Matthew’s Website

I was always going to give some awards at the end of my trip, but so they stay relevant I am going to do some as I go along. So I’m going to split my trip into thirds. The next logical third is the Pacific Islands including Easter Island, Tahiti, New Zealand and Japan (technically [...]

After arriving on the bullet train into Kyoto I sat down and uploaded some more photos at my hostel these are now online on Flickr and named (some not very well though), enjoy, but now I’m off to bed as its midnight here.

First thing on Wednesday morning I headed to Ginza as I needed to buy some socks; the mission to do this was successful and after that I headed to Tokyo station to get the rest of my train tickets reservations. After this I headed to Ryogoku and the Sumo (really pronounced with a very short [...]

I took the train up from Wellington to Auckland on Saturday which was pretty good and the train left early on Saturday morning for it’s journey first along the coast and then through the mountains. Unfortunately the windows are far too shiny to really get a good photo and there is too much pollen on [...]

I arrived into Christchurch on Thursday Evening on the train. Unsurprisingly the train was 20 minutes late even though there didn’t appear to have been any reason or obvious sign of delay while on the journey.
After arrival I went to a local French named restaurant/bar called Dux de Lux, though the interior was a more [...]

So I got up at 8am on Thursday for the 9am bus which was later than everyone else in my dorm who had mostly only arrived the day before - I think people are trying to do the whole country in 2 weeks. I’ve spent 5 weeks here and could have spent more time in [...]

After a long coach journey I arrived into Franz Josef on Tuesday evening. That evening I went for a few drinks and learnt that the town is completely dependent on tourists. It’s population is only 100 but swells to approximately 3000/day in the summer which is absolutely massive. I also found that in appreciation the [...]

I’ve stuck another bunch of photos up onto Flickr, I’ll get around to tagging/naming them later.

So I’m now making my way fairly quickly back to Auckland. At this stage I’m wishing I had decided to fly from Christchurch to Auckland but I’m taking the train instead from Wellington to Auckland which I booked at the start of my time in New Zealand so i’m only flying from Christchurch to Wellington.
First [...]

Continued from part 1
So at 4pm on Friday after quite a few viewing stops we arrived at Milford Sound, as it was cloudy we didn’t get much of a view however. Then we got on the boat and headed into the sound itself which was seriously stunning to see. Actually the sound itself is stunning [...]