New Galleries

Well, I finally got round to making and posting-up the rest of the New Zealand galleries (links on the right, as usual >>>).

There's a lot there, if anyone wants to trawl through them for a pictorial journey.

If you find any broken links, let me know.

Also, I've made the itinerary list dynamic, so now you can use that to see a detailed itinerary and navigate to individual posts/pics.

Beach of a Life

All quiet on this front apart from the fact that I've got two concentric rings burnt onto my leg from leaning against a hot scooter baffle.

'Nice tattoo' people keep remarking, but I'm getting exhausted with that.

Ouch.

Here's a few more pics of Sairee.

Hot Hot Hot

I've just been keeping out of the heat most of the time and putting some tracks together.

I'll try and post some MP3s up soon.

Here's some pics of the jungle surrounding Sairee. Weird rock formations and palms of all sizes.

The sweating seems to keep the food-weight ration down.

Full English. Can't find a decent cuppa though.

Koh Tao: Flop On

Here at last for a short while.

Really laid-back here. Lots and lots of cheap diving to be had (approx £7 per dive), but I'm going to excel at doing bugger-all for a few days (apart from sweating - lots).

When I do get round to it, I've been thinking about doing some more dive training. But do I need any more considering that I'm never going to bother with being a dive instructor?

Mmmm.

Some of the bays here are only accessible by boat, so I'll try and get some pics of those for you soon.

Chicken with cashew nuts. And morning glory.

Koh Samui

Very, very hot.

I stopped here (again) overnight so I could catch the ferry to Koh Tao via Koh Phangan.

I avoided the bright lights of Chaweng and headed straight for Bangrak (see pics).

Feels so good to get away from cities again!

Hi to all. Favourite food today is (once again) Massaman Curry.

Lamphun and Lampang

Well, I peeled myself away from the food stalls and scootered round some of the neighbouring areas.

There's some pretty things to see when you head off the beaten track.

I've also seen some really good bands the last few nights.

I'm off down to the gulf tomorrow, to Ko Tao. I'm armed with 30 gigabytes of audio samples and music software, so I'm going to flop and play with it all by the beach for a while.

Monty, I'm going to see how many VCD's I can squeeze onto my MacBook HD today at 10 baht each. Get some more disk space!

Street Cleaning

Just to prove that it's not all sunshine and smiles all the way, it persisted-it down quite dramatically yesterday.

It was quite funny to watch the streets suddenly clear of scooters.

Oh, and I got fined (again) for not wearing a helmet.

200 baht. A whole 3 quid!

The cheek!

Anyway, I'm making plans for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. And after that, I'm probably going to find an island in the Gulf or in Malaysia so I can concentrate on some serious procrastination and all things synthesiser related.

p.s. Phil, need any music software? Cheaper than chips here. Literally (see example for 3 quid).

Wat's This Then?

A wat is a temple in Thailand (and Loas, Cambodia et al).

Here's some pics of the one on the Mani Noppharat Road on the northern side of the infernal moat.

There's about twenty of them in the city and some are really spectacular. I'll take more pics of them.

It's really hot and humid here. About 32°, so I made a little prayer to the Gods of Air Conditioning and left them a meat lollipop.

Pad Thai

And everything else as well.

I've not taken any pics yet, as I've been too busy stuffing my face.

When I'm not concentrating on getting lost, I stop the scooter every fifty metres to investigate another foodstall. Everyone else does it.

The meat lollipops are one of my favourites.

Someone's done a nice job of posting lots of photos of Thai food on the net.

Off to the night bazaar tonight. Left, then right, then left then left.

Methinks.

Hi Alice! Hope you had a good flight back home.

Chaing Mai

Boy, did I need that kip!

I just resurfaced and firmly decided to get lost round the moat that circles (squares?) the city about four times.

See pic of the offending moat in question.

Never mind. I treated myself to some morning glory in garlic and bean sauce and a Penang chicken curry.

Ooh, I forgot how good the food was.

And it only cost about £1.20

I have a fairly decent interweb connection in my room, so should be able to respond to comments/Skyping quite quickly.

เที่ยวทั่วไทย ทุกภาค ทุกจังหวัด

Yep, Sawadee.

Well I'm doing the graveyard shift at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok and it's time to turn back into 'Sweaty Steve' again.

Hopefully, I'll be staying at Walai House in Chiang Mai, if you need to contact me over the next few days until I get my phone sorted for SE Asia.

Right, another fours hours to wait and I don't think I've inspected the east-side of the fourth floor of the airport yet. Better get busy.

Auckland (again)

This time with some pics as the old camera passed away when I first got here and after about 5,000km of 'camper-van-swerving-round-tight-bends-on-two-wheels' type stuff.

Sun's out and - wait for it - I get to sleep in a REAL BED for the first time in almost a month!

Oh, luxury. Just need to find a REAL bath now.

Flying out tomorrow via Sydney to Bangkok. I'm then hanging around for about 8 hours before taking an internal flight to Chiang Mai, so I'll probably be too knackered to get on the interweb for a couple of days.

A Quick Goodbye and Thanks...

...to all the lovely people that I've met whilst I did my 'Smelly Camper Van Man' impersonation in New Zealand.

Eliot, Brody, Moi, Gina & Brad (Brad, cheers for the extension, I'll sort something out with Ted in return), Miriam, Tony & Sarah, Kurt, Paul & David, Steve & John and anybody else I forgot here (it's an age thing).

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Hope to see you again soon.

S

Wanganui to New Plymouth

This pic's from just outside Wanganui .

Well, the weather started-off fine but rapidly deteriorated. Just as I could see Taranaki/Mount Egmont in the distance (really impressive in a 'Fuji' kinda way), it started persisting it down proper. Good snaps of that were out the question. The one here I got off the interweb.

I settled-in to a camper park in New Plymouth and met Kemp, who's a guitarist with a dubby/reggae/indie band called 'The House of Spore'. He was in town with his wife and kids as he was traveling round NZ selling his band's latest cd on the streets to poor unsuspecting people. Go Kemp!

You can check-out his band at www.myspace.com/sporeband.

When I set-off in the morning again, couldn't even see the sky. Pity that, as it's really impressive (the mountain, not the sky!).

Anyway chaps, I'm back in Auckland again now as I've got to clean and drop the van off on Saturday morning and then I'll be flying to Thailand on Sunday. Just as well really, as it looks like I've timed my departure perfectly with the arrival of lots of rain and the onset of Winter.

I hope yer all on tenterhooks (whatever they are), waiting for the next exciting/excrutiating instalment...

Picton to Wellington

On the ferry back to North Island.

Here's some pics of lovely Picton where I said farewell to John, who was heading back south to drop-off his hire car in Christchurch and then fly on to Fiji.

I got into Wellington about midnight as the ferry was delayed, and then set-off early for the drive north, this time along the West Coast.

Fox Glacier AVI

Only a small one but I've posted it up - link on the right or you can view the glacier here.

Nelson

Named after some naval commander or something.

Very nice, picturesque place and a good stop for a rest after all of the South Island driving.

Me and John just chilled-out today with a BBQ and a few tinnies. Off to Picton tomorrow for the ferry across Cook Straight.

A happy belated Carpenter Nailing Day to all of you interested in that type of thing.

hehehe

Franz Josef Glacier

Another one.

This time I went up really close and on the way met a couple of great guys. Steve from London, who's been living in Taiwan for twenty years, and John from Rotherham, who's traveling round the world as well.

Not wearing crampons is a good enough reason to be told to get off the glacier, I suppose, but we celebrated our adventurism quite admirably that night anyway.

Steve, great to meet you mate, send the Japanese pics and stuff through to me when you can and I'll try and get to Taiwan if my budget allows.

I passed through Murchison yesterday, and now I'm in Nelson, which is really nice (photos next post up). I'll be taking the ferry back to North Island on Tuesday.

Fox Glacier & Mt Cook

Yep, it's a lot of ice.

An awful lot.

And a big mountain.

Movies- OZ & New Zealand

Here's Haku Falls and an avi of lorrakeets made from the balcony on the farm in Beenleigh (Australia). >>>

The Haku Falls one is 13mb as my camera was set to its largest format for AVIs, so might take a while to download for those of you still in the stone age.


S

Te Anau to Queenstown

Stayed overnight at a campsite in Te Anau and now I've parked-up in Queenstown, where some long-overdue laundry is in order. I wondered why all the wildlife was keeping its distance.

Oh, life on the road, eh?

Well, Queenstown's really beautiful, set a the foot of the mountains on the shore of lake Wakatipu. It's the 'adrenelin sport capital of the world' here. Don't think my budget can afford most of it but the paragliding off the mountain looks like fun.

Methinks a day's r & r here, then a trip to the glaciers. If they're as stunning as Fjordland and Milford Sound, then they'll be well-worth all the driving.

Right, washing powder...