Stevenjking.co.uk

The last couple of weeks have seen a trip up the west coast of New Zeland’s South Island stopping off to visit family on the way, and then a dash up the north island in order to make it to Aukland in time for my flight to Chile Tomorrow.
I had been hoping that I might be able to do another of the Great Walks the Tongariro Circuit, however there was not going to be enough time to fit the three day walk in, so the one day walk the Tongariro Crossing, which is supposed to be New Zeland’s best one day walk, would have to be done instead. Unfortunately the conditons were not great with very low visability, and we only managed to get just under half way along the walk before having to turn back as the wind was too strong for us to cross one of the ridges. So wether it is the best one day walk I will have to leave judgement untill I return here again.
Tomorrow will be the longest day of my trip, with my flight from Auckland to Santiago Chile. The flight is the longest of the trip at 11h20 however due to crossing the date line I still manage to arrive almost 5hrs before I take off.

Despite having been online quite a few times since writing my last post I seem to keep forgetting to write anything about what I’ve been up to.

Following from Malaysia I headed down into Singapore for a few days before my flight to Australia. This was my first hit of I’m leaving cheap living behind. Food was now twice the price and accomodation even more. I spent one day in the city centre, and the other two wondering through parkland and along the east coast beach.

I flew into Brisbane and spent a couple of days there before puchasing a one way train pass to Cairns. My first stop-off was Hervey bay for a visit to Fraser Island. I joind a group of 6 others for a 3 day 2 night self drive 4×4 trip to the island, which is the largest sand island in the world. We had a great time visiting a couple of lakes, a shipwreck and many other locations on the island in our lovely pink landcruiser. Although I was allowed to drive I decided that having not driven a car since passing my test that it would probably be best to leave the driving to those with more recent experience.

After returning from Fraser I headed on to Rockhampton. Arriving at 6pm on a Sunday the town seemed to be a “Ghost Town”. There was not much to do but I spent two days in the town due to the fact that there is only one train a day between Brisbane and Cairns, and only three of these are able to be used with my rail pass without paying an upgrade.

My next destination was Airlie Beach entrance to the Whitsunday Islands. The free transfer bus from the train station dropped me off in the town at 4.30am so time to sit down read a book before watching the sun rise. Once the hostel receptions opened at 6.30 I went to find somewhere to check into, though before checking in I thought I would see if they had any sailing trips leaving that day, and amazingly there was one space available on a two day one night trip aboard the maxi yacht Siska, which was departing at 8.30 so a quick breackfast before checking in for the boat. Unfortunately there was not much wind in the morning of the first day so the trip to our first snorleling destination was spent under power. It seemed a little strange having to wear a wetsuit in the water when the outside temperature is in the 30s and the water in the 20s but it is currently stinger season so the wetsuits are required to protect yourself from being stung by one of the many jellyfish. The afternoon gave us a little more wind and we sailed all the way to our destination for the night. In the morning another couple of snorkels before sailing back to Airlie after lunch. In the afternoon the wind picked up and the sail back to Airlie was great, with us racing against another boat which should have managed to beat us by quite a bit, however we won. Unfortunately there is only one photo from this trip as my batteries died early on and my camera also had a little incident with the water (am hoping it will work when I try it later today).

I am now in Cairns and will hopefully be going out on a trip to the Barrier reef tomorrow, and will probably have a go at diving. From here it will either be a direct flight to Melbourne where I am spending christmas, or possibly a detour via the centre to visit ayres rock.

Have now headed down south. I spent a couple of days in Hua Hin which is a fairly popular Thai beach resort. The weather was good and despite using lots of sun cream I still managed to burn.
Have now moved on to Koh Phangan and again have been lucky with the weather, as it is now the wet season in this area, but it only rained a bit on the day I arrived and then has been sunny for the last 3 days, although it has just started to lightly rain now so am hoping it doesn’t get heavy.
Current accommodation is a little bamboo bungalow with double bed and en-suite shower room, although there is no hot water, if I want a hot shower need to go to use the communal shower across the resort. It is a nice resort with a private beach which have been doing a bit of snorkeling. When I arrived there was only 4 other people staying, but has been slowly growing with about 10 or so more arriving thismorning.
Am probably going to head to Phuket in the next couple of days, though the current forecast for there is thunderstorms so will stay here for at least one more day, and if it starts raining hard then will head on. After Phuket will be heading on to Malaysia.
Will upload the photos have taken soon but have not got camera with me at the moment, and the last place I tried kept having problems.