I won’t bore you with bio-diversity figures, but it’s safe to say Borneo is the stuff of the legendary David Attenborough’s wet dreams. Malaysian Borneo is also an easy place to visit, free from the hassle-factor so ubiquitous in other South East Asian places. People used to high class accommodation might balk, but for me staying in places with no air-conditioning and no hot water didn’t

I know life's pretty boring around here lately.  There aren't any travel stories, or photographs of hobbits.  All you get is some petulant whining instead.    Well, get thee over to the Women's Colony, where from now on you can read my travel-related tales.  There's a new post there regarding our (three-day) hiking swansong before leaving New Zealand. There are mountains, and scenery, and we

I don't know about you, but I'm bored of hearing about camping. There's nothing interesting to say about it at this point. I'm sorry for three months of being completely boring to read! Thank you for sticking around. Gisborne to Wellington can be done in a day's drive, but it's a long day, so we cut it in the middle by visiting Havelock North. In a peculiarly British turn, Havelock is

You might feel I was a bit unfair on the campsite in my last post. Campsites are not hotels, and some roughing-it is to be expected. And the campsite did have the bonus of being next to a beach:I implore you to recall that the above is, in New Zealand terms, a very average beach. Plus, it was so windy that after a 5 minute walk on it, we were forced to retreat, depressed. When we awoke the

The sun had finally broken through, and a lightness filled our heart as we set off around the East Cape of New Zealand, into a Maori heartland with few hotels and even fewer lunch stops selling anything but the ubiquitous toasted sandwich.This is not an urban area. There are no towns for miles, and miles, and miles. I'm not sure it even qualifies as rural. I think it barely qualifies as

Thank you, folks, for all the wonderful comments about the Waitomo Caves experience! I didn't feel very brave at the time, particularly once the eels slurped into view, but I am glad to have done it. And now: onward!For it is written that on all camping trips, there shall be rain. And it shall be biblical in its intensity. It takes a long time to drive across New Zealand, folks. There are

It was but a short drive to the Legendary Blackwater Rafting Company's HQ, where we were suited and booted ready to tackle the great underground. Is there anything more wounding to one's dignity than trying to heave your lardy bulk into a 10ml wetsuit in full view of a bunch of superslim backpackers in their early 20s?For anyone who knows anything about wetsuits and the cold, I offer you this:

On the second night, I realised I actively enjoyed the tent. It is strangely satisfying to set up camp with the practised efficiency of one who has battled with tent-poles and ground-sheets once before. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly smooth the first time we attempted it, but we had it down to a fine art by the second night.Packing up is even swifter: you pull a few poles out of the ground,

About camping: as soon as the sun rises, you're slowly roasted awake. Or maybe that's just our tent. Anyway, come 7.30am I was battling for air, and decided to emerge into the dewy morn. The inflatable mattress had bestowed an unexpected pleasure by retaining its air through the night, and so as I boinged out into the open I felt strangely refreshed.As part of the no-plan plan, Cowboy had

We had an eventful Christmas Day, the highlight of which was probably Baldy and Salma's sherry trifle, which because they made it the previous night when they were drunk, contained enough alcohol to fell a Shire Horse.So it was through the haze of a late night and the knowledge that our goal of an early start was probably unachievable, that we packed the car the next morning. We ensured that we

So much to write, so little time!You may be surprised to learn that during the festive season I shall be attending a variety of campsites across the North Island of New Zealand. I need hardly say that it was not my idea. However, I have now become accustomed to the notion, and I am even looking forward to the trip, armed as I am with a sizeable quantity of loo roll and handy camping gadgetry

It was my 31st Birthday on Sunday. I dread my birthday, now that I'm old enough to realise that with every passing year the gap between my childhood expectations about what I ought to have achieved by a certain age, and the reality of my existence, grows ever wider. I have formal 'achievements' under my belt, to be sure, but do they actually mean anything? I'm qualified up to my eyeballs, and

I'm leaving to spend the weekend in a rural wilderness. This means I'll have to knock NaBlo on the head, but it might help with the state of my head, if you see what I mean. After all, my posting has been below par recently. Expect photos and a better blog post on Monday. I hope you all have fabulous weekends!

Cowboy was chewing the fat with the owner of the holiday apartments we were staying at in Noosa, and asked if there was anything worth seeing on the way down to Brisbane to catch our evening flight back to Aotearoa."Montville is worth a look", said the owner, whose double-forked beard had to be seen to be believed. "It's very European." We looked it up in the guidebooks, which did indeed

If you believe the available information in the vicinity of Noosa (most notably the marketing pamphlets of the myriad whale-watching companies), it is an hour and three quarter drive to Hervey Bay. In reality, it is more like two and a half hours. We found this out the hard way, after much cursing and expensive overseas cell-phone "We're almost there, I promise. Can you hold the boat?" pleas.

There is a kind of healthy disdain between the nations of Australia and New Zealand. When asked, most Kiwis will respond that they like Australians, as long as they stay in Australia. Unless there is a sporting event between the two national teams. At that point, civil behaviour is dismantled before your eyes and cutlasses are brandished. Only yesterday, a colleague was relaying a tale of

Can you feel it coming? Personally, I was excited enough at the giant Red Kangaroo I saw in a field on the drive from the airport, where we landed at 8.30am. But I have been persuaded that unless I do this, I will regret it forever. I've been awake since 4am, so I'm more malleable than usual. My wallet is creaking open... I am extracting Crikey! $104 Australian Dollars, and handing them to a

If it hadn't been for Pear Tree Cottage, we might have had a very disappointing couple of days in Queenstown. The time we spent wandering around town was time spent being irritated by people whose sole reason for being in town was to be seen. Queenstown has morphed into something that seems spectacularly un-Kiwi. It wasn't like this when we first visited three years ago, but it is now the New

The next day we went up to the nearby ski-field of Coronet Peak, so that I could drop my illusions on the floor and watch them shatter. If Mount Dobson were the Dino of the ski-field world, Coronet Peak would be the Toyota SUV with bull-bars and floodlights.We decided to go for only half a day to practice what we'd learnt, because a full day including a lesson would have emptied my bank account

We left Tekapo the next morning, heading to that mecca of all things extremely dangerous: Queenstown. This was our third visit, and the first that would not involve a bungee jump, jet-boating, canyon-swinging, or other assorted sense-defying stunts of foolishness.In that time-honoured tradition of having to buy a gift for people who live on the other side of the globe, and not knowing what to