Too hot to handle...

Spent Wednesday with Caroline exploring the sites of Singapore. We went to the aquarium in the morning to see see some seriously weird foreign fish. The crabs were huge (up to 3.7m across) and we saw a dungong (kind of sea cow). Had a nice lunch at the restaurant of chicken and rice and Suz got thoroughly scared by a peacock who took a shine to her chicken and rice.

Spent the afternoon at the zoo to see some even more peculiar animals. The highlight was definitely the orangutans which were free to roam around some areas of the zoo. They were a bit too well trained as they posed for some photographs at feeding time but they were still beautiful animals with real personalities. Suz would still like one!

We went on a night safari round another part of the zoo which was also good even though most of the animals were either in bed or in the shadows! Decided against a walk around the zoo at night (yes, they do let you do that!).

The overwhelming memory of Singapore will be the extreme heat and humidity. It was about 35 degrees C and over 90% humidity. We spent most of our time there craving air-conditioning and in true British fashion, moaning about the heat. The joys of getting on an air-conditioned bus after walking only 5 mins out in the heat cannot be underestimated!

We had a leisurely morning on Thursday walking round the botanical gardens and cooking out in the heat! We then went to a canteen style restaurant for lunch. I had a meat noodle dish (which included liver and odd shaped other body parts!) and Dom braved a laksa, a noodle fish dish. This seemed to consist of 2 eyeball type 'balls of fish' and an omelete. Neither dishes looked like the pictures we selected from the menu! They were both lovely although Dom ate only one of the eye balls!

We cheated and got a taxi to the airport - we simply could not cope with getting hot and sweaty again going outside. It was a good 25 mins drive but only cost s$23 which is about 8 quid (keyboard does not have a GBP pound sign!).

We had quite a bad flight from Singapore to Sydney as there were at least 3 screaming children and I sat next to the most fidgety person in the world. In the course of a 7 hour flight, he drank 10 cans of coke - no wonder he couldn't sit still! There were also loads of Germans behind us who wouldn't shut up and kept banging my seat. Made for a very frustrating trip.

The flight from Sydney to Christchurch was only 3 hours so that was a doddle in comparison. We are very grateful that there is no longer any flying for another 6 weeks.