incredible. A day literally did not pass were we where not awed, shocked or inspired by something or someone. It really is an unbelievable place and I think for both of us there will be plenty of lasting memories. For me personally it has really reinforced that it is just luck where you are born in this world and that I am so lucky to live in the UK with all the opportunities it offers.

Our final stop in Asia was four days Singapore with our very good friends Eavan and Murray. Singapore was great fun and a welcome jump back to Western living. Our time there was so much fun, with lots of sightseeing, a good gossip, cocktails at 57 stories high and a great night out. Oh and Beeds and I spent ten hours apart, the most we have in four and a half months!

Beeds and Muz enjoying a beer.

Where Eavan and I enjoyed our cocktails, 57 floors high!


And the view from the 57th floor! It was yummy, thanks Eavan!



My hair was a little wind swept on our bus tour!



Some more pics of Vietnam.

Just carrying a small load on the bike today...


It's raining, it's pouring!





A lady selling fresh fish from the Mekong.


We visited a coconut factory. They literally use every single part for oil, drinking, carpets, food, charcoal and building houses!






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