Melbourne - Australia

After a few delays and 2 hours on the plane before take off we eventually arrived in Melbourne at about 2 in the morning, luckily there was someone at the University to let us in.

For all those who haven't heard the storey yet, Orla's great grand Uncle was a Chancellor of Melbourne University and Master of Ormond college, over the years was a generous benefactor and there is a library named in his honour, so when we asked for more information about his life and enquired about accomodation they very generously allowed us to stay as their guests in a wonderful apartment and offered to provide Orla some information on his life. We really felt like royalty arriving to a packed fridge with loads of cheese and some wine, especially good after not eating for 12 hours!!! Have to say this was prob the best start we had anywhere, the University is only a half hour walk to the city centre and it was great to have somewhere to dump our bags for yet another week.

It was great to see Deirdre and Danny again who as you can see from the photos haven't changed a bit and we got to enjoy some decent Melbourne pubs with them. We also met up with our NZ chauffeurs Philip & Helen, who roped us into a night of strangness at Dracula's Cabaret, but we really enjoyed it and only got the piss taken out of us a few times for being Irish!!!

The weather turned while we were in the middle of a picnic at the zoo and continued to rain for about 4 days, this was heaven for the locals who'd been having droughts for 4/5 years but us paddy's have seen enough rain at home that we don't need more on our holidays!! This was the start of Orla's birthday extravaganza and seeing the Kangaroos and Koalas was well worth the few quid. To avoid the rain we popped in to the biggest casino outside of Vegas we'd ever seen, we only spent an hour or so there, it was jammed with drunken work partys betting their Christmas bonuses but we managed to leave with more money than we arrived with. Deirdre & Danny met us for some birthday Fajitas in the evening and managed to produce the worlds most annoying singing candle (thanks lads).

The next morning one of Orlas childhood ambitions was completed when we found ourselves at 9 in the morning standing on the famous "Ramsay Street". We also visited Erinsborough High and then headed on to Lassiters. You will see from the photographs Ronans lack of enthuasiasm (misspent youth watching sports programmes and transformers instead of Neighbours!!!). To make up for being dragged along on the Neighbours tour our net stop was the MCG for a cricket ground tour. The stadium was huge and the entire complex was very impressive, we even got a great view of the city.

Headed to a Christmas party in friends of Dee and Dannys which was great and put us in a proper Christmassey mood and they even had a real tree.

Fiji - Nadi & Mana Island

First thing we discovered about Fiji is that "Nadi" is actually pronounced "NANDI" which seems crazy to us but sure what do we know!! We spend our first night in Nadi in a nice hotel but other than that Nadi didn't leave much of an impression on us so we were excited to head off on our boat (where for some reason we got VIP treatment in the Captains lounge!!??!! - no complaints there!) to Mana Island.

Mana Island is like paradise and really lived up to our very high expectations! The beaches were fantastic with golden sand and clear warm water - fantastic! The Mana Island resort had amazing facilities and the fijian staff were so helpful and relaxed! We also lucked out on our ocean front suite (very fancy!!) which was amazing (double storey and two bathrooms!!!) and we woke up to an amazing view of beach and coconut trees every morning!

Despite worries about the cyclone and the weather in general we actually got amazing weather (Ro's red shoulders proved this!!) and spent the week in and out of the water! There was loads of great activities to do, so we tried our hands at kayaking, jet skiing, paragliding and waterskiing (not that we were any good at all!).

We also snorkelled at least once a day which was amazing as there was such a great variety of fish to be seen (Orla was terrified of some of the pointy nosed ones!) with such amazing colours. We became experts at stealing bread from breakfast and used this to attract all the fish!

We couldn't have left Fiji before attending a Kava ceremony, so on our second last day we sat down for some. Lets get things clear, Kava tastes nothing like sparkling wine !! basically it is the Kava plant mixed with water, which comes out in a mouth-watering muddy brown colour. In a Kava ceremony men sit at the front as they still harbour some sexist beliefs, but luckily for women they get to drink less, when you see Orla's face after tasting some you see that all chauvinism isn't bad!!!!










Have to say that it was great to leave our bags in the same room for 6 nights straight and after being there for two days we really felt like we lived there! We were sad to leave but had an amazing time, probably the best holiday we've ever been on (even if we didn't deserve it)!

New Zealand Top 10

1. Abel Tasman National Park
2. Heli Hike on Fox Glacier
3. Dolphin Swimming in Kaikoura
4. White-water rafting in Rotorua
5. Skydive over Taupo
6. Penguins in the Catlins
7. Overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound
8. Catamaran around Bay of Islands
9. Nelson Town and Best Hostel (The Bug)
10. Hells Pizza (Best Pizza - especially the one with sweet chili sauce)

Kaikoura

In Dunedin we realised we had a few days to spare so we headed to kaikoura as we heard its the best spot for Dolphin swimming and whale watching.

Rose the next morning at 4.50 to prepare for our 5.30am dolphin swim but unfortunately it was cancelled to due bad weather. We were quite happy to head back to sleep after that but with not much to do here in the rain we headed to the Kaikoura Winery. This was grand but the tour wasn't great and the wine wasn't the best either.

Next morning our trip was on (and at the nicer time of 8.30am) so we got into our snorkelling gear and headed out on the boat. The boat was very rocky (glad we didn't drink much the night before!!) but we were lucky to see some albatrosses en route towards the dolphines. These really do have a huge wingspan.

The dolphin snorkelling was seriously amazing. We were expecting to see a few dolphins and maybe spot one near us in the water but there must have been more than 200 at any given time. They literally swam around us effortlessly we had to try and avoid swimming into them and everytime they swam past us we re-boarded the boat and headed to meet them further on. Orla got some great under water videos and photos which we'll try post soon. What was especially amazing was the fact that they were completely wild and have never been trained in any way and dont get fed by the boat. We also learned that the Dusky dolphins are supposed to be the most acrobatic (there were also common dolphins amongst them). It was a great experience and well worth the travel and the wait, next stop

Christchurch before our flight to Fiji on the 9th.

Dunedin

Dunedin is like a throw back to the 70's but great fun. We visited the Speights Brewery which was enjoyable, especially the 30 minutes of unlimited drinking after! Next day we went to Cadbury World - mmm....the chocolate smelled (and tasted!) beautiful!!! Our only complaint was not enough free samples!!!

Philip drove us all to the "Worlds Steepest Road" (yet another NZ superlative!!!) but thankfully Charlie (Philip and Helens car!) made it up! Orlas screaming didn't help!!! Next stop was the casino which was fun before splashing out on a bottle of champers to celebrate Orlas graduation!! Some sore heads the next morning with a long day of buses ahead of us!!

The Catlins

The Catlins name comes from a tribe of man eating siamese cats that roamed New Zealand in the 1960's and ate 45 local residents. We were lucky to have our usual chauffeurs in operation otherwise the beautiful Catlins would have been out of our reach. Basically its just a nice quiet place with some amazing wildlife, making it a great place to chill.

We stayed in a rather nice Motor park, in a superb cabin with sea view, located very close to a seal colony so we popped round for a visit, they really are mahoosive and not too welcoming. After failing to rent any fishing equipment, Ro and Philip decided that some home made spears would enable them to catch their dinner. Unfortunately following some misguided advice yielded a poor return of zero fish, in fact we saw no fish as the tide level was wrong. The girls had a great laugh watching the boys in the cold water in the dark with their tourches and spears for a long long time!!!

Undeterred by the previous nights catch, we settled for a spot of crab fishing, unfortunately despite our success (1 crab) it was too small to cook. Instead we headed to the local supermarket to catch some mince for burgers on the BBQ (which was a complete success!!!). About 7 we headed to Nugget point hoping to get a glimpse of the world's rarest penguin (the yellow-eyed) , fortunately as soon as we arrived at the lookout the penguins were still playing beach volleyball so we got a good look!!! Orla in particular was overjoyed to see them at closer hand than we managed in Doubtful.

Bye the way I hope noone was gullible enough to believe where the name Catlins orginated.

Invercargill

Next stop was Invercargill (Home of the Worlds Fastest Indian and our friend Heather!). After hearing so much about it from her we felt obliged to pay it a visit as we were so close. We met up with Heather in a local bar and discovered the best thing ever to introduce to Ireland on our return - MOVEMBER!!!!

Basically Movember is a fund raising event for Male Cancer charities whereby all participants grow a moustache for the entire month of November (I'm sure Irish offices would love this one!!), they then compete for the relevant prizes on the 30th of November (best, worst, most ginger etc!!) and shave it off after. All for the sake of a great cause and the pub night was hilarious!! Ro even got a free Movember t-shirt!

Next morning we headed to the local museum where the Worlds Fastest Indian Exhibit was on its final day. We even got a go on his bike!

After a quick drive with a few friends out to Bluff (New Zealands "fake" mostly southerly point on the South Island!) we then headed to the "Real Bluff" in Slope Point before continuing on towards the Catlins!

Te Anau & Doubtful Sound

Had yummy fish and chips on the pier in Te Anau before watching Thelma and Louise (which neither of us had ever seen before!). Te Anau itself was quite nice but unfortunately our hostel was similar to a 1970's motel and hadn't been upgraded since!

We did an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound which had the most amazing views. On the morning of Day we awoke to lashing rain but this actually worked in our favour as it meant the waterfalls looked more spectacular and loads of temporary ones were created. Did some kayaking around the Sounds which was grand (the hot soup afterwards really warmed us up!).

The boat held about 70 people but was quite spacious and so it didn't feel like you were on top of people. The buffet dinner was definately the best (and biggest) feed weve had since reaching New Zealand!! After Dinner we stopped to see some sealions and then (to Orlas delight!) spotted some penguins (erect crested ones like in Happy Feet!) which really made our trip, unfortunately no dolphins were to be seen but maybe somewhere else along the coast.

Following a beautiful sunset, we played a few games of scrabble and did some star gazing befotre heading to bed in preparation for our early rise for the morning sunrise.Unfortunately the sunrise wasn't so spectacular as it rose behind the mountains but it was ncie to be up in the silence anyway.

Doubtful sound really is a beautiful place and feels completely unspoilt by man (the current population is 1). In fact we suffered a minor earthquake in the middle of the night, which woke us up !!!

Wanaka & Queenstown

Stayed in a great hostel in a lovely town called Wanaka, (the Purple Cow) the views of the lake and mountains were really spectular. Didn't spend long here but had a great game of crazy golf the next morning and Ro even did some clay pigeon shooting (badly!).

Next stop Queenstown, most travellers spend about 1/4 of their time there as its the hub for doing all of the extreme sports available in NZ, alas as we had already done our chosen activities in other venues we didnt do much here except look around the town and over the lovely lake.