And Finally...

We're in Japan on the final leg of our journey. Not just the final leg but the final day - we're flying back to England tomorrow. I can't believe 6 months have gone by. Here's a few photos...

...with lots more here.

See you soon...

Australian Road Signs

Not sure if these would catch on in the northern hemisphere...

I've been a bit remiss about posting recently so you'll have to make do with the photos.

A special thanks to Alec and Lizzie for putting us up in Brisbane.

Cute Animals 2

Monic trying to persuade a confused baby koala not to cross the road...

I'm surprised there wasn't an accident - about a dozen cars stopped on a narrow road to look at it - I suppose it was quite cute...

Eventually a nice lady came along and popped it into a bag and drove off with it.  We're pretty sure she was from an animal rescue centre and didn't just fancy roast baby koala...

Not sure if this counts as cute...

But this probably does...

Cute Animals 1

Thanks to Aurelie for the penguins...

 and a bedraggled duck...

"I'm so ashamed... why didn't anyone tell me I looked like this"

They're supposed to look like this - apparently they're bred from Vietnamese fighting ducks - presumably from the losers.

A ridiculous number of photos - including more cute (and not so cute) animals - here.

Flying High 2

Queenstown is the self-styled action capital of NZ. Invitations to bungee jump, sky dive etc abound. I was going to ignore it all but - egged on by Alec - I decided on a bit of paragliding. They wouldn't let me take the camera (apparently people had complained about heavy objects falling from the sky) but this video came with the package...

Absolutely brilliant (the paragliding not the video). Although the girlies wimped out of the flying bit, we all went jet-boating...

Also brilliant.

All the NZ South Island photos (and the video) are here. And just in case you missed any, links to all the photos are here.

Flying High 1

Hmmm, I don't seem to have done much blogging recently. Can't think of any good excuses - I guess I'm just a lazy git.

New Zealand's been a bit of a slow burn but I've fallen in love with it. One of the highlights was a helicopter trip over the Southern Alps. Here's a few photos from it...

There's lots (of course) more here. 

Confessions of a Wimp

I like New Zealand for all the wrong reasons. The climate is temperate, everyone speaks English, it's clean, you can get breakfast all day - they even drive on the left. In short, it's civilised. Oh, and no mosquitos. But after luxuriating in the comfort for a few days you start to notice that the scenery isn't quite up to scratch - it's only good, not stunning - I guess we've been spoilt.

We've been driving round the north island for nearly two weeks now and have accumulated the expected vast number of photos here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In the last few days our luck with the weather has (temporarily) run out. Here's what we saw instead of Mt Taranaki...

A Murren moment

What we were hoping for...

On the good side, the fact that it was pissing down with rain didn't spoil the glowworm cave trip one little bit!

Ok, that was cheating - they did look like that - but the best my camera did was...

And if it's not the weather it's the bloody volcanoes... Tongariro crossing was partially closed because of an uppity volcano. The backup plan - involving a chair lift up Mt Ruapehu - was scuppered by high winds closing said chair lift! Oh well, I suppose I could write a blog post...

Tahiti

I have to report that paradise is hot, wet and very expensive. Also the mosquitos are disgracefully malnourished. Monic and I have been doing what we can but we're running out of blood.

Sunsets are generally low on the fistral scale, but a couple weren't bad...

Photos are here and here. Fewer than normal, as a lot of the best views are underwater. Also viewers are warned that there are some disturbing images (Si without beard, Si in singlet, Si semi-naked) which may offend the more sensitive among you.