Another day in paradise

The photos below say it all really, the past 24 hours have been sweet. I spent yesterday afternoon and early evening chilling laid out on the mats in a bar at the beaches edge and witnessed a stunning sunset.

Then today I went on 3 dives off Koh Tao. So many fish and such variety. Underwater photos never do justice to the colours I saw, but I have included a few of the better shots. We saw a massive jelly fish drifting by just under the boat as we ascended, kept well clear of that big fella. Especially as I was still feeling the slight pain of a stinger that somehow found its way down the back of my wet suit as soon as I entered the water for the first time today!!

Diving Koh Tao, 28-08-07

Island paradise

Wanted to show you a few photos of the hut I am staying in and the beach I am just 50 metres from. Sairee Beach for those that have been to Koh Tao.

The hut is very basic with no air con, no flushing toilet and no hot water, but it makes up for these shortcomings in character! It is in a shady spot surrounded by trees and bushes, is in spitting distance to the beach and dive centre, and is right on the doorstep of the village centre for bars and cafes and shops. Perfect, apart from the thumping bass a local bar was pumping out til 4am this morning!

Sairee Beach, Koh Tao

Jungle Fever (and other ailments)

I know I know, I've been quiet on the blog from Thailand so far - sweet reflief I hear you shouting! There are good reasons for this lack of blogging - I've been on a beach with Sam. Although it turned out not to be quite the trip to paradise we hoped for...

Sam arrived in Bangkok feeling dreadful. She'd been feeling sick just before she left and on the flight things took a turn for the worse with wicked headaches and fever. Not the vision of loveliness I had anticipated, she looked knackered and sick!

To cut a long & painful (for Sam) story short, she had a fever brought on by an upper respiratory infection, temperatures up to 100F and had to spend 36 hours in hospital (it felt more like 36 days to her) under observation as the doc was wondering if she might have a brain infection. Her brain was fine, so we headed to Krabi just a few days late.

The beach and the resort were lovely. Railay Beach is quite a short strip of land on a peninsula south of Krabi, surrounded by vertical cliff faces and mountains, lush green palms & bushes, and golden sand. This sounds like paradise, but our tale of woe was just beginning. I don't want to go on about it all too much cos you might think it ruined our time together, but we still managed to have fun despite...

- quite a bit of rain that kept us in our room for hours on end. (Not exactly a punishment for a couple getting reacquainted!)
- both being idiots and getting severe sun burn on the 3rd day (1st day the sun came out). We got burnt so badly that I couldn't touch my back and Sam her front for days. I've never been burnt so badly. It's now over 4 days later and I'm still sore and the top 5 layers of skin on my back are starting to leave me. We were fooled by overcast conditions - a lesson to be sure!
- obviously the regulation travellers diarrhea, which for me has really out-stayed its welcome now.
- and to top it off it looked this morning like Sam might have picked up an eye infection overnight.

We are not usually sickly people!

All in all we both felt physically quite miserable for much of our week together!! But we managed to make the most of it and had a fun time. We ate well (local snapper was delicious), walked to some local caves with impressive limestone formations, laughed at other tourists we didn't like the look of, and ate plenty of ice cream. Once again it was dreadful to say goodbye.

I'm now spending a night in Surat Thani before getting the morning ferry to Koh Tao for some of Thailand's best diving. Yeee-haa!!

Railay Beach, Krabi

Thailand: 6 hours ahead of BST

I'm here, arrived safely and only a little late yesterday evening, finally got to bed at 2am local time, 25 hours after I woke up in Auckland. Didn't get any sleep on plane so feel a bit jaded still.

I'm back on my UK mobile +447971832797 in case you need it.

Next stop Bangkok

After 3,621 kilometres travelled by me and my trusty van, it's time to say so long to NZ and get ready for the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, then the easy pace of life on the island beaches.

Even better than that I see Sam when I get to Bangkok, so it's all good. Or as the Kiwis might say, it will be choice.

Black Water Rafting

I rocked up at Waitomo at 2pm wondering where to stay and what to do. I had heard from a few people that the glow worm caves are worth seeing. I stumbled across a company called Black Water Rafting, which involves getting into a thick wetsuit and taking a big inner tube into the caves to ride down underground waterfalls and rivers. As I'm pretty extreme these days I thought, "I'll have some of that".

I assumed it would all be tourist-friendly and easy going on lit tracks and steps. But none of it, we squeezed down a hole in the ground which looked like a dead end to me, and straight away it was pitch dark. Luckily we had lights on our helmets. This was much more like proper caving than I expected and I loved it. We jumped down little waterfalls in our rubber rings, trekked through caves and shallow streams, floated along underground streams looking up at the hundreds of shining glow works in the ceiling above us, like a starry night sky.

The water was f-ing freezing. My toes and feet went numb quite early on and warmth is still trying to come back to my toes 90 minutes later! But it was great fun, even as much fun as sky diving I think, and it exceeded all expectations.

Black Water Rafting

Skydiving is easy

I had a great instructor (Alex who called me "bro" a lot but I don't think we're related), perfect weather, and it was brilliant!

I jumped from 15,000 feet (which is as high as you can go) and had 60 seconds of free fall at up to 120mph before the 'chute was deployed.

Luckily I'm as hard as Tarzan's feet so I didn't even get very nervous. I'm so extreme. Unlike the bungy there was no fear about jumping and after the initial shock of falling through the air - very strong and loud wind, freezing wind - I was able to look about at Lake Taupo below me and the surrounding snow covered volcanic peaks. Beautiful.

A wicked experience, but for fear factor and adrenalin-rushing highs I would recommend a bungy jump.

I've put some photos here taken from the ground, but the DVD I got is 5 mins long so would take about 3 hours to upload onto the blog. I'll have to show you it when I see you.

Skydive

Damn wind

It was too windy in the Cook Strait to go diving yesterday. Maybe a blessing in disguise as I have a bit of a cold (hazard of sleeping in a big metal box through near freezing temperatures!) and plunging into 10 degree waters may not have aided recovery.

So instead I'm going to jump out of an airplane tomorrow...

Kaikoura - Nelson

Kaikoura - Nelson

Another beautiful day for a drive. Finally got on the road (after having to turn back cos I left my milk in the holiday park's fridge!) for a wicked brunch at a road side cafe called The Store, recommended by Lonely Planet & they were very right.

Made it to Picton by lunch. Picton is where the ferry to Wellington departs. I found a dive shop by the quay and enquired about a wreck dive. I'm signed up to go on Monday, fingers crossed the weather behaves. See details of the wreck I cut & paste below:

The Mikhail Lermontov is one of the BIGGEST diveable cruise shipwreck in the world. Only the Empress of Ireland (resting at 150Ft) & the Titanic are bigger. This 175 metre Russian cruise ship sank in 1986, trying to navigate the passage between a lighthouse and Cape Jackson. The wounded ship managed to make it into Port Gore, before losing power and sinking in the middle of the bay unable to make the beach. All passengers escaped by lifeboat.

Once I knew the dive was Monday I decided to head to Nelson for the weekend. The Queen Charlotte Drive between Picton & Nelson is absolutely stunning. Twistier that a twisty twisted thing! Really fun driving even in my boat of a van (if that makes sense!). It winds along the coast of the Marlborough Sounds for about 25 kms and the views are panoramic to say the least.

Queenstown - Lake Tekapo

I wouldn't normally include a blog posting for every leg of my journey, but there are so many panoramic scenes driving through the mountains that I think they are worth showing.

It was the sunniest nicest day I've had in NZ so far, long may it continue as I head North to the warmer climate.

Queenstown to Lake Tekapo (pronounced 'take-a-poo') was about 250 kms through Cromwell, Omarama (where I had my lunch in a car park), into Twizel to use the ATM, past Lake Pukaki (another of those fabulous reflecting ones with Mt Cook in the background) and finally Lake Tekapo. The one sight-seeing thing I did was to check out the Church of the Good Shepherd on the lake. Quite a stunning setting. Also there was a statue to the loyal border collie, in honour of the dogs' tireless work in shepherding. Here here.

I found a camp site on the lake and could look out to the lake and the mountains from my camper van bed! The sunrise was special.

[Note: my pronunciation above of Tekapo was not the truth!]

Queenstown - Lake Tekapo