Kia Ora!

Or rather... Hello (in Maori, and that tasty tropical fruit drink of course..yum!).

As Ady said we're now in New Zealand - the 3rd leg of our trip! We're travelling with the Kiwi Experience which is kind of like a cross between Trek America and National Express from home. The company basically takes you from one location to another in a big group of travellers - but rather than staying with the same gang from start to finish you can hop off one if you want to stay somewhere longer and just catch the next bus that comes (pretty much 7 days a week depending on location). So far everything seems pretty good with informative (and funny) drivers and a nice bunch of people. If you wait a while to book they always seems to be having some sort of offers as well so don't rush - we managed 20% off ours!

Everything in New Zealand is kind of like home with an American twist. Its green, hilly and forest-y; best of all the temperature is like home. Getting off the plane was incredible; for around 7 weeks I've been uncomfortably hot in America and Fiji so it was pure relief stepping in to temperatures of below 20C - and finally time to make use of those 2 jumpers I've been carrying around for no reason what so ever!

Our first couple of days were spent in Auckland - the biggest city in the whole of the country. I'll be honest, its a bit shit. Apparently it is close to the top of the top 55 'best quality of life' cities in the World but I don't see it myself. It has everything you need (if what you need is Internet cafes, pharmacies and Chinese takeaways) for a short stay but we just made use of the cinema and a few shops to get stocked up for the rest of the New Zealand trip. The best thing about the city was possibly the ACB hostel where we stayed. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays have what is called 'the big eat' where you pay $10 for a beer and as much pizza as you can eat - Ady and myself both managed 2 whole ones before we couldn't eat anymore - they then brought out about another 30 pizzas; for the cost you can't go wrong!

After 2 nights there we took our first Kiwi experience bus up to the Bay of Islands at the northern tip of the Island. Stunning scenery and loads of activities on offer; but rather than the usual speed boat trips around the islands etc we decided to do some sea fishing - It was amazing!! We went out with Spot-X fishing; they use high speed boats so that you get to the fishing spots quicker so the ride out was pretty cool in itself. Once out there I managed to catch 2 Snappers and 1 HUGE Barracuda!

Barracudas are unfortunately full of worms which makes them crap for eating so we had to make do with 2 Snappers for dinner... but they were bloody lovely! So some advice for the Bay of Islands... if you're going to do a cruise around the islands do something on that cruise as we've heard from quite a few people it can be a bit dull - so go sailing, fishing or kayaking then you get to see the islands and be entertained... perfect!

the fine details of booking flights

When Ady and myself first decided to go travelling it was a bit of a random decision; more of a way to escape working life and do something different than embrace all the World had to offer.

After various discussions we had a BIG list of countries we'd love to squeeze in and an appointment to visit STA in Birmingham to reign us in to what we could actually manage! The lucky travel agent / Tour operator / STA agent person in question was Dawn from the Birmingham uni branch (Thankyou!). She took the time (2 hours I think?!) to tell us about all the available options for RTW tickets that were available and advised us which would be best to satisfy our needs; it turned our that satisfying our needs required us to alter our (over ambitious) needs but we were able to get there in the end.

Booking with Quantas we ended up with the following flights:

• [London, Heathrow to New York, JFK]
• [LA, Tom Bradley to Fiji, Nadi ]
• [Fiji, Nadi to NZ, Auckland]
• [NZ, Christchurch to AUS, Melbourne Int]
• [AUS, Cairns to Singapore, Changi]
• [Thailand, Bangkok to Hong Kong, International]
• [Hong Kong, International to London, Heathrow]

Its worth noting that when booking flights you can usually only book 12 months in advance; this meant that we had to put through preliminary dates all within within the next 9 months or so but STA offer the chance to revise these dates (without extra charge) once flights become available; allowing you the flexibility to book your flights and get the money part out of the way but then sort the exact dates later on.

After you have made the initial booking you have 60(ish) days to pay the balance of the flights; during this time the taxes can change, and so the price can rise or fall. To help us out Dawn kindly re-booked the flights approx. 2 weeks after our first booking which gave us extra time to pay - very useful when you're waiting for the wages to role in. The flights came in at a cool £1480 (a huge chunk of which seems to be tax and apparantly will keep rising - carbon emission taxes / higher oil prices etc!) and will allow us to directly visit the USA, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong; although whilst in east Asia we're hoping to do our own thing for a few months and squeeze in a few more countries.