As we flew over Misiones state to reach Puerto Iguazú, it felt like we were about to land in a new continent. Acres and acres of lush green forest lay beneath us, and only at the last minute did the trees open up to reveal the runway. Technically this was still Argentina, but the scenery felt closer to Borneo than to the megalopolis of Buenos Aires we'd left only a few hours before.......

This sense of being Somewhere Else only increased once we reached Puerto Iguazú proper (which I suspect would be a rather nondescript border town, were it not for its close proximity to the Iguazú Falls). The roads and pavements were covered in the same fine red dust which coated our clothes and faces in Phu Quoc. Most of the restaurants offered patrons plastic garden chairs to sit on, just like in Vietnam. And the oppressive heat and humidity, which left us instantly damp with sweat, took us right back to our early summer in South East Asia.

I guess this dramatic change shouldn't have come as so much of a surprise: you can see both Brazil and Paraguay from Iguazú's waterfront. So it's only natural the place should be a bit of a melting pot. One really positive consequence of this (from our perspective) was that the cuisine on offer here was a little more varied, and our first lunch consisted of a Paraguayan specialty for me, and a Brazilian one for James. Neither slice of ham nor piece of cheese in sight.

The main purpose of our visit was of course a trip to the Iguazú Falls. The Falls consist of some 275 individual waterfalls, stretching on for more than 2km, which crash at several thousand cubic metres a second into the Iguazú River some 80m below. They were first seen (by Europeans) in 1542 when Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his crew came exploring. Now of course, they're a little busier.

The Falls lie across the border between Argentina and Brazil, which means you need to visit both countries in order to see them properly. Although our next stop will be Sao Paulo, we decided to base ourselves in Argentina and just do a day trip to Brazil – having heard horror stories about how expensive Brazil is, we are keen to keep our days there to a minimum!

The morning after we arrived dawned bright and sunny, and so we got one of the first buses of the day to the Argentinian National Park. The build up was pretty impressive: first the bus takes you the 15km to the park through lush green rainforest similar to the tropical Amazonian jungles further north. First impressions: it's a lot like Jurassic Park here. Next, you get to wander through part of the forest along a narrow winding path, on the look out for toucans and other exotic birds. And then you enter the Park proper. Just like at the Perito Moreno Glacier, the National Park Authority has created a series of walkways to enable you to get close to the Falls, and see them from several different perspectives. They have clearly designed the walkways to keep you in suspense for the longest time, keeping the falls hidden until the very last moment But even from the start of the trail, the noise of the water gushing is huge – it sounds like a busy road in the middle of the national park! We interrupted a coati, a cousin to the raccoon with an incredibly long and flexible snout (think Cyril and Cedric Sneer from The Raccoons, though brown not pink), prowling around on an early morning stroll. And then finally, we turned a corner, and there they were.....

The Falls were absolutely spectacular – I've never seen waterfalls on anywhere near the same scale before. Some of the waterfalls we specifically drove to see in New Zealand were mere trickles by comparison. There are individual falls as far as the eye can see, ranging from small trickles to absolute monsters. The water is a dirty muddy colour, apparently the result of significant deforestation in the region – 40 years ago, the water ran clear. This seems a real shame, although it does add to the other-worldly feel of the place. Butterflies in almost every colour, from orange, to yellow, to blue, to purple, flitted around, and we even saw some condors soaring overhead. Wow. It's really difficult to do the Falls justice in words, so perhaps this will help:



We wandered around the walkways for a couple of hours to get our fill of the Falls, one of which you're able to walk almost right up to. James and I stowed our bags and then walked towards it hand in hand, getting absolutely soaked in the process. Fortunately it was such a sunny day it was pretty refreshing! We finished our day at the Garganto del Diablo, or Devil's Throat, a concentrated torrent of water. The viewing platform is perched right at the top of the falls, so you can watch the water disappear over a ledge into the abyss, occasional plumes of spray bouncing upwards to obscure your view completely.

The following day, we were less lucky with the weather – there had been an enormous electrical storm the night before, and the rain continued well into the afternoon. Not to be discouraged (and having already bought our bus tickets for the 8.10 journey to Brazil) we donned our rain coats and decided to make the best of it.

But actually, seeing the Falls in both sunny and wet conditions made for a good contrast – and being on the Brazilian side mostly involves getting absolutely soaked at every opportunity anyway. If anything, this second day was my favourite: seeing just how many falls there are in the area really takes your breath away. Jostling for room amidst the visiting Brazilians and snap-happy Japanese tourists, we managed to take a few pictures ourselves.

The Brazilian walkways generally give you the more panoramic view, but again, at one point you can walk right into the heart of the falls – surrounded by water on every side. Looking over the viewing platform at the edge of one of the Falls, you realise there is no way you'd survive being swept away. Luckily, James kept a tight hold on me and I didn't blow away in the gusting winds.

Waking up to a rainy Rotorua, we rolled out of town and on through 3 hours of sheep-filled fields to the west coast to visit the Waitomo Caves.

Traditionally used as burial places for Maori chiefs, the limestone caves on the west coast had been mostly forgotten until recently when some avid cavers persuaded the land-owning farmers of their money-earning potential. Waitomo is the most famous of these accessible caves, its glow-worm covered cavities and fast flowing underground rivers making it the ideal location for some more kiwi adventure tourism. We chose the more tame Blackwater Tubing option, which we understood as gently floating down an underwater river seated on giant inner tubes, underneath a constellation of glow-worms. This was one element of the tour...

Our guide Brad was in his early twenties and sported a weird half-shaved / half-mullet haircut. As we got kitted up he regaled us with tales of his adventures with his caving-buddies, including one trip where they spent four days underground exploring a cave on the south island. Clearly a strange kid, he also seemed to suffer from a kiwi version of tourrettes, whereby he randomly punctuated his sentences with the word 'Sweet!', exclaimed at a high-pitch: 'Yep, just grab yourself a wetsuit there... Sweet! And get yourself a helmet SweetSweet! And we'll be getting down the caves SWEET!'

Of course it wouldn't be a kiwi activity if it didn't involve some kind of adrenaline rush. Blackwater Tubing delivers this by jumping backwards off underground waterfalls. Sarah did not look pleased when this part of the tour was explained to her. The jumping backwards thing is apparently risky enough to warrant a practice run. Dressed in wetsuits and crash helmets, and carrying our inner tubes, we waddled to a nearby stream where each of our group took turns to jump in, make a big splash, then paddle with the current to the side to climb out. When it came to Sarah's turn however, the cold water clearly induced some kind of shock, causing her to forget how to paddle completely. She was quickly taken by the current and carried downstream past the point where we were meant to climb out. Heroically, I dived back into the river to grab her just before she disappeared from sight, and towed her to safety. This act would have been more impressive had our young guide Brad not then shouted to me 'just put your feet down mate!', at which point I realised the 'river' was only four feet deep.

Anyway, with Sarah less than encouraged by her practice run, we drove to the caves access point and descended into the bowels of the earth. I really enjoyed it. At points we had to lie face down on our inner tubes and float under huge slabs of rock with only a foot of breathing space, and in others the caves opened out into huge caverns where we rode our tubes at pace down torrents of water. The waterfall jumps were awesome, and not nearly as cold as the trial run – after half an hour in cold water we couldn't really feel much colder. I think it's fair to say Sarah didn't like the experience as much, but Brad did a great job in guiding her down safely, and she has conceded that it was worth it in the end when we reached the glow-worm caves and switched off our head torches. By each grabbing the feet of the person behind us, our entire group was able to float down the underground river in a huge chain, everyone staring up at the luminous green lights that plastered the ceiling.

We were told by our friendly travel agent in Byron that if we were going to Cape Tribulation we simply must go the long way round and see the Tablelands, and I am very glad that we did. The 'Atherton Tablelands' is the collective name given to an area inland from the coast, which is home to some of the most beautiful scenery and natural features we've seen in Australia thus far. As James described it, “it's like the English countryside on steroids: everything's bigger and greener.” The site of Australia's most recently active volcano (which last erupted some 10,000 years ago), the geography here is quite different to most of what we've seen in recent weeks, and it was a pleasant change not to be surrounded by sugar cane fields!

As a result of the volcano, the Tablelands boast a spectacular array of mountains, waterfalls and crater lakes – every 5 miles or so there's another brown tourist sign (they're the same as in the UK) inviting you to turn off and admire another natural feature. We were quite spoiled in the two days we spent there. We started with the 'Falls Circuit' near Millaa Millaa, on a whistle-stop tour of 3 sets of waterfalls, each more impressive than the last. You can actually go swimming in the pool at the bottom of Millaa Millaa, the biggest of the 3, but as the sun was setting as we reached it, we decided to give it a miss. Instead we opted for a dip the following morning in Lake Eacham, part of the Crater Lakes National Park. It was pretty chilly, but the brevity of our swim was more the result of an irrational fear about there being crocodiles in the water, when in fact the most dangerous animal we actually saw was a baby turtle.

We visited a 500 year old fig tree, known locally as the Curtain Fig (because it vaguely resembles a curtain). Figs have a nasty habit of latching on to the trees around them and gradually killing them off (hence the name, Strangler Figs) but the results are pretty spectacular – long tendrils of branch snaking in every direction.

Best of all the natural features we saw was Mossman Gorge, even though I thought a gorge was a mountain, and so was expecting to see something completely different! The Mossman River tumbles its way over and around huge granite boulders that line the gorge, creating freshwater swimming holes. It's a great place for sunbathing and swimming.

As well as the plethora of natural features, there are also a number of villages in the area. Some of them are barely more than a couple of houses either side of a single street, but others have a bit more to them. Atherton, the 'capital' of the Tablelands, is home to the Crystal Caves, an underground cavern showcasing the mineral collection of a Frenchman and his family, featuring crystals from all over the world. We didn't actually visit owing to the exorbitant entrance fee, but I imagine it would be a pretty surreal experience, featuring as it does the 'Magic Spheres' exhibition (“NEW for 2010, the Magic Spheres presents rare minerals in a totally new and mesmerising way”). Instead, we did do the tourist thing in Mareeba, the most commercial of the Tablelands' centres [and the closest to Cairns – no coincidence there] visiting both a coffee factory / museum (“the only one of its kind in the world!”) and a mango wine producer. We weren't too impressed with either – the mango winery was charging $5 for every taste which didn't result in a purchase, so I can't tell you what it's like – but the free chocolate samples at Coffee World were pretty good. Much more enjoyable was the Mungalli Creek Dairy, a biodynamic cheese and yoghurt producer. I still don't know what biodynamic production actually is but their chai yoghurt with honey was delicious – and has since been very good with muesli of a morning.

Our 'holiday from our holiday' in Thailand began and ended on Ko Samui. We arrived (the first time) exhausted from our intense temple-visiting trip to Siem Reap, in need of a break, a chance to recharge our batteries. I wasn't sure quite what to expect from it, having heard everything from “it's not the same as it was, it's just so commercial” (world-weary travellers) to “it's amazing, a real-getaway” (holidaymakers) and everything inbetween.

I have to say, I side with the holidaymakers. As we arrived at Ko Samui airport, I instantly felt like I was on holiday. In a film. Golf buggies collected us from the plane and took us to the 'airport,' constructed from wooden huts. All it needed was some calypso music and some men in flowered shirts and the impression would have been complete.

We were staying on Mae Nam Beach, a world away from the 24 hour bars, McDonalds and Boots of Chaweng Beach, home of the afore-mentioned gap-year kid (or so we believe, we didn't actually venture to Chaweng ourselves to find out). It really was island paradise: clear turquoise sea, simmering heat, the peaks of Ko Phangan visible across the water. Walking on the beach on our first evening, as the sun was setting, it was hard to imagine a more picturesque scene.

Our stay was divided into 2 parts: the first 2 days marked the beginning of our pre-detox, and therefore avoidance of anything other than salads and juices – although that didn't stop me enjoying a banana pancake on our first morning. The second 2 days (when we returned) marked the beginning of normal eating, and therefore involved consuming everything we wanted to after almost 2 weeks of abstinence. Thailand has allegedly some of the best cuisine in this region and so I've done my best to sample as much as I can in 48 hours. Like a stereotypical Brit-abroad, James has been craving chips, burgers and fried breakfasts (as you'll have seen from our previous post) so has been trying (and, let's be honest, mostly failing) to find decent Thai versions of these western delights. Perhaps we should have made a trip to Chaweng after all.......

My favourite part of the second trip (and one of the highlights of the tour so far) actually happened before we even set foot on the island. We were able to get a small boat directly from The Sanctuary on Ko Phangan direct to Mae Nam Beach, rather than the usual catamaran, and the journey was incredible. Early morning, the sun was shining, barely a cloud in the sky, the wind whipping through your hair just the right amount. I could have stayed there for hours. We even caught sight of some flying fish, fins clipping the top of the water as they went skimming along the surface like stones. Was amazing to see: I wasn't wholly convinced they even existed.

On our last day, we had built up enough energy to do a little exploring. Whilst our corner of the island was pretty perfect, we didn't want to leave without having seen at least a little more of it. So we hired a motorbike (last time for a while, we promise) and went on a little adventure to Hin Lat Waterfall, one of 3 waterfalls on the island, which involved a beautiful coastal drive en route. We decided to climb to the top, allegedly a 2km jaunt up through the forest. In fact it was more like 4km, and involved some scrambling up rocks and the like. James was in his element; me, less so. And then when we were about two-thirds of the way up, the clouds that had been threatening gave way to proper torrential rain. Within 5 minutes we were absolutely soaked, but pressed on to the top of the waterfall regardless. And it was worth the effort: the waterfall itself was pretty impressive, although unfortunately a little too muddy for swimming. James unleashed his inner explorer and went for a clamber around the rocks, and then we made the decent back down, passing a very-unhappy looking German couple en route. About two-thirds of the way down, the rain abruptly stopped, replaced once more by blazing heat. Such is rainy season in Thailand.