New Zealand may be famed for its fabulous weather, but you’ve got to expect a few cruddy days on which the low-hung grey skies obliterate the view and the rain precludes tramping.

When in Wanaka, on New Zealand’s South Island, you may well want to pray for just one damp day. Why? Because it’s a jolly good excuse to snub the outdoors and head to a few of the area’s indoor attractions.

Have A Shot

There’s always a shift when you enter New Zealand’s Southern Alps. It begins in the mind and melts down through the entire body, enlivening every last nerve ending. The lush green forest, sparkling turquoise rivers and giant gleaming mountains displace the clutter of daily worries and replace it with jaw-dropping wonder. And what better way to experience all this than riding the rush and roar of a pristine glacial river down the Landsborough Valley on the South Island’s west coast, in a raft.

Roughly a third of Bolivia sweats away in the Amazon Basin. This vastly untrodden region is strewn with swamps, rainforests, savannas and quicksand. It's an often lawless land that is home to missionaries, rubber-tappers, gold miners, hardened loggers, cocaine-cookers, anacondas, giant cats and curious monkeys. It's a jungle out there, and for man and beast alike, it's truly a matter of survival of the fittest. Here's some quintessential Amazon experiences to make you feel like Tarzan or Jane.

Getting to Xiahe wasn’t easy. With no train station it involved an overnight train to Lanzhou, and a beaten old bus from there. The 6 hour bus ride was spent on a seat over one of the back wheels. Why would anyone do that to themselves?

            “Let me show you something,” Witek says to me.