Railay - Ko Jum - Hat Yai - Penang (Malaysia!)

We left lovely Railay on Saturday and after a wonderful dash in our back packs through the torrential rain managed to catch a boat back to Krabi and then another out to Ko Jum.
We'd hoped Ko Jum would be a nice escape from the tourists, touts and noise that we'd found on Ko Tao and Ko Phi Phi. Unfortunately it turned out we were practically the only people on the island. There was no one else staying at our hotel, the other 5 or so hotels we found nearby were closed up, and at one point we were outnumbered by staff members at our hotel by a 3:1 ratio. Perhaps it was a bit too quiet.. Our room was pretty nice though and we enjoyed the fact you could take a bath and feel that you had actually gained dirt during the experience (the water was a lovely opaque brown colour) After 2 nights of ultimate peace and quiet we headed back to Krabity Krabity Krabbi again (too much peace and quiet truly did this to me) where we hoped we'd manage to catch the VIP bus straight to Penang, so escaping a night in the slightly dubious Hat Yai in southern Thailand.
We arrived with 20 minutes before said bus left and after only a small tiff (for us) made it to the travel agents. They told us we could have the last 2 seats, and a thrilled Billy set off to buy supplies. Unfortunately about 2 minutes later they got another call to say that the seats had been taken. Billy returned with 4 giant bags of crisps, 2 bags of nuts and and a packet of M&Ms (thank goodness he's going catered next year), to last us for the next 7 or 8 hours, and we decided to try to make it anyway using the government bus instead. As you may have guessed by the previous posts the journey to Hat Yai wasn't quite as speedy (or comfortable) as we'd hoped.. so we ended up there yesterday night. After a slightly larger tiff (to be fair i did slap him first..) over the direction of the only decent hotel in town we ended up checked into a wonderful 4 pound room.
This morning we woke up to find it was Billys Birthday. (Yay!) Billy was thrilled with his presents of insect repellent, deodorant, a can of nescafe (he does like those though!) and a couple of donuts (nice, practical presents i thought). Unfortunately ants had got to the donuts in the night, but its the thought that counts hey? After Billy had devoured a burger for breakfast we got the minivan to Penang. Billy was very disappointed that no one sung to him whilst we were passing through border control, which thankfully went without a hitch. We checked in to a very lovely homestay just north of Georgetown before going in search of a birthday cake. We managed to get a delicious looking chocolate cake, which actually didn't taste too bad either! We also got a free cake knife and candles which we thought was pretty good for 4 squid!
After sharing our cake with the rest of the house we set out for a birthday meal, at an amazingly posh (for us travellers) establishment with very yummy food. Billy went for the classic steak which he swears is the best he's ever had! (Thanks M&D!)
Think that's it for now. Pictures are still playing up. Will keep trying. There's a hilarious one of Billy looking.. actually there are many hilarious ones of Billy. Will post some soon =)
Lots of love,
Rosie and Billy
xxx

Many apologies

It seems that our blog may have gained a life of its own.. passwords have been changed but in the meantime stay away from the links!!

Rosies Bus Poem

Will update later with something more meaningful.
This is the poem i wrote on the bus:


Sat on a ledge at the back of the bus,
From Krabi to Hat Yai, the road is quite rough,
The way twists and turns and the bumps there are many,
Perhaps thats why everyone's needing a penny,
Next to the toilet on the ledge we do perch,
While the bus all around us does squeek and does lurch,
The girl just in front is turning quite green,
And her lunch then her breakfast reappear on the scene,
We come to a standstill, we pray its our stop,
But its only a break so the ladies can shop,
We go for a wander then come back and wait,
3 have gone missing, succesfull escape?!
The 3 are recaptured and we're back underway,
Stuck on this bus for the rest of the day,
We'll pull into Hat Yai as the sun starts to wane,
And hobble and yawn and say 'that was a pain',
The seats are uncomfy, the place stinks of pee,
Next time we'll definately go VIP!

Rosie and Billy
xxx

Koh Phi Phi - Krabi - Railay

Hello =)
The rest of our time on Koh Phi Phi was spent mostly lazing, and snorkeling... we keep kidding ourselves that we've managed to attain a slight tan but the truth of this statement is dubious. On one of the evenings Billy, a friendly though slightly dodgy Israeli and the resort staff took on a family of sea gypsies in a game of beach football. Billy is unsure as to the score or even whether they won or lost, but he had fun anyway! The mosquitoes on Phi Phi seemed to find us particularly appetising - at the last count Billy had 64 bites and I had 58 (obviously not that tasty). They were building a new restaurant on our beach which was interesting to watch, and we even got to have a go ourselves- though thankfully Billy was not invited onto the roof.

We got the ferry back to Krabi after 4 nights in Phi Phi. We checked into a hotel which was half the price and at least twice as nice (and no mosquitoes!). We ended up going on a second hand book hunt, taking in most of the town on our quest to find Lord of the Rings 3 (or whatever its called!) but returning unsuccessful. In the evening we ate at a night market by the river - Billy enjoying 4 pancakes as well as his main course -no idea where he fits it all in!

On Thursday we took a longtail over to Railay, after breakfast in the Krabi morning market (an experience in itself!), which is on the mainland but cut off by cliffs. It's a climbers haven, though thankfully since billy scraped his knee during the aforementioned hotly contested football match we have been forced to remain on solid ground. Instead today we took a cooking course. We learnt to make Seafood Salad, (The Classic!) Pad Thai, Tom Kha Kai (Thai chicken soup!) , Massaman Curry and Bananas in coconut milk with our lovely teacher, Om. Despite earlier worries about knife wielding I think we managed to disguise the fact our usual menu consists of pasta, pasta and more pasta rather successfully and hopefully we now have a few more dishes to add to our repertoire! This afternoon (after a very necessary siesta) we scrambled up to a viewpoint above the island for some amazing views, and went exploring in the caves on Phranang (sp?!) beach. There's lots of really cute monkeys here, and yesterday we saw a Monitor lizard, though we were unable to spot any Oriental Pied Hornbills despite Billy dragging me from my bed at 7am this morning to go look.
Anyway, I think that's about it =)
Tommorow we're going back to the mainland and on to Ko Jum which is meant to be beautifully jungly and hopefully less developed. We've also booked ourselves into a bamboo hut in a posh resort there (half price as it became off season on the 1st May!) which we're very excited about.
See you soon,
Sorry about the lack of photos - its being silly.
Look forward to a Thai food feast on our return!
Rosie and Billy
xxx

Ko Tao - Nakhorn Si Thammarat - Ko Phi Phi

Wonderful sign =)

The hammock at the viewpoint

The view from the viewpoint - Phi Phi tourist village

The Temple - Nakhorn

Our 8 quid bed =)

Fire twirlers at Big Blue bar - Ko Tao

Hello =)

We're now staying in Phi Phi in a wonderful hut/shack (depending on whether you're already staying there or whether its being advertised to you) right on the beach. We decided to escape from the main 'tourist village' as soon as we'd arrived so the huts further north, in a small bay called Rantee. The plan at present is to do as little as possible for the next four days, though we may venture out for a spot of snorkeling later: judging by the number of tour boats there this morning its quite good just off our beach!

We left Ko Tao the day after Billy finished his course and travelled to Nakhorn where we checked in to a lovely 8 quid hotel and had a wander about. It made a nice change for people to shout 'Hello' across the street at us because we were a novelty rather than because they wanted us to take their taxi.

The next day we went to look at the holiest temple in Southern Thailand which was very pretty, and saw the thousands of objects that had been left there by worshippers which are now in a museum. We tried to go to the national museum but were too late which was a shame. I also dragged Billy to get a haircut which was a very amusing experience. The boy in the queue ahead of us had a large head of hair completely shaved off which worried Billy immensely, but thankfully his hair escaped a similar fate.

We took the bus to Phuket armed with yet more of our favourite Thai dish so far - Sticky rice and mango! We stayed in a nice hotel in the old town which wasn't as touristy. We ventured out to Karon beach the next day where we hired loungers and spent the majority of the day reading our books and jumping waves. In the evening we ended up in a backpacker bar where Billy (unsurprisingly) beat me at pool before heading to an Internet cafe to 'aww' at Wills & Kates wedding.. very cute indeed.

Yesterday we took the very tardy ferry to Ko Phi Phi, where we are now =) We also stocked up on books from the hugest 2nd hand book store we found in Phuket so we have plenty of reading material for the next few days : I think he was surprised by how many books we had space for!

Hope everything is good at home,

Lots of love

Rosie and Billy

xxxx

Quadbiking-Doughnutting-more frisbee-Diving

Hey everyone, Billy here:

Had a good time since the last post...
After we got back from the floating market we hired quad bikes for half an hour, went round the 3 tracks with Jack being by far the fastest (don't know how... I had the accelerator down all the way), the jumps were fun but Rosie managed to get a burn on her leg by going round a corner too fast, it didn't look too bad but she went in to the pool afterwards as a result.

On Wednesday, we got up late and went down to the beach, where me and jack spied a big, yellow, rubber doughnut (looked more like a sofa), after some masterful bargaining by jack (it mostly seemed to involve silence but somehow that worked) we got on for 3/4 of the price. We were being pulled by a jet ski and there are no words to describe the experience, the closest that I can think of is terrifyingly fun. Afterwards me and jack enjoyed a well earned massage, while Rosie got a manicure and pedicure (I thought they were very brave to attempt this for only 4 pounds). We were joined by some members of jacks family and went out to the night market to pick up a takeaway, which was filled with some weird and wonderful things... the most interesting item was fried grass hoppers which were surprisingly tasty, although I refused a second one!
On Thursday we went to book our evening transport to Koh Tao, and then walked along the beach to an extremely nice bar, which was sooooo good after the boiling hot day. That evening we caught the bus to the ferry where I managed to catch a few hours sleep (Rosie didn't). On the ferry we were approached by a couple of people advertising dive companies (there's so many on koh tao), and decided to go with Big Blue, which has been very good for diving though the accommodation has been very iffy (after the first night we moved rooms).
We signed up for the open water course, but as Rosie has already done half she just had to do the last bit.
Saturday involved changing from the room with dirty walls, towels, sheets and toilet to one where you have to pay (the other one was free with our course) and has air con, which has been much better. In the afternoon I went off with my group, and Rosie was on her own with an instructor, we went in the boat too Mango Bay, where I just practiced some skills and Rosie managed to go for a fun dive. The next day (EASTER - although we didn't get any chocolate eggs) Rosie finished off her course in the morning, by going on 2 fun dives, where they saw loads of cool fish, but she got 6 questions wrong in the exam later and had to buy her instructor a beer(I got 2 wrong)!!! That afternoon I went on my two first fun dives where we managed to see a hawks bill turtle, which we gloated about on the boat and for the rest of the day.
This morning I went on my last two dives which were really cool, at one stage though I lost my regulator (breathing device) whilst fighting matrix style and in a panic went to my instructors second who says I have to buy her a beer for forgetting I had a second too.
That's where I am off to now...
So Ciao for Now!!
xxx

Photos! (fingers crossed..)

Us with the Thai dancers

The floating market

The crowds for Songkran in Silom street

Khao San's songkran banner

The guards at the Royal Palace.

After our first experience of Songkran

Sailing at Changi Yacht Club

Planting the community garden

The terrible tandem

Billy with his tiddly gun.

Billy and Nufail (sp?!) at our hostel

Singapore - Little India

Koala! (slightly out of place.. hope you can work out the order yourselves!)

Butterflies!

Our bed at Cros and Dales

Billy and Nick on the edge of the world!

Billy looking Manly.

Sydney sights

The 3 Sisters

Me at the Opera House

Evening All,

Fingers crossed we'll be able to upload some photos to let you all know we're 'alive and kicking' (and not too sun burnt)

We spent the weekend in Bangkok and have since headed south to Cha-Am where we're staying with Jack and his family in their lovely apartment. Billy and Jack have enjoyed endless games of frisbee but this morning we escaped for a while and went to the floating market which was very cool indeed. We watched a display of Thai dancing which was fun until we realised we'd become tasty meals for a large number of biting insects. However we've discovered a special Thai miracle jelly which although ponging slightly is very effective on the bites

our last few days in Bangkok we explored the giant Chatachak market which

had over 8000 stalls : Billy was thoroughly shopped out by the end of the Saturday! Despite protests we returned for round 2 on Sunday and managed to come across the puppy section - though you'll be pleased to know Billy held firm on that one. Next I think we're heading to an island somewhere further south (but we're open to suggestions!)

Hope things are good at home,

Lots of love,

Billy and Rosie

xxxx

Water, Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink.. (Honest!)

We've been in Bangkok for a couple of days now and are staying at a very lovely hotel where Billy can enjoy a full english breakfast for under 2 pounds (though I am limiting him to only one per day!) We arrived rather too early on Wednesday morning, settled in and then decided to go and see the Songkran celebrations in Si Lom. We returned to the hostel drenched and covered in white powdery stuff after about an hour.. we'd only taken enough money to buy a rather small water pistol and everyone seemed to pick on us! We took the MRT to Chatachuka (sp?!) Park where we hoped we'd be able to visit the butterfly house. Unfortunately due to navigational difficulties it had already closed by the time we arrived, but we enjoyed a wander around anyway! Yesterday we decided to visit the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Taking the bus there was an experience in itself, costing the equivalent of 14p each for about 45 minutes of dodging the frequent buckets of water which were thrown through the windows. The Temple complex and palace were suitably grand and glittery : we tried to estimate how many mirrored tiles had been used in total, it must have been billions! We explored the surrounding market and then headed back to the hostel after eventually figuring out which bus route went the right way. We ate yummy thai food from a stall near our hostel and then headed to Khao San Road which had been closed off to allow thousands of revellers equipped with water guns and the funny white paste stuff (we still havent figured out exactly what it is!) to run wild. As foreigners we got plenty of dousing and returned to the hostel exhausted, drenched and suprisingly chilly! Tonight we're planning to tackle Khao San road again, though now I am equipped with my own very impressive 'Ben 10' gun so should be able to protect myself! Today we went to Pratunam market which was really interesting. I managed to drag Billy away from the wonderful fake Raybans, though unfortunately he was unable to drag me away from the copied 'Kat Cidson' bags.. though mine is quite a good one! Hope everything is good at home, Sorry the photos are still being useless, we'll keep trying! Lots of love, Billy and Rosie xxxx

More Singapore!

Evening All =) Tomorrow we leave Singapore to head up to Bangkok for the Songkran festival which is apparently a spectacularly mad affair involving everyone in the vicinity getting drenched. It should be fun! Our flight leaves at 6am, however, which means leaving the lovely Green Kiwi at 4am... not so much fun! We've enjoyed exploring lots of Singapore over the past few days. On Saturday we ended up racing on the hostel owners 46ft yacht (our reward for our hard work in the community garden!) which was very nice indeed, despite the several tropical thunderstorms and the fact despite several reminders Billy managed to forget his change of clothes! We had drinks in the plush Changi sailing club (why doesn't ours have a swimming pool?!!) and then headed back for a slightly less plush, but nonetheless tasty, pancake supper at the local food court. That morning we also took in the 'only village left in Singapore' on Pulau Ubin where we hired a tandem bike. The lady who hired it to us was reluctant to let us leave after seeing how much we swerved around on our practice run, but by the time we returned we were relatively proficient! On Sunday we decided to visit Changi prison museum to learn a bit about the history of Singapore. The Museum was really interesting though unfortunately they closed up for the day before we'd finished looking as we'd been dawdling so much! On Monday we visited Singapore Science Centre, which was slightly young for us.. but we still had a lot of fun! Billy took part in a Tesla coil experiment holding up a fluorescent tube which glowed once the coil was turned on, though thankfully he wasn't selected to sit inside a cage and be blasted with electricity (he probably would have absent mindedly touched the edge or something). Today we went to buy books as we've got through a lot of ours. Billy was thrilled to discover a copy of TLOTR which he's been looking for all trip for only a quid. He's been glued to it since we got back from the hostel, though perhaps we'll make it out for tea at some point.. Sorry for the lack of photos, it doesnt seem to like uploading them here. We'll try to upload a bumper batch when we get to Bangkok. Hope everything's good at home, Rosie and Billy xxx PS. Please leave us a comment!

Sydney to Singapore!

Hello! We've had a great few days. The blue mountains were really spectacular : Billy and Nick got a tour by a slightly dubious Polish man who turned out to be really nice and we enjoyed a gigantic picnic (we barely ate half!). By the time we'd finished eating the picnic we'd missed the sunset which was a shame, but we still took a walk around the headlands which was very pretty. In the morning we said a sad goodbye to the Bowerings and headed across to Manly to meet up with Crosby and Dale for what had been billed as a 'few days of luxury'. We weren't dissapointed as our bed turned out to be wider than me stretched out, and we enjoyed our own bathroom, balcony and amazing view! Dale took us on a little tour around Manly and we bought Billy his very own Manly t-shirt (it had to be done!). We went for a really nice meal on the beachfront in the evening, though thankfully we didnt have to dress up as we realised neither of us owned a pair of smart trousers! In the morning we set off for a fun-packed day taking in the aquarium, wildlife world and sky tower. The dugongs (like weird seals!) were very cute and Billy got very excited over the duck-billed platypuses. At the wildlife world we got a proper taste for Australian animals seeing kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, red back spiders and lots of lovely snakes. The sky tower was pretty spectacular, sadly the weather failed on us and we didn't get to see the sunset but the views were still amazing, and we got to spy on everyone in their offices. Wednesday we spent wandering in Manly before Dale kindly took us to the airport for our flight to Singapore. We'd discovered the flight was 7 hours - a lot longer than we'd expected - so we got plenty of film time in before we eventually landed in Singapore. We caught the airport shuttle without a hitch and were transported back to our very plush home for the next few nights (thanks Lucy and Jerry!) The next morning we set off into the heat to head for Little India where we took in the sights and delicious smells before a yummy curry lunch. We went to look at some amazing temples and then headed back to the hotel for a swim. In the evening we went to the cinema and saw 'Hall Pass', which was surprisingly humorous. Yesterday we discovered on our way to buy breakfast that our debit card was missing from Billy's wallet. After much desperate worry and rushing around I found the card in Billy's dirty shorts pocket. He has promised to be much more careful! We checked out of the hotel and headed over to 'Green Kiwi hostel' where we're staying now. We decided to visit a museum but got lost on the way so ended up in Chinatown which was very interesting indeed. In the evening we ended up helping out planting the community garden which was very hard work but rewarding! We went out to a food court for tea and then collapsed into our beds! Hope everything is good at home, Lots of love, Rosie and Billy xxx

Lake Tekapo - Christchurch - Sydney!

Hello!

Sorry for not updating for so long.

We spent the night in a nice youth hostel in Lake Tekapo and in the morning managed to fit 4 people and 6 bags into the car which was miraculous! We stopped in Geraldine on the way to Christchurch and admired the Guinness world record holding 'giant jumper' - we were surprised how small it was! We arrived in Christchurch and checked into our room - surprised to find we weren't in a dorm - we'd forgotten we'd treated ourselves! We ended up taking both of our hitch hikers a very indirect route to the shopping mall (neither of us wanted to but both of us thought the other had offered it later transpired!) as the Dutch guys usual sense of direction departed him and we ended up heading 20 minutes in completely the wrong direction. I was not amused. We sent our rather large package home at vast expense and dropped off our car to the rental office without any hitches which we were very glad about. After eating as much of our remaining food as we could manage we attempted to get a good night's sleep. Unfortunately the other hostel guest had decided have a party just next door, though we managed to get a few hours before our 3am alarm.

As I'd predicted we arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and spent the early hours of the morning wandering around duty free and attempting to use up the remainder of our phone credit. We arrived in Sydney at 8am and after the Spanish inquisition over the contents of our lunch box (the cheese, bread and butter all came from New Zealand in case you were wondering) made it to our wonderful lodgings for the night - Base backpackers. We were rather exhausted after our flight so spent the day wandering slightly aimlessly around the city - taking in the Botanic Gardens and the giant bats there as well as Bondi beach in the torrential rain. We hadn't planned on heading to Bondi, but on check in we'd been informed that for every bucket of sand we brought back they'd give us a bucket of drink that evening. After lugging 6 buckets full of sand back on the bus and receiving various strange looks in the process we were informed that we were only allowed one drink each. After an interesting supper made using the one sharp knife provided in the entire hostel kitchen we decided to try to get another early night - having been awake for 20 hours by this stage. Once again we were unsuccessful as the hostel staff decided to burst into our room and drag us down to the bar (Billy just about managed to change back out of his pyjamas); though we managed to make our escape before the wet t-shirt competitions began - thank goodness!

In the morning we phoned up Bill and Bonk's friends the Bowerings and were very grateful when they offered us a bed for a few nights - not sure we would have enjoyed the party hostel that much! We explored Chinatown and then headed over to their house where we spent the evening - enjoying a yummy Thai meal and sampling Tom's cocktails. On Friday we walked down to Bondi along the very pretty coastal path and hired out a surf board and a body board for a couple of hours. I'd forgotten how much my eyes hate the mixture of sun and salt water so spent most of the time lazing on the beach whilst Billy enjoyed some spectacular wipe-outs, though he did manage to stand a few times! Next time I fear I may be the only surfer wearing goggles!

Yesterday we decided to do our own walking tour and spent several hours getting lost around the harbour. We went to the Rocks market and watched a slightly interesting fashion show before venturing across the harbour bridge (though thankfully lack of funds excused us from the actual bridge walk!) and catching a ferry back for some amazing views.

Today we're meeting up with Billy's friend Nick and his bride-to-be Bridgett to go to see the Blue Mountains, which should be good!

Hope everythings good at home,

Sorry for the awful spelling - spellcheck has decided to give up on us!

Lots of love,

Rosie and Billy

xxx

Dunedin - Lake Tekapo + Photos!

I was dusting the sand off! - Abel Tasman

Rapids on the walk to Lake Marion

Billy in the Cadbury van

Kea

Milford Sound

Abel Tasman

Billy enjoys a Velvet Burger

Lake Gunn

Lake Marion

Billy in his bug hat whilst we were Kiwi Spotting

Us at Franz Josef Glacier

Panning for gold in Ross

One of the blowholes at Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki

Weka (he kept moving!)

Billy hitching a lift with the Kayaks

One of the islands we stopped on whilst Kayaking in Abel Tasman

Hiding Blue Penguin!

Billy getting wet at the Moreaki Boulders (I cant spell!)

One of the views from Billy Brown's

Billy Brown x 2

The Beach near Billy Brown's

Yellow Eyed Penguin

Billy enjoys a crisp breakfast at the car boot sale

Albatross!

Good Evening,

We've had a really nice couple of days staying at Billy Brown's (yes, really!) backpackers just outside of Dunedin and this afternoon we travelled to Lake Tekapo.

We spent Saturday exploring Dunedin. This involved a trip to Cadbury's World which was very exciting, though as it was the weekend the production line was closed which was sad. Billy was a total suck-up to the tour leader throughout, so we ended up with plenty of free samples to take away and left feeling altogether sick. For lunch we went to 'Velvet Burger' in the Octagon after Dad told me he'd had his best ever burger in the Octagon 30 years ago - We're not sure if its the same one but it was tasty anyway! In the afternoon we ventured out along the Otago Peninsula and took an Albatross tour in rather inclement weather - though we saw quite a few which was exciting.

On Sunday we planned to get up at 6.15 to head out to a car boot sale to get rid of our camping gear. However Billy managed to set the alarm badly, meaning we raced out at 6.45 waking most of our hostel in the process (though that was only 4 of them!) and enjoyed a cereal bar and BBQ crisp breakfast on the way. We arrived at the car boot expecting it to be busy but finding we were the only ones there. Thankfully a few others arrived later, but it was hardly the giant car boot we'd expected from at home! We managed to sell most of our gear for the equivalent of 40quid, not as much as we'd hoped but at least its all gone!

In the afternoon we headed to the 'Big Get Together' at Otago Museum for free candyfloss, yummy Mexican food, chemistry displays and some very cute snow dogs. We ended up spending 2 hours working on a mask to enter a competition to win an Xbox. Sadly our masterpiece on the theme of 'We love NZ' complete with the scenery of New Zealand and several pipe cleaner birds was unvictorious, but at least we won't turn into gaming addicts. We went back to the lovely Billy Brown's hostel feeling slightly deflated only to be beaten by two Germans at scrabble - though they were pretty fluent! At the last minute we decided to head down to the beach to try to see yellow eyed penguins in the drizzle. We managed to spot 2 waddling up the beach and Billy also got attacked by a cloud of flies which was equally entertaining.

This morning we said goodbye to Anja, Uta and the other Billy Brown and headed up to the Moreaki Boulders (think that's how its spelt!) which were very cool. We continued to Lake Tekapo where we are now, picking up a nice Dutch hitchhiker on the way who was thankfully very good at directions! Tomorrow is our penultimate day in NZ and we plan to head to Christchurch with a rather full car, as Billy seems to have gained us yet another passenger!

Hope everything is good at home,

Lots of love,

Rosie and Billy

xxx