I'm in Kuala Lumpur, so half way there now!
Just finished 11 hours of comfort, and have now had a shower, feeling quite refreshed. Biggest highlight of the journey so far is they served me chicken pie for breakfast, awesome!
The night flight was good, as we flew over Pakistan we approached THE most amazing sun rise, it looked like the Earth was on fire in the distance... I guess that could've been curry induced.
We touched down for an hour in Penang (an island just of Thailand) before getting to KL, it's a scorching 32oC.
The lady sitting next to me was very nice, I had helped her with her luggage at checkin (only cause she was so slow), so she was delighted to be stuffed next to me for the duration. She gave me her airline goodie-bag, so that's Deborah's xmas present sorted :)
Well it wasn't very xmas like outside in NZ very sunny :)
We're now on the South island of New Zealnd. Extremely rough ferry crossing, even with those travel tablets. However we remained chunder free, although quite a few other green people had offerings in small bags, nice.
We collected our latest car (a gold Nissan Pulsar automatic.. not exactly top style, more of a wet fish with arthritis in it's tail; however its functional and comfortable). Arrived on the north east of the island, the wine region, Marlborough (my favourite wine is made here). We took a day cyclying round lots of the wine houses for our free tasting, starting at 10am and collapsing not long after 5pm for a much need spa, reducing the need for a John Wayne style walk.
Had lots of top wine, you'd have been wasted, but we showed some restrain. It wasn't until the last wine house that Deborah collided with my back wheel and proceeded to dive off her bike like she'd been hit by a rocket propelled grenade. Thankfully no grande, but some shrapnel in the knees. Following day we grabbed the car went back round some of the wine-house and stocked up on wine for the rest of our tour. Wine isn't any cheaper here, but better quality on offer.
With a clear head and some clunking bottles in the car we headed over to the north west of the island, arriving in the Abel Tasmin (a very scenic reserve). We did 27km of kayaking (only two arguments, both to do with a certain wife tickling the water with her paddles, obviously I didn't moan enough at her as she still provided much needed physio to the shoulders) over 2 days. Stunning views of absolute clear water, seeing sun fish (odd looking, take a look: http://www.enadive.co.id/splash/sun-fish.jpg), seals and common dolphins during our tour.
Now we're in Kaikoura and have just spent an amazing morning swimming with wild dolphins. We were really lucky as a huge pod had come together just off the coast, around 300 dusky dolphins. We did 4 different swims with them and at one point were completely surrounded, I had 5 heading towards me in a straight line, it was a little scary at first, thought it's be rude to crap in there water though. It's hard to describe how privilaged you felt as it was definintely a case of them swimming to you and not the other way around; one particular Dave friendly Dusky started doing circles and it was challenging me by going quicker and quicker.. I lost that battle as I had the equivilient turning curve as Nan Edgley in her Fiesta, slow and clumbsy, after a further 4 rotations it lost interest.
We stay here tonight and then head to the West Coast via Arthurs Pass. The glaciers are our next big stop and hopefully a skydive! Not sure about jumping out of a plan over snow and rock, sounds like a tough landing. I'll see if I can buy a big tube of bubble wrap just in case.
Just jumped 12,000 ft out of a plane this morning; amazing.
Just thought I'd inform you, we landed correctly, no breakages (which is quite good for me). I saved the fried breakfast for after the event.... you should try it... nothing quite like it!
After surviving the sky dive, following day we trekked over the Fox Glacier with a guide etc. really not as easy as it sounds. We had small crampons on, but I still managed to hit the ice a couple of times (a different style of walking is required, use the middle of your foot, not the toe or heel.. should you find yourself in a similar scenario), lucky not to break a finger, very sore one as a result though. We had mostly good weather for first 3 hours, then the monsoon started. Finally our guide turned round after one lady sprained her ankle on what was an extremely narrow crossing near a crevase (to be honest I was quite relieved as I didn't fancy clobbering my size 10's on the narrow ledge only suitable for Hobbit feet). Never the less another fun day, and picture postcard scenery that we've come to expect.
We're now in Wanaka; took a stroll up a big old hill this morning, had a snack then rolled back down again, completing our day in 'Puzzle world' in a damn annoying maze that seemed to take ages to get out of, Deborah enjoyed it though! We're off to Queenstown tomorrow. No solid plans, if my finger is less swollen we'll go for the white water rafting as it's supposed to be top stuff in that region. I think we have 3 nights there (potentially camping if weather holds) and then we're off to Mount Cook for 2 nights, after that I depart back to Christchurch to drop off car and sleep in time for early flight and Deborah returns to Queenstown as my time here is no more than a week now (boo!).
In old blighty... hopefully my luggage (aparently still in Auckland will be joining me at some point).