An impromptu lunch at one of our favorite Indian/Mediterranean restaurants and an equally off the cuff visit to the travel agency to see our favorite travel agent left me invigorated about traveling afresh.
Our original plan was to fly to Australia first (June '08) and then to New Zealand and on to Indonesia after that. According to our travel adviser it would save us quite a bit of money and trouble if we started in New Zealand and then went on to Australia. We're now looking at re-arranging the trip a bit to make this possible.
We weren't able to get a price on tickets for June '08 yet but were advised that we're planning on traveling during the low season and that tickets should be available and purchase-worthy price-wise in January.

We also developed a short list of Visa Needs:
India - Prior to leaving we'll need a 6 month travel visa
Austrailia - Prior to leaving we'll need a 90 day travel visa (Travel Agency takes care of this when we purchase the tickets through them)
New Zealand - No visa - 90 day stay allowance
Thailand - 30 day travel allowance on entry
Vietnam - Need to check on this one
Cambodia - Need to check on this one
Laos - Need to check on this one
Malaysia - Need to check on this one

Australia has a bus option called Oz Experience that we were looking at in the travel office but it looks a bit pricey. The nice thing is the flexibility to stay (or vacate) on your own schedule. The "Cobber" (Cairns to Sydney - $477.00) looks interesting but I just feel like we could probably hitch most of that distance with much more interesting results. (link)



The first stop prompted us to make the second.

The library take -
books:
The Rough Guide to New Zealand (link)
A Land of Two Halves: An Accidental Tour of New Zealand (link)
a bit too egocentric for my liking, but to the authors credit in the first few pages he makes it clear that he's not trying to write a travel book... I couldn't stomach it anymore after 5 or 6 chapters. I'm going to search for a bike touring NZ book instead.
Vanuatu & New Caledonia - Lonely Planet (link)
this ended up being far enough off our travel path that we decided not to really consider it as a possibility. Looks to be a lot like the Thai Islands we visited before and are planning to go back to.

Vidoes (VHS):
Indonesia, the Eastern Islands (link)
A little out-dated but gave us a bit of an idea of what it will be like. Lots of small charter boats, not a lot of air travel, modest accommodations, lots of village living still going on... can only hope it's still that way when we get there.
A New Zealand Travel video (can't find the link...)
didn't get to this one before they were due, but from the similarity in packaging to the Indonesia video we're thinking that it was probably a bit out-dated as well. We'll probably pick this one up again before we head out.

reviews are in!