Right really going to keep this brief...
We were both excited and apprehensive about meeting Melbourne as it's where we're planning to live and work for 2+ months and wanted to love it. The good news is, we do.
A lot of people have raved on about how great it is, really cultural, young and trendy so we had high hopes but it really is as good as the recommendations. A cross between London and Brighton, street art adorning every brick wall and tiny cafes, bars and clubs poking out of holes in back alleys. We're very excited to be heading back there, defo my favourite Australian city.
On day 1 we caught a tram into the CBD and followed the Lonely Planet's recommended walking guide to get to know the streets fast, it was a cool tour and took us past everything we needed to see to get a feel for the place. We'd only just got started when we promptly stopped again and enjoyed and very cosmopolitan lunch of risotto and wine while sitting at a little cafe table under the shade of a big canvas umbrella.
After our walk we made time for a quick fondue from Max Brenner and then got comfy in our Imax seats for Avatar 3D which was absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly amazing. A life changing experience really, just astounding. Especially as Melbourne has the 3rd biggest screen in the world :)
We ended up walking over 7 miles on day 2 because we wanted to check out St Kilda and all the funky suburbs we might want to live in. St Kilda had a fun beachy vibe to it and the huge palms reminded me of America which made me a bit travel sick for LA.
It was really windy so I got a great unexpected surprise when I spotted a kite hovering in the air a mile or so away.
I sat bolt upright staring at the horizon and then noticed a whole sky full of kite colour WOOHOO! I walked down to the harbour and went straight up to a guy to ask him about the wind seasons and kite community which is apparently thriving so have made the decision to get my stuff sent down to Melbourne for when i'm there, don't know how yet but can't wait!
On our last day we walked another 7 miles into a different district (also uber-cool) to check that out and ended up treating ourselves to another cosmo lunch, oops! We loved our 3 days in Melbourne and packed our bags happy in the knowledge we are heading back in a month or two.
The last 3 days we've been travelling from Melbourne over to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road on the Groovy Grape
tour bus lol! It's been really fun, Tina and I are the only English on the mini bus which seems quite rare but it's taken
us past some awesome views including my highlight, sunset at the 12 Apostles. The Apostles are a coastal rock formation formed by sea and wind erosion but they don't sound so mystical like that so we'll leave it as The Apostles.
The day before yesterday we drove up into the Grampian mountains and saw koalas just chilling in their natural habitat which was so cool and nice to see, i'm not sure i'd fancy going to a zoo again after that. In the evening we stayed at little cabins surrounded by bush so as dusk fell loads of kangaroos started appearing out from the trees and coming right up to us where we were having a bbq! It was one of those 'wow, i'm really in Australia moments'.
Our final day took us on a hike up into Hollow Mountain which sounds a bit like a Disneyland ride but was actually some dramatic sandstone mountains we got to scramble up to reach the summit, amazing views and worth the effort for sure.
Then we had a quick pit stop for a picnic lunch and hit the road for the remaining 5 hour drive to Adelaide. We arrived quite late, too late to do anything yet had that agitated 'been stuck on a bus' feeling so I managed to persuade Tina to go on a jog around the town before bed, not sure how that happened!
So now we're in Adelaide and we're off to explore the town, we've chosen a good time to come as the Fringe Festival is currently on and the area seems to be buzzing more than usual.
Next stop is Alice Springs and the desert, hope I don't get bitten by a scorpian...or snake...or spider....or...........
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
A Home Away From Home
Right really going to keep this brief...
We were both excited and apprehensive about meeting Melbourne as it's where we're planning to live and work for 2+ months and wanted to love it. The good news is, we do.
A lot of people have raved on about how great it is, really cultural, young and trendy so we had high hopes but it really is as good as the recommendations. A cross between London and Brighton, street art adorning every brick wall and tiny cafes, bars and clubs poking out of holes in back alleys. We're very excited to be heading back there, defo my favourite Australian city.
On day 1 we caught a tram into the CBD and followed the Lonely Planet's recommended walking guide to get to know the streets fast, it was a cool tour and took us past everything we needed to see to get a feel for the place. We'd only just got started when we promptly stopped again and enjoyed and very cosmopolitan lunch of risotto and wine while sitting at a little cafe table under the shade of a big canvas umbrella.
After our walk we made time for a quick fondue from Max Brenner and then got comfy in our Imax seats for Avatar 3D which was absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly amazing. A life changing experience really, just astounding. Especially as Melbourne has the 3rd biggest screen in the world :)
We ended up walking over 7 miles on day 2 because we wanted to check out St Kilda and all the funky suburbs we might want to live in. St Kilda had a fun beachy vibe to it and the huge palms reminded me of America which made me a bit travel sick for LA.
It was really windy so I got a great unexpected surprise when I spotted a kite hovering in the air a mile or so away.
I sat bolt upright staring at the horizon and then noticed a whole sky full of kite colour WOOHOO! I walked down to the harbour and went straight up to a guy to ask him about the wind seasons and kite community which is apparently thriving so have made the decision to get my stuff sent down to Melbourne for when i'm there, don't know how yet but can't wait!
On our last day we walked another 7 miles into a different district (also uber-cool) to check that out and ended up treating ourselves to another cosmo lunch, oops! We loved our 3 days in Melbourne and packed our bags happy in the knowledge we are heading back in a month or two.
The last 3 days we've been travelling from Melbourne over to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road on the Groovy Grape
tour bus lol! It's been really fun, Tina and I are the only English on the mini bus which seems quite rare but it's taken
us past some awesome views including my highlight, sunset at the 12 Apostles. The Apostles are a coastal rock formation formed by sea and wind erosion but they don't sound so mystical like that so we'll leave it as The Apostles.
The day before yesterday we drove up into the Grampian mountains and saw koalas just chilling in their natural habitat which was so cool and nice to see, i'm not sure i'd fancy going to a zoo again after that. In the evening we stayed at little cabins surrounded by bush so as dusk fell loads of kangaroos started appearing out from the trees and coming right up to us where we were having a bbq! It was one of those 'wow, i'm really in Australia moments'.
Our final day took us on a hike up into Hollow Mountain which sounds a bit like a Disneyland ride but was actually some dramatic sandstone mountains we got to scramble up to reach the summit, amazing views and worth the effort for sure.
Then we had a quick pit stop for a picnic lunch and hit the road for the remaining 5 hour drive to Adelaide. We arrived quite late, too late to do anything yet had that agitated 'been stuck on a bus' feeling so I managed to persuade Tina to go on a jog around the town before bed, not sure how that happened!
So now we're in Adelaide and we're off to explore the town, we've chosen a good time to come as the Fringe Festival is currently on and the area seems to be buzzing more than usual.
Next stop is Alice Springs and the desert, hope I don't get bitten by a scorpian...or snake...or spider....or...........
We were both excited and apprehensive about meeting Melbourne as it's where we're planning to live and work for 2+ months and wanted to love it. The good news is, we do.
A lot of people have raved on about how great it is, really cultural, young and trendy so we had high hopes but it really is as good as the recommendations. A cross between London and Brighton, street art adorning every brick wall and tiny cafes, bars and clubs poking out of holes in back alleys. We're very excited to be heading back there, defo my favourite Australian city.
On day 1 we caught a tram into the CBD and followed the Lonely Planet's recommended walking guide to get to know the streets fast, it was a cool tour and took us past everything we needed to see to get a feel for the place. We'd only just got started when we promptly stopped again and enjoyed and very cosmopolitan lunch of risotto and wine while sitting at a little cafe table under the shade of a big canvas umbrella.
After our walk we made time for a quick fondue from Max Brenner and then got comfy in our Imax seats for Avatar 3D which was absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly amazing. A life changing experience really, just astounding. Especially as Melbourne has the 3rd biggest screen in the world :)
We ended up walking over 7 miles on day 2 because we wanted to check out St Kilda and all the funky suburbs we might want to live in. St Kilda had a fun beachy vibe to it and the huge palms reminded me of America which made me a bit travel sick for LA.
It was really windy so I got a great unexpected surprise when I spotted a kite hovering in the air a mile or so away.
I sat bolt upright staring at the horizon and then noticed a whole sky full of kite colour WOOHOO! I walked down to the harbour and went straight up to a guy to ask him about the wind seasons and kite community which is apparently thriving so have made the decision to get my stuff sent down to Melbourne for when i'm there, don't know how yet but can't wait!
On our last day we walked another 7 miles into a different district (also uber-cool) to check that out and ended up treating ourselves to another cosmo lunch, oops! We loved our 3 days in Melbourne and packed our bags happy in the knowledge we are heading back in a month or two.
The last 3 days we've been travelling from Melbourne over to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road on the Groovy Grape
tour bus lol! It's been really fun, Tina and I are the only English on the mini bus which seems quite rare but it's taken
us past some awesome views including my highlight, sunset at the 12 Apostles. The Apostles are a coastal rock formation formed by sea and wind erosion but they don't sound so mystical like that so we'll leave it as The Apostles.
The day before yesterday we drove up into the Grampian mountains and saw koalas just chilling in their natural habitat which was so cool and nice to see, i'm not sure i'd fancy going to a zoo again after that. In the evening we stayed at little cabins surrounded by bush so as dusk fell loads of kangaroos started appearing out from the trees and coming right up to us where we were having a bbq! It was one of those 'wow, i'm really in Australia moments'.
Our final day took us on a hike up into Hollow Mountain which sounds a bit like a Disneyland ride but was actually some dramatic sandstone mountains we got to scramble up to reach the summit, amazing views and worth the effort for sure.
Then we had a quick pit stop for a picnic lunch and hit the road for the remaining 5 hour drive to Adelaide. We arrived quite late, too late to do anything yet had that agitated 'been stuck on a bus' feeling so I managed to persuade Tina to go on a jog around the town before bed, not sure how that happened!
So now we're in Adelaide and we're off to explore the town, we've chosen a good time to come as the Fringe Festival is currently on and the area seems to be buzzing more than usual.
Next stop is Alice Springs and the desert, hope I don't get bitten by a scorpian...or snake...or spider....or...........
Until Next Time New Zealand...
Helloooooooooooo,
How's it going? All ok in the uk? Any more snow at all? I'm sort of pining for some cold weather myself actually, I can't remember the last time I was cold and sleeping, eating and walking in the heat 24hrs a day is getting slightly unpleasant at times. Then again I bet if i was cold i'd wish for the opposite.
I've got wayyyy behind with the blog again so am trying at every moment to get it up to date but then we end up doing something else and it's a horrible never ending cycle of news stretching ahead of me!
We're now back in Australia and have been for a week, first to Melbourne and then onto the 'Groovy Grape' bus to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road. It was weird flying back into Oz, almost like returning home in way which was nice, but again, odd. The last 6 weeks seem to have come and gone slightly too quickly, a time warp of memories trapped back over in New Zealand. It's unbelievable to think that I had no plans to visit there when I left the UK...although I think perhaps the intention was always there.
So back to Queenstown, NZ...during our 5 days there (which we loved!) we spent a lot of time chilling out and treating ourselves to ice-creams and other goodies. For some reason Tina and I have a habit of turning the most simple task, one i'm sure many would accomplish in an hour by referring to the Lonely Planet, into an all day marathon which sucks all energy and brain power from us. The example here being our search for a hostel that had reasonable priced twin rooms that we could book out for our return to Queenstown on the 10th. We wanted to get away from the dorms for a couple of nights seeing as it was my birthday on the 11th and thought the upgrade would be justified.
Anyway, after 3 to 4 hours of traipsing around every single hostel in town and exhausting all possible options we decided on The Black Sheep (one of the first ones we saw) and booked ourselves in.
We tried to go out a couple of times during our first visit to Queenstown but it didn't really work out as there were really only two bars that got busy and they were catering solely for the backpacker crowd. I know that technically we are backpackers but there's only so many 18-22yr olds dancing around to chart music in togas I can take and i'd like to think I left them back at Bournemouth Uni!
There were a couple of cute wine bars (for us old biddies) but they were dead, we think they were the type that
would fill up with good looking kiwi snowboarder types in the winter season so made a note to go back to those next time we're over.
It was great to really chill out there and feel like we were holidaying, on one afternoon the gods answered our prayers by putting a dj from one of the bars down on the promenade. He played a mixture of house and reggae music as the sun moved across the sky and behind the mountains. Generally it stayed really hot right until the last dregs of sunlight were gone so one night after a particularly nice spaghetti bolognaise Tina and I went down to sit by the lake and watch an amazing sunset, I even went in for a solo swim which turned out to be a bit of an emotional experience! The water was cold and refreshing but out in the middle of nowhere with only the sound of silence around me and flecks of gold and orange reflecting onto my face it felt pretty close to perfection.
On our last night we met up with a friend we'd made called Davie who turned out to be the nicest guy in New Zealand, we sat by the lake and he told us stories of the crazy things he and his mates get up to and then preceded to give us a big chunk of green stone (jade). He said it was a gift and being obviously touched by the gesture, said we would do our best to get a bit carved off to keep.
Tina and I left Queenstown on the 4th of Feb and joined onto the 'Bottom Bus' which takes us round the bottom on New Zealand starting in Dunedin. We then travelled through the Catlins wildlife area for an overnight stay in Invercargill and then up to Te Anau which is the gateway to Milford Sound and all the Fiord land areas.
Our first stop was Dunedin, a fairly small historic town with a student based population (this is where one of the 6 uni's in NZ is based). It wasn't very busy there as most of the students were still away on holidays but after being on the empty west coast for the last couple of weeks even this small increase in people seemed a bit intimidating and quickened the blood pressure...i'm not quite sure how i'll ever deal with London again!
There wasn't loads to do there but we were staying in the nicest hostel yet called Hogwartz which had a loose Harry Potter theme floating throughout the rooms. It was an old bishops house that had been converted and had a big black door to the broom cupboard with Gringotts painted on the front as well as 'Dobbys room' which was the laundry lol. There was also a cool mezzanine level for reading with beanbags and couches which felt a bit like being up in a hidden tree house...I like mezzanine levels because I like tree houses..I think i'm going to build one into my future house.
I met a guy in the hostel kitchen who told me there were Bikram yoga classes in town for only $10 and seeing as my body feels so unexercised and polluted with bakery goods at the moment I jumped at the chance to join him and get a work out in. Bikram yoga is conducted in a sauna type room in 38 degree heat, you run through a series of 30 different stretches and it's pretty challenging but i've done it before in London. The thing is...i don't think he knew what he was in for and when we got there the teacher said 'once you start the class you are NOT allowed to leave, the door is sealed' (you know these yoga types!).
So there we are in class with legs and arms contorted in weird positions and all water leaving my body when he goes white and has to lie down. The teacher wouldn't let him leave so the poor guy had to suffer on his back for the full 90 mins without trying to be sick lol, i told him it would be hard!
I also went to the local art gallery and really enjoyed an exhibition by an American photographer as well as spending another day on the beach in the strong NZ sun which burnt Tina and I pretty badly :(!
After 3 days we were ready to leave Dunedin and headed south through the beautiful Catlins area which is not only another stunningly beautiful piece of NZ but is home to a whole bunch of Antarctic type wildlife such as yellow eyed penguins, fur seals, sea lions and hector dolphins.
The bottom bus (which is only mini bus sized not the usual 50 seater monster bus) stopped at 'nugget point', a coastal point with a scenic lighthouse that Abel Tasman named after seeing the rocks underneath the cliff face glinting in the sun like gold nuggets. After a brief walk and yet more photos we parked up by the beach and got to walk right up to a sea lion who was just marinating on the beach. He looked kinda sleepy but as usual there was some cocky geek who wanted a close up photo and pissed the sea lion off by sticking a lens in his face so he reared up and starting grunting in a scary way, I think the guy nearly wet himself it was so funny.
Throughout the day we saw all the above wildlife in their natural habitat which was much more satisfying than any zoo and made me want to plan a trip to the arctic to start a seal rescue expedition or something!
Our driver Mike was hilarious, really, really dry humour, totally deadpan in tone and had a likeable geekness just like Alan Partridge. He made the journey pretty funny and informed us that our next stop was Invercargill, and I quote, 'the arsehole of the world'.
After our nights stay there we joined onto the southern scenic route to Te Anau stopping off at a green stone factory along the way. We managed to get the carver to examine Davie's 'green stone' to be told it wasn't green stone but the good intention was there so we bought a tiny piece of real jade and agreed we'd make it into a necklace when back in Queenstown for my birthday.
Te Anau was quaint but really only exists as a stopover for tourists heading to Milford Sound which we were indeed doing. We sat on the shingle beach for a bit, climbed a tree, all the usual things really. The next day we piled onto yet another coach and headed to Milford for a cruise around the area. There had been a lot of build up about it, everyone saying it's the 8th wonder of the world etc and yes, it was very beautiful...but...I feel i've seen other views that i've personally found more breathtaking in NZ. The drive there was spectacular in itself, defo worth doing but they need to lay off the hype a bit.
That evening we finished our loop on the bottom bus and headed back to Queenstown as that was where we were spending the 11th, my birthday!
It was so nice to return to a familiar place, there's so much change going on that some familiarity is comforting in a strange way. We had decided to push the boat out and upgrade for my birthday nights into a twin room, ooooooo exciting lol.
Our plans immediately began to unravel when reception told us they'd made a cock up with the bookings and that we might need to stay in a 'sealed off' dorm. What they didn't realise is that this was Tina and Doxie they were talking to and we wern't going to put up with that, not when we'd been looking forward to having this private room for weeks!
They palmed us off with a free beer for a while and then the manager not only upgraded us into a 'deluxe double' for the 2 nights, we got it at a reduced rate, BONUS!
You'd have thought we'd one the lottery or something but when Tina and I opened the door and saw a posh big king sized bed with thick squishy mattress and comfy bedding we thought we'd died and gone to heaven and started dancing around the room.
The good times kept rolling that evening as when walking along the beach we spotted a crazy little device motoring across the harbour towards us. It looked like a home made barge, a large floating square of wood, welded metal and oil barrels.
On the barge were people sitting on 3 old sofas and beanbags, a wood burner, bbq, sound system blaring out reggae and lots of little fairy lights wound round posts. It was the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life and I wanted to be on it. As it happened we were on our way to meet Davie, our extremely cool new kiwi buddy and when we got talking he asked us whether we wanted to go hang on, you guessed it, his mate's home made barge!!!
All the plans we'd made for my birthday fell into place too and on the morning of the 11th we woke up in our amazing deluxe room and then headed out to town to buy the picnic lunch. It was the perfect weather to accompany our quiches and avocado salads which we washed down with a cold beer and then in the afternoon we headed up to the bead shop to put together our NZ necklaces, complete with the real green stone!
That evening we met up with Davie who bought us some cocktail teapots to celebrate and then took us to a tiny hidden gem of a club called Tardis which was playing reggae music to all the locals. The best bit of the night was when Davie jumped on the mic and started mc-ing, he was SO amazing and it was just an unbeatable spontaneous night.
We only got to bed at 5am and had to be up at 7am so it was fair to say we were shattered on the bus up to Christchurch the next day. It was a scenic drive but we only arrived into the city at 6am so didn't really have any time to explore it although it was better than what I was expecting. We bought the most amazing curry and went to bed early as had another horrible 6am start the next day.
The next and second to last stop was Kaikoura which was a fairly cute little seaside strip of shops, it's main tourist attraction being the dolphin and whale watching you can do in the area. We went on a really nice afternoon walk there but didn't have the nicest experience with our room mate which was a horrible old witch of a woman from Canada, really snooty and bloody weird to be honest. She insisted on having all the windows open so the room was freezing and then INSISTED on keeping the curtains open all night or I shall quote, "it'll feel like i'm in a prison".
After an emergency discussion meeting between Tina and I in the toilets we decided to stand our ground, she might have been 70 years old but we didn't care, there's always room for manners! When we returned to the room we closed our windows and curtains and ignored her tutting and protests from the corner.
At 6am, and no, i'm not joking Tina was woken up by the old bag hovering over her bed and drawing back the curtains with an almighty swish. What a freak!
So anyway, that was pretty much it for NZ, we had a 3am start (!) and flew out of Wellington and into Melbourne (via Sydney which was not fun in our sleep deprived state) on Monday the 15th.
I'm going to do a separate entry for the next bit otherwise it all gets a bit much. I try to keep it all quite minimal but
somehow they all end up like essays, sorry!...
How's it going? All ok in the uk? Any more snow at all? I'm sort of pining for some cold weather myself actually, I can't remember the last time I was cold and sleeping, eating and walking in the heat 24hrs a day is getting slightly unpleasant at times. Then again I bet if i was cold i'd wish for the opposite.
I've got wayyyy behind with the blog again so am trying at every moment to get it up to date but then we end up doing something else and it's a horrible never ending cycle of news stretching ahead of me!
We're now back in Australia and have been for a week, first to Melbourne and then onto the 'Groovy Grape' bus to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road. It was weird flying back into Oz, almost like returning home in way which was nice, but again, odd. The last 6 weeks seem to have come and gone slightly too quickly, a time warp of memories trapped back over in New Zealand. It's unbelievable to think that I had no plans to visit there when I left the UK...although I think perhaps the intention was always there.
So back to Queenstown, NZ...during our 5 days there (which we loved!) we spent a lot of time chilling out and treating ourselves to ice-creams and other goodies. For some reason Tina and I have a habit of turning the most simple task, one i'm sure many would accomplish in an hour by referring to the Lonely Planet, into an all day marathon which sucks all energy and brain power from us. The example here being our search for a hostel that had reasonable priced twin rooms that we could book out for our return to Queenstown on the 10th. We wanted to get away from the dorms for a couple of nights seeing as it was my birthday on the 11th and thought the upgrade would be justified.
Anyway, after 3 to 4 hours of traipsing around every single hostel in town and exhausting all possible options we decided on The Black Sheep (one of the first ones we saw) and booked ourselves in.
We tried to go out a couple of times during our first visit to Queenstown but it didn't really work out as there were really only two bars that got busy and they were catering solely for the backpacker crowd. I know that technically we are backpackers but there's only so many 18-22yr olds dancing around to chart music in togas I can take and i'd like to think I left them back at Bournemouth Uni!
There were a couple of cute wine bars (for us old biddies) but they were dead, we think they were the type that
would fill up with good looking kiwi snowboarder types in the winter season so made a note to go back to those next time we're over.
It was great to really chill out there and feel like we were holidaying, on one afternoon the gods answered our prayers by putting a dj from one of the bars down on the promenade. He played a mixture of house and reggae music as the sun moved across the sky and behind the mountains. Generally it stayed really hot right until the last dregs of sunlight were gone so one night after a particularly nice spaghetti bolognaise Tina and I went down to sit by the lake and watch an amazing sunset, I even went in for a solo swim which turned out to be a bit of an emotional experience! The water was cold and refreshing but out in the middle of nowhere with only the sound of silence around me and flecks of gold and orange reflecting onto my face it felt pretty close to perfection.
On our last night we met up with a friend we'd made called Davie who turned out to be the nicest guy in New Zealand, we sat by the lake and he told us stories of the crazy things he and his mates get up to and then preceded to give us a big chunk of green stone (jade). He said it was a gift and being obviously touched by the gesture, said we would do our best to get a bit carved off to keep.
Tina and I left Queenstown on the 4th of Feb and joined onto the 'Bottom Bus' which takes us round the bottom on New Zealand starting in Dunedin. We then travelled through the Catlins wildlife area for an overnight stay in Invercargill and then up to Te Anau which is the gateway to Milford Sound and all the Fiord land areas.
Our first stop was Dunedin, a fairly small historic town with a student based population (this is where one of the 6 uni's in NZ is based). It wasn't very busy there as most of the students were still away on holidays but after being on the empty west coast for the last couple of weeks even this small increase in people seemed a bit intimidating and quickened the blood pressure...i'm not quite sure how i'll ever deal with London again!
There wasn't loads to do there but we were staying in the nicest hostel yet called Hogwartz which had a loose Harry Potter theme floating throughout the rooms. It was an old bishops house that had been converted and had a big black door to the broom cupboard with Gringotts painted on the front as well as 'Dobbys room' which was the laundry lol. There was also a cool mezzanine level for reading with beanbags and couches which felt a bit like being up in a hidden tree house...I like mezzanine levels because I like tree houses..I think i'm going to build one into my future house.
I met a guy in the hostel kitchen who told me there were Bikram yoga classes in town for only $10 and seeing as my body feels so unexercised and polluted with bakery goods at the moment I jumped at the chance to join him and get a work out in. Bikram yoga is conducted in a sauna type room in 38 degree heat, you run through a series of 30 different stretches and it's pretty challenging but i've done it before in London. The thing is...i don't think he knew what he was in for and when we got there the teacher said 'once you start the class you are NOT allowed to leave, the door is sealed' (you know these yoga types!).
So there we are in class with legs and arms contorted in weird positions and all water leaving my body when he goes white and has to lie down. The teacher wouldn't let him leave so the poor guy had to suffer on his back for the full 90 mins without trying to be sick lol, i told him it would be hard!
I also went to the local art gallery and really enjoyed an exhibition by an American photographer as well as spending another day on the beach in the strong NZ sun which burnt Tina and I pretty badly :(!
After 3 days we were ready to leave Dunedin and headed south through the beautiful Catlins area which is not only another stunningly beautiful piece of NZ but is home to a whole bunch of Antarctic type wildlife such as yellow eyed penguins, fur seals, sea lions and hector dolphins.
The bottom bus (which is only mini bus sized not the usual 50 seater monster bus) stopped at 'nugget point', a coastal point with a scenic lighthouse that Abel Tasman named after seeing the rocks underneath the cliff face glinting in the sun like gold nuggets. After a brief walk and yet more photos we parked up by the beach and got to walk right up to a sea lion who was just marinating on the beach. He looked kinda sleepy but as usual there was some cocky geek who wanted a close up photo and pissed the sea lion off by sticking a lens in his face so he reared up and starting grunting in a scary way, I think the guy nearly wet himself it was so funny.
Throughout the day we saw all the above wildlife in their natural habitat which was much more satisfying than any zoo and made me want to plan a trip to the arctic to start a seal rescue expedition or something!
Our driver Mike was hilarious, really, really dry humour, totally deadpan in tone and had a likeable geekness just like Alan Partridge. He made the journey pretty funny and informed us that our next stop was Invercargill, and I quote, 'the arsehole of the world'.
After our nights stay there we joined onto the southern scenic route to Te Anau stopping off at a green stone factory along the way. We managed to get the carver to examine Davie's 'green stone' to be told it wasn't green stone but the good intention was there so we bought a tiny piece of real jade and agreed we'd make it into a necklace when back in Queenstown for my birthday.
Te Anau was quaint but really only exists as a stopover for tourists heading to Milford Sound which we were indeed doing. We sat on the shingle beach for a bit, climbed a tree, all the usual things really. The next day we piled onto yet another coach and headed to Milford for a cruise around the area. There had been a lot of build up about it, everyone saying it's the 8th wonder of the world etc and yes, it was very beautiful...but...I feel i've seen other views that i've personally found more breathtaking in NZ. The drive there was spectacular in itself, defo worth doing but they need to lay off the hype a bit.
That evening we finished our loop on the bottom bus and headed back to Queenstown as that was where we were spending the 11th, my birthday!
It was so nice to return to a familiar place, there's so much change going on that some familiarity is comforting in a strange way. We had decided to push the boat out and upgrade for my birthday nights into a twin room, ooooooo exciting lol.
Our plans immediately began to unravel when reception told us they'd made a cock up with the bookings and that we might need to stay in a 'sealed off' dorm. What they didn't realise is that this was Tina and Doxie they were talking to and we wern't going to put up with that, not when we'd been looking forward to having this private room for weeks!
They palmed us off with a free beer for a while and then the manager not only upgraded us into a 'deluxe double' for the 2 nights, we got it at a reduced rate, BONUS!
You'd have thought we'd one the lottery or something but when Tina and I opened the door and saw a posh big king sized bed with thick squishy mattress and comfy bedding we thought we'd died and gone to heaven and started dancing around the room.
The good times kept rolling that evening as when walking along the beach we spotted a crazy little device motoring across the harbour towards us. It looked like a home made barge, a large floating square of wood, welded metal and oil barrels.
On the barge were people sitting on 3 old sofas and beanbags, a wood burner, bbq, sound system blaring out reggae and lots of little fairy lights wound round posts. It was the coolest thing i'd ever seen in my life and I wanted to be on it. As it happened we were on our way to meet Davie, our extremely cool new kiwi buddy and when we got talking he asked us whether we wanted to go hang on, you guessed it, his mate's home made barge!!!
All the plans we'd made for my birthday fell into place too and on the morning of the 11th we woke up in our amazing deluxe room and then headed out to town to buy the picnic lunch. It was the perfect weather to accompany our quiches and avocado salads which we washed down with a cold beer and then in the afternoon we headed up to the bead shop to put together our NZ necklaces, complete with the real green stone!
That evening we met up with Davie who bought us some cocktail teapots to celebrate and then took us to a tiny hidden gem of a club called Tardis which was playing reggae music to all the locals. The best bit of the night was when Davie jumped on the mic and started mc-ing, he was SO amazing and it was just an unbeatable spontaneous night.
We only got to bed at 5am and had to be up at 7am so it was fair to say we were shattered on the bus up to Christchurch the next day. It was a scenic drive but we only arrived into the city at 6am so didn't really have any time to explore it although it was better than what I was expecting. We bought the most amazing curry and went to bed early as had another horrible 6am start the next day.
The next and second to last stop was Kaikoura which was a fairly cute little seaside strip of shops, it's main tourist attraction being the dolphin and whale watching you can do in the area. We went on a really nice afternoon walk there but didn't have the nicest experience with our room mate which was a horrible old witch of a woman from Canada, really snooty and bloody weird to be honest. She insisted on having all the windows open so the room was freezing and then INSISTED on keeping the curtains open all night or I shall quote, "it'll feel like i'm in a prison".
After an emergency discussion meeting between Tina and I in the toilets we decided to stand our ground, she might have been 70 years old but we didn't care, there's always room for manners! When we returned to the room we closed our windows and curtains and ignored her tutting and protests from the corner.
At 6am, and no, i'm not joking Tina was woken up by the old bag hovering over her bed and drawing back the curtains with an almighty swish. What a freak!
So anyway, that was pretty much it for NZ, we had a 3am start (!) and flew out of Wellington and into Melbourne (via Sydney which was not fun in our sleep deprived state) on Monday the 15th.
I'm going to do a separate entry for the next bit otherwise it all gets a bit much. I try to keep it all quite minimal but
somehow they all end up like essays, sorry!...
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Return the way you came
The last week or so has been my favourite so far for sure, everything's been great from the weather to all the little things that have popped up in between. We've come down from Nelson at the top of the south island to the unnesscery but plesant Westport, through the beautiful and down right wierd Lake Manipua, into cute and gorgeous Franz Josef, onto stunning Wanaka and ending up in the vibrant 'place to be' Queenstown.
This is our 4th day in Queenstown and i'm really enjoying it, it's not the pumping mini ibiza it's been made out to be but there are some good bars and extraordinary scenery. It's a really quaint little place with a wharf, jetty, steamer boat, little beach and village green which are all surrounded by a backdrop of skyscaper mountains and lush forest.
I really, realllllly like New Zealand, the way of life is so different here, it's very refreshing. Everyone appreciates and
respects the environment in which they live, infact they're genuinely proud of it. They're helpful and kind and i've not
seen one single chav or scary looking person on the streets anywhere, only a couple of chilled out hippies.
New Zealand is a spiritual place full of mythology, history and scenery unlike anything i've ever seen. People just sit and stare at the mountains, sea and rolling hills soaking up the beauty and then spend their time using the country as a playground. I love being in a place that feels safe and revolves around an active lifestyle, it's a hidden gem that needs to be revisted!
Anyway, back in Nelson our kayak day started off on a bad note as we rose at 6am to monsoon style rain sheeting down outside the hostel. It was a tough 5.45am wake up call so we spent the 1 1/2 hour bus journey to the national park in silence hoping it would clear up...which it didn't!
We managed to change our trip to the following day though so take two and we were up at 5.45am again for a second try. This time the weather was really nice and we got to get out on the water even though Tina was very nervous about being out at sea and capsizing.
It was a slightly stressful ride at times as everyone else had a guy in their double kayaks so more bicep power compared to me and Tina who were paddling as hard as we could but still flagging behind with aching muscles. Tina was in charge of the rudder despite having never been in a kayak and not wanting to steer so we did our usual thing of complaining about the aches, pains, speed of the group, getting wet etc and then saying 'how amazing it was' at the end. That seems to be a common theme on the trip so far, everything's 'the best ever' when looking through those rose tinted specs!
After the kayak we realised we had 4 hours to complete a 5 hour hike so power walked up the coast in the hot sun and somehow made it to our water taxi in time.
After Nelson we drove down to Westport which was a bit like an American ghost town, lots of long straight grid like roads and creepy inbred types peeking out from behind the net curtains. We only had one evening there (thank god!) but it was a warm sunny afternoon so strolled down to the beach and watched the waves roll in while sitting on some washed up driftwood.
The following day was also a weird one as we made our way down to Lake Manipua, there is litrally nothing there except the lake (which is both slightly eerie and gorgeous) and an old rusty shed owned by local man Les which was our accommodation for the night. Although the scenery was incredible the over night stop was gross and had it's fair share of squashed mosqitoes on the wall and dead cockroaches with legs spread eagled in the air on the floor. We avoiding cooking and washing as much as possible and happily jumped back on the bus in the morning!
Our next stop was Franz Josef, we were particulary excited about the trip from this point onwards because we were slowing the pace right down and staying for more than a day at the next few stops. Again it was bright blue skies when we arrived at the quaint little high street (we've been really lucky with the weather) and our first stop was the glacier centre where we booked ourselves onto a full day glacier walk.
That evening we bumped into some friends who we'd separated from earlier up the coast and caught up around a big fire pit drinking liquor coffees and mulled wine which was really nice. The following day was 'supposed' to be our chill out day before the big ice hike but in typical over productive style Tina and I decided to go on the Roberts Point walk as recommended by the hostel owner.
The walk was supposed to be a stroll type thing with packed lunch at the top but to say it turned out to be challenging would be the understatement of the year! The trail head was 4kms from Franz so to even get to the start we hedged our bets and began walking on the hard shoulder with our thumbs in the air, it was only 10 mins or so until we were picked up by a couple who were also going up to the glacier and believed picking hitchers up was good karma so that worked out well.
After around 45 minutes of walking the stoney path petered out into little more than some orange arrows pointing us in the direction of the summit and we passed an onimous sign saying 'DANGER - do not pass this sign unless you are an experienced tramper with equipment or with a guide'. Oops.
2 litres of sweat, some nasty falls, abseils down muddy slopes clinging onto tree roots, scrambling over waterfalls and 6 hours later we returned to the start and begged a mini bus driver to take us home. We spent the evening relaxing in the local hot pools and splashing out on a curry as a reward!
Even after the Roberts Point debacle we made it up the glacier the following day and really enjoyed it, probably the best thing to be done here in NZ. I had a bit of a panic at the beginning when I realised we'd be going 8 hours without access to a loo and had just drunk a cup of tea but our guide was obviously used to these touristy demands and rather embarrasingly I had to make do with a secret spot in the ice, I wasn't the only one though!
Rather typically when it was my turn to sneak off and be discreet a bloody helicopter full of hikers flew overhead and
obviously had a giggle at my expense!!
Also a quick note, if you ever find yourself looking for accommodation in Franz Josef, go to the Glow worm hostel, it was defo the best in town, very authentic with black and white photos of the victorians on the ice and lots of historical artifacts scattered throughout the rooms.
After Franz we went down to Wanaka, a small town with a big view. The town looks out across another huge lake and onto a snow capped mountain range behind. We just chilled there for 2 days soaking it up. Ooo I also got my broken
tooth fixed by a nice dentist there so I have a whole tooth again which is nice.
...and now we're in Queentown, heart of the adrenalin activites. We're not doing any though to save on cash so i feel a bit bad that i'm here and not doing anything but i'm sure i'll be back and can do all 134m of the Nevis bungy jump then! I hadn't considered doing it at all but am tempted after getting here and hearing about it. The thing is, I think a bungy jump, especially one where you spend the day being driven out to the site is an experience that is more fun when shared with someone and seeing as Tina's never been up for it i'll pass this time too.
Right, i'm off outside now, it's sunny! laters! :)
This is our 4th day in Queenstown and i'm really enjoying it, it's not the pumping mini ibiza it's been made out to be but there are some good bars and extraordinary scenery. It's a really quaint little place with a wharf, jetty, steamer boat, little beach and village green which are all surrounded by a backdrop of skyscaper mountains and lush forest.
I really, realllllly like New Zealand, the way of life is so different here, it's very refreshing. Everyone appreciates and
respects the environment in which they live, infact they're genuinely proud of it. They're helpful and kind and i've not
seen one single chav or scary looking person on the streets anywhere, only a couple of chilled out hippies.
New Zealand is a spiritual place full of mythology, history and scenery unlike anything i've ever seen. People just sit and stare at the mountains, sea and rolling hills soaking up the beauty and then spend their time using the country as a playground. I love being in a place that feels safe and revolves around an active lifestyle, it's a hidden gem that needs to be revisted!
Anyway, back in Nelson our kayak day started off on a bad note as we rose at 6am to monsoon style rain sheeting down outside the hostel. It was a tough 5.45am wake up call so we spent the 1 1/2 hour bus journey to the national park in silence hoping it would clear up...which it didn't!
We managed to change our trip to the following day though so take two and we were up at 5.45am again for a second try. This time the weather was really nice and we got to get out on the water even though Tina was very nervous about being out at sea and capsizing.
It was a slightly stressful ride at times as everyone else had a guy in their double kayaks so more bicep power compared to me and Tina who were paddling as hard as we could but still flagging behind with aching muscles. Tina was in charge of the rudder despite having never been in a kayak and not wanting to steer so we did our usual thing of complaining about the aches, pains, speed of the group, getting wet etc and then saying 'how amazing it was' at the end. That seems to be a common theme on the trip so far, everything's 'the best ever' when looking through those rose tinted specs!
After the kayak we realised we had 4 hours to complete a 5 hour hike so power walked up the coast in the hot sun and somehow made it to our water taxi in time.
After Nelson we drove down to Westport which was a bit like an American ghost town, lots of long straight grid like roads and creepy inbred types peeking out from behind the net curtains. We only had one evening there (thank god!) but it was a warm sunny afternoon so strolled down to the beach and watched the waves roll in while sitting on some washed up driftwood.
The following day was also a weird one as we made our way down to Lake Manipua, there is litrally nothing there except the lake (which is both slightly eerie and gorgeous) and an old rusty shed owned by local man Les which was our accommodation for the night. Although the scenery was incredible the over night stop was gross and had it's fair share of squashed mosqitoes on the wall and dead cockroaches with legs spread eagled in the air on the floor. We avoiding cooking and washing as much as possible and happily jumped back on the bus in the morning!
Our next stop was Franz Josef, we were particulary excited about the trip from this point onwards because we were slowing the pace right down and staying for more than a day at the next few stops. Again it was bright blue skies when we arrived at the quaint little high street (we've been really lucky with the weather) and our first stop was the glacier centre where we booked ourselves onto a full day glacier walk.
That evening we bumped into some friends who we'd separated from earlier up the coast and caught up around a big fire pit drinking liquor coffees and mulled wine which was really nice. The following day was 'supposed' to be our chill out day before the big ice hike but in typical over productive style Tina and I decided to go on the Roberts Point walk as recommended by the hostel owner.
The walk was supposed to be a stroll type thing with packed lunch at the top but to say it turned out to be challenging would be the understatement of the year! The trail head was 4kms from Franz so to even get to the start we hedged our bets and began walking on the hard shoulder with our thumbs in the air, it was only 10 mins or so until we were picked up by a couple who were also going up to the glacier and believed picking hitchers up was good karma so that worked out well.
After around 45 minutes of walking the stoney path petered out into little more than some orange arrows pointing us in the direction of the summit and we passed an onimous sign saying 'DANGER - do not pass this sign unless you are an experienced tramper with equipment or with a guide'. Oops.
2 litres of sweat, some nasty falls, abseils down muddy slopes clinging onto tree roots, scrambling over waterfalls and 6 hours later we returned to the start and begged a mini bus driver to take us home. We spent the evening relaxing in the local hot pools and splashing out on a curry as a reward!
Even after the Roberts Point debacle we made it up the glacier the following day and really enjoyed it, probably the best thing to be done here in NZ. I had a bit of a panic at the beginning when I realised we'd be going 8 hours without access to a loo and had just drunk a cup of tea but our guide was obviously used to these touristy demands and rather embarrasingly I had to make do with a secret spot in the ice, I wasn't the only one though!
Rather typically when it was my turn to sneak off and be discreet a bloody helicopter full of hikers flew overhead and
obviously had a giggle at my expense!!
Also a quick note, if you ever find yourself looking for accommodation in Franz Josef, go to the Glow worm hostel, it was defo the best in town, very authentic with black and white photos of the victorians on the ice and lots of historical artifacts scattered throughout the rooms.
After Franz we went down to Wanaka, a small town with a big view. The town looks out across another huge lake and onto a snow capped mountain range behind. We just chilled there for 2 days soaking it up. Ooo I also got my broken
tooth fixed by a nice dentist there so I have a whole tooth again which is nice.
...and now we're in Queentown, heart of the adrenalin activites. We're not doing any though to save on cash so i feel a bit bad that i'm here and not doing anything but i'm sure i'll be back and can do all 134m of the Nevis bungy jump then! I hadn't considered doing it at all but am tempted after getting here and hearing about it. The thing is, I think a bungy jump, especially one where you spend the day being driven out to the site is an experience that is more fun when shared with someone and seeing as Tina's never been up for it i'll pass this time too.
Right, i'm off outside now, it's sunny! laters! :)
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Squeeze and Marinate
Ok i've just posted my last blog and am determined to keep on top of this one so am starting the next one right now.
Today is our 3rd and last day in Lake Taupo and Tina and I are sooo glad we decided to marinate a bit here, we've not really done much today except mooch about and make future plans for the trip but I think that's all we needed, some time to do nothing.
Unfortnately for my waistline the kiwi's seem to love their bakery/pattiserie/pastry shops and my sweet tooth is litrally
screaming out in pain for gingerbread men, caramel slices, apple strudle, custard twists, cinnamon squares, chocolate brownies and iced buns. I'm going to be honest...i'm not showing much...well, any restraint and seem to be handing over my money and pocketing the sugary goodness before i even know what's going on.
The great carrot cake hunt is something that has developed out of nowhere over the last week, it started back in Sydney when we went to Taronga Zoo and saw a big fat nutty creamy sweet delicious looking wedge of cake behind a glass counter and caved in by buying a piece to share. No joke, that was the best piece of carrot cake i've ever had, everything from the buttercream icing to the walnut pieces sunk deep within the moist sponge was perfect and from that moment on everytime Tina and I see a piece of carrot cake we're compelled to buy it to see if another will ever compare to the Taronga orignal.
Our plans have been changing a fair bit today and we've got our organisational hats on overdrive. As our trip here develops we're looking more and more at our kiwi bus route and how we can make it better by tayloring it to us. Instead of going back up the country via Lake Taupo and finishing in Auckland (which we have paid to do) but will have already seen, we're now only going as far up as Wellington and then leaving the Kiwi bus to fly out of wellington to Melbourne. The only problem with this is that in our frantic rush at the airport on the way out of Oz we bought a flight from Auckland back to Melbourne...
Anyway I won't bore you with the details but we've spoken to Qantas and to cut a long story short we've had to pay an extra $210 fare to change our departure location and date but will gain an extra 5 days to play with in the South Island so it's totally worth it.
The other thing we've been busy planning is our upcoming trip to Nelson and the amazing Abel Tasman National Park. It's a gorgeous piece of coastline on the nothern coast of the south island which Tina and I are going to Kayak along for 3 hours, walk a second section for 3 hours and then finally take a water taxi back to the starting point. It's pretty pricey but these things have to be done...originally we were going to camp overnight and spend 2 days in the park but we're trying to cut costs a little.
Tina's been making me laugh recently, I thought I was bad bringing GHD straightners travelling but she's got straightners too and even managed to dye her hair in the hostel last night! It was hilarious seeing her run between the bathroom and bedroom with the dark dye and clips poking out all over her head haha!
--------
Now it's Jan 20th and i'm sitting in a hostel in Nelson called Accents on the Park. it was described as 'affordable luxury' by the Lonely Planet and like always we've booked it independantly from the Kiwi Exp so while the rest of the bus has been thrown into a bigger place i'm chilling in a very cute victorian type town house which has been converted really nicely, there's vintage radios and lamps suspended on shelves, a large table and benches carved from local wood and even a full size wulwitzer juke box standing proud in the corner opposite me.
Tomorrow is a 6am early start and we're set to board a coach that will take us an hour up the coast to the National Park where we'll do our kayak, hike and water cruise day.
After leaving Taupo last week we headed down to an amazing little place called River Valley lodge, this was one of the gems I doubt we'd have heard about if we'd not been with the Kiwi Exp as it was so hidden away. In an ideal world i'd have liked to stay another day there but with the itinery more structured than ever and the Kiwi buses booked up days in advance it wasn't possible.
The lodge offered grade 5 rafting which I really wanted to do (but chose to save the pennies) and is built on the very edge of a gorgeous river bank with a sheer grassy cliff face plunging dramatically into the river behind. It had a bit of an adventure vibe to it, there was even a rickety old pulley tray system that you could dangle above the water on and use to pull yourself over to the other side. It needed some good bicep power to work it though!
After 2 weeks i'm pretty used to the dorm situation now and sharing with people isn't half as wierd as i first found it but that night in River Valley I opted for the cheapest option and put myself down to stay in the 'orgy room'(!) for $22.
It's called that because it's basically 2 massive platforms which everyone puts a little matress on and shares like a huge sleepover, i'll never do it again though and can't believe how loud and inconsiderate people are when others are asleep. Mainly all the dutch grrrrr!!
I had planned to do some nice calming meditation by the river in the early morning but that plan went down the drain when I got up and realised i'd left a bag in the hostel at Lake Taupo containing ALL my underwear, socks and bikini's :( :( :(
After the initial panic I called Kiwi Exp and begged for the next driver passing through Taupo to pick it up and bring it
down to me in Nelson....after multiple phone calls I've been told a driver has agreed to get it and bring it down with him but it's fair to say he's less than impressed at having to carry a plastic carrier bag full of girls knickers with him across on the ferry from north to South Island, whoops. I'm just praying he rememebers to pick it up...
After River Valley we headed southbound to the capital city of Wellington, otherwise known as windy Wellington as on something like 174 days of the year it blows at more than 30 knots. This would be great for kite surfing but unfortunately brings bad weather to the city alot of the time, even in summer. Luckily for us it was bright blue sky when we arrived and checked into our YHA hostel for the night.
The next day we stayed in Wellington and walked up Mount Victoria to get some excellent views of the city, after that we went to their pride and joy, the Te Papa museum and saw a great short documentary on some of the more interesting people of New Zealand, their hobbies and what they love about the country.
It was an inspring film, really well made and made me realise how nice it is that the people here have a sense of pride about where they live. They're kind, respectful and take a genuine interest in the people visiting their country which just makes me think 'when shall I come back and use my working visa here???...
Today is our 3rd and last day in Lake Taupo and Tina and I are sooo glad we decided to marinate a bit here, we've not really done much today except mooch about and make future plans for the trip but I think that's all we needed, some time to do nothing.
Unfortnately for my waistline the kiwi's seem to love their bakery/pattiserie/pastry shops and my sweet tooth is litrally
screaming out in pain for gingerbread men, caramel slices, apple strudle, custard twists, cinnamon squares, chocolate brownies and iced buns. I'm going to be honest...i'm not showing much...well, any restraint and seem to be handing over my money and pocketing the sugary goodness before i even know what's going on.
The great carrot cake hunt is something that has developed out of nowhere over the last week, it started back in Sydney when we went to Taronga Zoo and saw a big fat nutty creamy sweet delicious looking wedge of cake behind a glass counter and caved in by buying a piece to share. No joke, that was the best piece of carrot cake i've ever had, everything from the buttercream icing to the walnut pieces sunk deep within the moist sponge was perfect and from that moment on everytime Tina and I see a piece of carrot cake we're compelled to buy it to see if another will ever compare to the Taronga orignal.
Our plans have been changing a fair bit today and we've got our organisational hats on overdrive. As our trip here develops we're looking more and more at our kiwi bus route and how we can make it better by tayloring it to us. Instead of going back up the country via Lake Taupo and finishing in Auckland (which we have paid to do) but will have already seen, we're now only going as far up as Wellington and then leaving the Kiwi bus to fly out of wellington to Melbourne. The only problem with this is that in our frantic rush at the airport on the way out of Oz we bought a flight from Auckland back to Melbourne...
Anyway I won't bore you with the details but we've spoken to Qantas and to cut a long story short we've had to pay an extra $210 fare to change our departure location and date but will gain an extra 5 days to play with in the South Island so it's totally worth it.
The other thing we've been busy planning is our upcoming trip to Nelson and the amazing Abel Tasman National Park. It's a gorgeous piece of coastline on the nothern coast of the south island which Tina and I are going to Kayak along for 3 hours, walk a second section for 3 hours and then finally take a water taxi back to the starting point. It's pretty pricey but these things have to be done...originally we were going to camp overnight and spend 2 days in the park but we're trying to cut costs a little.
Tina's been making me laugh recently, I thought I was bad bringing GHD straightners travelling but she's got straightners too and even managed to dye her hair in the hostel last night! It was hilarious seeing her run between the bathroom and bedroom with the dark dye and clips poking out all over her head haha!
--------
Now it's Jan 20th and i'm sitting in a hostel in Nelson called Accents on the Park. it was described as 'affordable luxury' by the Lonely Planet and like always we've booked it independantly from the Kiwi Exp so while the rest of the bus has been thrown into a bigger place i'm chilling in a very cute victorian type town house which has been converted really nicely, there's vintage radios and lamps suspended on shelves, a large table and benches carved from local wood and even a full size wulwitzer juke box standing proud in the corner opposite me.
Tomorrow is a 6am early start and we're set to board a coach that will take us an hour up the coast to the National Park where we'll do our kayak, hike and water cruise day.
After leaving Taupo last week we headed down to an amazing little place called River Valley lodge, this was one of the gems I doubt we'd have heard about if we'd not been with the Kiwi Exp as it was so hidden away. In an ideal world i'd have liked to stay another day there but with the itinery more structured than ever and the Kiwi buses booked up days in advance it wasn't possible.
The lodge offered grade 5 rafting which I really wanted to do (but chose to save the pennies) and is built on the very edge of a gorgeous river bank with a sheer grassy cliff face plunging dramatically into the river behind. It had a bit of an adventure vibe to it, there was even a rickety old pulley tray system that you could dangle above the water on and use to pull yourself over to the other side. It needed some good bicep power to work it though!
After 2 weeks i'm pretty used to the dorm situation now and sharing with people isn't half as wierd as i first found it but that night in River Valley I opted for the cheapest option and put myself down to stay in the 'orgy room'(!) for $22.
It's called that because it's basically 2 massive platforms which everyone puts a little matress on and shares like a huge sleepover, i'll never do it again though and can't believe how loud and inconsiderate people are when others are asleep. Mainly all the dutch grrrrr!!
I had planned to do some nice calming meditation by the river in the early morning but that plan went down the drain when I got up and realised i'd left a bag in the hostel at Lake Taupo containing ALL my underwear, socks and bikini's :( :( :(
After the initial panic I called Kiwi Exp and begged for the next driver passing through Taupo to pick it up and bring it
down to me in Nelson....after multiple phone calls I've been told a driver has agreed to get it and bring it down with him but it's fair to say he's less than impressed at having to carry a plastic carrier bag full of girls knickers with him across on the ferry from north to South Island, whoops. I'm just praying he rememebers to pick it up...
After River Valley we headed southbound to the capital city of Wellington, otherwise known as windy Wellington as on something like 174 days of the year it blows at more than 30 knots. This would be great for kite surfing but unfortunately brings bad weather to the city alot of the time, even in summer. Luckily for us it was bright blue sky when we arrived and checked into our YHA hostel for the night.
The next day we stayed in Wellington and walked up Mount Victoria to get some excellent views of the city, after that we went to their pride and joy, the Te Papa museum and saw a great short documentary on some of the more interesting people of New Zealand, their hobbies and what they love about the country.
It was an inspring film, really well made and made me realise how nice it is that the people here have a sense of pride about where they live. They're kind, respectful and take a genuine interest in the people visiting their country which just makes me think 'when shall I come back and use my working visa here???...
Friday, 15 January 2010
Rain rain go away, New Zealand come along my way
Happy new year people, happy 2010! I like the sound of 2010, it's a nice sounding year and hopefully full of nice fulfilling adventures and stories. I started typing this while on the plane to Auckland but as usual didn't get it finished and now have been playing catch up for days.
It's been really weird not having Loz around anymore, we split on the morning of the 7th Jan and I feel like i've lost a
limb or something. However Tina is here now and by the end of our time in Sydney I was very ready for everything to kick off.
The last month in Sydney was really fun but by the end I felt like a sprinter on the starting blocks after the gun had fired and been smoking for some time now. It was time to get going, get on the move, meet new people, see new places, think new thoughts and just get away from it all once more.
The December weather was very unseasonal in the last few weeks and i'd have liked a few more beach days instead
of walking into the CBD for the 5th time in a row but we got through it even if we did go a bit stir crazy at times. It felt
like quite a chaotic month with people coming and going and 6 people camped out in the flat but Loz and I got our $1500 bond back without any problems from the land lady so that was great.
The Christmas period came and went without a hitch, our food was probably the highlight of it all as we'd bought lots of nice things to cook and treat ourselves to. Checking the weather in advance was the right thing to do, it meant that our Christmas eve picnic worked out great on the beach...even if the cool bags were creating a mini river of melted ice in the taxi on the way down! We had our smoked salmon, salads, breads and dips all washed down with white wine while wearing red sequin santa hats and mucking about in the sea.
Waking up on Christmas morning was surreal and not a great feeling being so far away from friends and family but I opened my Christmas stocking box mum had sent over from England and put on a dress to celebrate the day. It was grey and raining outside so after a special breakfast we all trekked it down to circular key to visit the Sydney ice bar. We thought it'd be funny to say we'd been surrounded by ice on x-mas day while in Oz but that plan fell apart when we arrived and found them closed even though they'd promised a few days earlier they'd be open. Oh well, there wasn't much else to do except sit in Starbucks and waste some time before heading back to the flat to cook a massive roast dinner, pull some crackers and listen to Christmas songs which got us into the festive spirit :)
On the 29th Loz's brother Damien and his girlfriend Jess rocked up and joined us as part of their holiday in Australia and the next big night out was New Years Eve which ended up going awesomely and all to plan. We'd discovered a perfect look out point to see the fireworks from and a perfect bush to stash our cool bag of Champagne. We started the night at club Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour which we had tickets for and by 11pm were walking towards a hidden observatory park for the best local secret in Sydney.
We arrived at the small patch of green, retrieved our alcoholic goodies and realised that there were only about 30 other people sitting around to watch the display, there were even 3 portaloos, it like being at a mini festival or something!
As midnight approached we realised how lucky we were to be able to enjoy the fireworks with a few locals and the most incredible view while 1,000,000 other tourists jostled for position at predictable hot spots like The Rocks and Botanic Gardens, what a blag! As we left, the locals made us promise to keep the location a secret from others so shhhhhhh!!!
After the immense fireworks we walked back to the club for more dancing and eventually finished the night in the early hours. At this point I should mention that we 'could've' carried on as the headline DJ invited us to his private after party and then offered to by me a flight to Melbourne the next day(!) but we thought we should call it a day while things were good.
I can't really remember much between New Years day and leaving Sydney but I know we did manage to get down to Bondi once more on our last day when the sun began to shine again which was a nice send off. And as our little urban retreat month came to an end and our international visitors left one by one it eventually came the time to leave Surry Hills myself and make the now famliar journey on the Citylink train into the North Sydney suburbs to Turramurra and to a sanctuary of another kind, Marys.
Tina, Loz and I spent the 6th, the day before I left Australia chilling in her swimming pool, sunbathing, catching up and eating and drinking the effortlessly amazing food and wine Mary whisked up for us. It was so great to relax and use that time as a transition into what was round the corner.
On the 7th the day got off to a good start and after a bit of an emotional goodbye to Loz, my travel partner of 7 1/2 months, Tina and I got into the car and begun our non-stop journey to New Zealand.
The car journey to the train station went fine, no hiccups.
The train journey to the airport went all good, error free.
But getting onto the plane to take us to NZ was a different story and as we smugly approached check in with passports outstretched and e-tickets in hand the perky woman sitting in front of us very quickly wiped the smile off our faces by telling us we could not board the plane unless we had a return ticket back to Australia...and we had 40 minutes to get one... ah, slight problem then.
Composure crumbling around our feet, luggage trolley flinging itself in random directions and cowboy hat flying
off my head as I ran to the Qantas desk we hurriedly got quotes for a number of random return dates in around 5 weeks time and then split up to find free internet in order to make online comparisons.
You see, as much as we hate them it's the situations like this where our natural planner skills burst into action and we thrive. We soon realised that the only way to board our flight was going to be with another e-ticket print out and that we needed a Qantas printer to do that. In all the rush it was fairly stressful having to choose an exact date to come back and something we really didn't want to do but went for the 13th Feb, 2 days after my birthday.
Landing in NZ 3 hours later we bumped into another fairly annoying incident when we had our bags x-rayed and then pulled aside for a full open, rummage and search job. It was fair to say that we were highly unimpressed with the 'bio hazard team' for doing this as it was less than 5 hours previously that we had been sweating, shouting and swearing over our bags as we desperately tried to crowbar another vest top behind the bulging zips.
After concluding we weren't smuggling anything of 'bio hazard' nature into the country (although I did have my trainers
scrubbed clean of the remnants of Bryce canyon's red dust) we were allowed to make our way into Auckland.
We didn't do much with our first night except sample the local Burger King delicacy and panic about how we were ever going to travel about with our exploding bags. They seemed to be multiplying and reproducing baby bags and soon we would have a whole family to lug about. Tina was impressed with the hostel though, I think she had pretty low expectations so was pleasantly surprised. Meanwhile I think I was still in a state of shock about it being day 1 of chapter two and was walking around with a bit of a glazed expression in the eyes.
There's alot to write about as i've been pretty far behind with the blog recently (note to self: always write it regularly)
but i'll write the general gist of it down.
Our first morning in Auckland we were pretty nervous about the big green kiwi bus pulling up, we'd heard some very unfavourable rumours about it and the last thing Tina and I wanted was an 18-20's party and puke bus. It was an early start, like most of the morning pick ups but when we saw the other backpackers waiting on the pavement we relaxed a little. No crazy looking chavs waiting to board or anything like that.
Now skip forward 8 days (to where I am in time now) and I can probably give a more accurate run down of what we make of it...
I'll be honest, i'm not totally sure it was the right thing to do, and yes, Tina and I may have been way too excited back in Sydney when we booked the one with the most stops because to be honest, they're not all needed.
The problem is, i've been building up this trip of mine for about 7 years, I knew I was going to do a big trip from when I
was 18 but didn't know when (although 25 was my deadline). I've been building it up so much and creating the perfect trip and experiences in my head for so long that unless it matched my internal ideal I was always going to be disappointed and have to adapt.
I love New Zealand ALOT, it's just what I wanted it to be but i'm not getting that independent backpacker 'into the wild' vibe I desperately want. Then again, what was I thinking?! Of course I was never going to get that by boarding the most touristy bus in the country but it seemed a good idea when I booked it.
The alternative, renting a mini van and driving round for 6 weeks would've worked out the same price but then add petrol and the fact we'd have to actually drive everywhere and that's why we didn't pursue that option when maybe we should have done...
Oh well, what's done is done, yes we feel a bit like we're on a school trip being herded around like cattle, and yes it's
all a bit rushed stop to stop but I have to look at the positives and it would be unlikely that we'd see as much as we will in the 5 weeks we're here if we'd hired the van.
My regret and slight depression was only made worse when we bumped into some very cool Israeli musicians who were doing the 'car thing' and saying how awesome it was and then winced in disgust when we said we were with the Kiwi Experience. They even asked us to join them in their van on their trip but of course we couldn't.
I think the main problem is the time limit, because we were forced to book a return date and we chose one in 5 weeks time (not knowing that it wouldn't be long enough) we've been forced to move from place to place almost daily and we just don't feel like we're actually seeing much of NZ, just the inside of the bus.
HOWEVER, it's not all doom and gloom. We've got 7 extra days to play with and are using them mostly down in the South Island so we'll have a little more time at the important/good stops, we're hoping it won't all feel so rushed and school trippy then.
The other thing that didn't help was we've had a new driver who's REALLY annoying and just talks verbal diarrhoea into the coach microphone the whole time pissing the whole coach off in a big way!
Because of this, and the fact we desperately needed a break from being on the move we've used one of our spare days and 'hoped off' at Lake Taupo for 2 full days which has been really nice :)
The thing that's really perplexed me is the complete lack of isolation I feel, it's made me realise that the world is just TOO connected now. There's very little way that a person can feel totally alone anymore, too many internet cafes, wi-fi hotspots and skype centres. I guess travelling isn't what it used to be...and not what I was after.
Australia will no doubt be buzzing with backpackers too but we're both hoping that by not being on a tour it'll feel more spontaneous and then when we get to Asia I want total chaos, bring it on.
We've actually started to rebel a little and are now booking hostels independently of the Kiwi Exp just to regain that
feeling of control (!) but we've also started to get quite chummy with a few people on the bus, unfortunately we're the
oldest of the group but shhhhhh, we're trying not to mention any ages!
Right, out of the negative and into what we've done in the last week which is loadsssss!! Firstly NZ is absolutely stunning, it's a gorgeous country from what i've seen so far and will 100% come back. Our first day saw us driving up
to the Bay of Islands in the North Island. The Kiwi Exp. book all your tours/activities for you (which is a bit deadly on the bank account) but we signed up to do a boat cruise around 12 of the 144 islands up there. It was really nice but unfortunately the weather caved in and brought us some cold cloudiness. It was also at this point we met and got talking to a Liverpudian called Paul who became our 3rd musketeer until he hoped off the bus in Rotorua a few days later.
The next day we were straight up to Cape Rienga which is the northern most point of New Zealand and where the Maori believe their spirits leave the country to find their long lost ancestors after they've died. It's also the point at which the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean collide in a white watery fight, the Maori folk say it represents male and female meeting and becoming one, all very spiritual which I like!
That day we started off by driving to a bit of local rainforest and all taking a quick walk around a boardwalk which went pass some very old historic native trees, then we drove up to '90 mile beach' a stretch of beach which is actually 64 miles long but that was before people had the means to measure distances properly. That was pretty cool as the bus actually drove along the beach as the sea laps at the tires. Unfortunately for the heart strings we also passed a kite surfer doing his thing in the surf and I had to just sit and watch. The beach was very desolate though and we got a chance to get out, stretch the legs and write our names in the sand.
After that we drove to some nearby sand dunes and got to go sand boarding, something which i'm not sure was worth the exhausting climb to the top but pretty good fun, just remember to keep your mouth shut on the way down!
In the afternoon we squeezed in an hour at a beautiful beach near the cape and then it was back on the bus to swing by a fish and chippy and then back to Paihia...it was a very full on day!
The next morning we headed down to a place called Mercury Bay via Cathedral Cove, supposedly NZ's most beautiful beach. When we pulled up in the car park our dippy driver gave us 2 options, go and chill on the local beach for a couple of hours or do the 30min walk to Cathedral Cove and be back by 3pm. Unfortunately for Tina and I the dippy driver had parked in the wrong bloody car park so the 30 min stroll which we opted to do turned into a 50 minute power walk each way which gave us 15 mins at Cathedral Cove before we had to turn back and do another 50 minutes back on ourselves in the blazing sun. It was a gorgeous walk but not much fun under the circumstances!
The following day it was off again from Mercury Bay (a VERY sleepy town) to Rotorua, famous for it's natural hot springs, bubbling mud pools, steaming gysers and smelly sulphur gases which make the air smell very eggy eugh! In Rotorua we were squeezed for time once again and all got a bit hectic but we went to a guided tour of the natural earth crust phenomenas and in the evening splashed out on an activity called the Tamiki Village where locals have recreated a traditional maori tribe village complete with warriors singing, dancing, demonstrating their history and putting on a massive buffet at the end. These things can sometimes be a bit tacky but it was actually really good and helped everyone get into the cultural side of things a bit more.
Rotorua was the first stop where we had decided to break free of the 'recommended' hostel stops and Tina, Paul and I booked ourselves into an eco-friendly hostel called the Funky Green Voyager which had a great vibe and an honesty pot in the fridge for their $2 beers!
The next day it was up at 7pm and straight to Waitomo (see, told you it was full on!!) to see their caves. The activity of choice here is something called 'Black Water Rafting' which the Kiwi's invented a few years ago. Basically you put on a smelly cold damp wetsuit, grab a big black rubber ring and go down underground into the caves to swim/climb/clamber through the dark tunnels and jump off a couple of waterfalls.
The caves are also famous for their glow worms and the tour makes sure you get a great show when at one point everyone turns their helmet torches off and float down a long rocky tunnel with thousands of little yellow glowing stars (the worms) dancing above your head. It's very cool and Tina and I had a great time doing that but it's lucky we're prepared to splash out on all these activities as there's not much to do if you don't!
The next morning it was straight to Lake Taupo (where I am now) where most people were opting to sky dive, Taupo is the sky diving capital of the world and has 30,000 people jumping out of planes over it every year. We're going to do our dive over in Oz so didn't sign up for it. That afternoon we decided to make the most of the day by walking up to a natural hot spring that's in the area. On the way we ended up walking past Taupo Bungy and bumping into our fellow kiwi exp friends watching people take the dive.
One of the guys decided he needed an adrenalin rush and within 5 minutes of getting his wallet out had paid and was standing on the edge of the 50m drop into the river below. After his jump all the other boys started getting a bit alpha male syndrome and signed up to do one as well.
I've always dreaded coming face to face with a bungy jump as I knew i'd be tempted to do it or face the regret of letting something 'beat' me. If it had been ridiculously expensive like the one in Queenstown ($260) I could've justified not even contemplating doing it to save money for something I was more passionate about but this one, being 1/3 the size of Queenstown was only $109..50 quid...very do-able.
I must've stood there for over an hour watching plunge after plunge trying to make a decision but however much I tried I just couldn't move my feet to take me over to the pay and weigh counter.
The others had been and gone and after some meaningless encouragement from them I decided not to jump off the ledge...I can't believe i've finally met my match in the fear stakes!!! I've told myself i'll defo do one on my next trip here, I wasn't ready for it this time round.
After the bungy Tina, me and our new backpacking buddies bounced down to the lake and jumped in for a splash about in the natural hot spring water.
....and that brings me to today! Today has been my best day in New Zealand so far because we got up at 5am and took a mini-bus up to the trail head of the Tongario Crossing, rated one of the top 10 walks in the world.
The walk is 19.5kms long and was pretty damn challenging, it took us through a multitude of terrain ranging from dutch style fjord land to sharp rocky lava fields, from barren grassy mountain slopes to thick lush forest. My feet do feel a little sore but it was awesome and i'd totally recommend it. At one point I thought I was going to get blown over the sheer drop of the volcano crater when the temperature dropped to 5 degrees and the wind was gusting at 70kms.
Anyway, 2 glasses of wine, a beer and a white magnum later and i'm pretty happy with myself for doing that and seeing the real New Zealand! :)
It's been really weird not having Loz around anymore, we split on the morning of the 7th Jan and I feel like i've lost a
limb or something. However Tina is here now and by the end of our time in Sydney I was very ready for everything to kick off.
The last month in Sydney was really fun but by the end I felt like a sprinter on the starting blocks after the gun had fired and been smoking for some time now. It was time to get going, get on the move, meet new people, see new places, think new thoughts and just get away from it all once more.
The December weather was very unseasonal in the last few weeks and i'd have liked a few more beach days instead
of walking into the CBD for the 5th time in a row but we got through it even if we did go a bit stir crazy at times. It felt
like quite a chaotic month with people coming and going and 6 people camped out in the flat but Loz and I got our $1500 bond back without any problems from the land lady so that was great.
The Christmas period came and went without a hitch, our food was probably the highlight of it all as we'd bought lots of nice things to cook and treat ourselves to. Checking the weather in advance was the right thing to do, it meant that our Christmas eve picnic worked out great on the beach...even if the cool bags were creating a mini river of melted ice in the taxi on the way down! We had our smoked salmon, salads, breads and dips all washed down with white wine while wearing red sequin santa hats and mucking about in the sea.
Waking up on Christmas morning was surreal and not a great feeling being so far away from friends and family but I opened my Christmas stocking box mum had sent over from England and put on a dress to celebrate the day. It was grey and raining outside so after a special breakfast we all trekked it down to circular key to visit the Sydney ice bar. We thought it'd be funny to say we'd been surrounded by ice on x-mas day while in Oz but that plan fell apart when we arrived and found them closed even though they'd promised a few days earlier they'd be open. Oh well, there wasn't much else to do except sit in Starbucks and waste some time before heading back to the flat to cook a massive roast dinner, pull some crackers and listen to Christmas songs which got us into the festive spirit :)
On the 29th Loz's brother Damien and his girlfriend Jess rocked up and joined us as part of their holiday in Australia and the next big night out was New Years Eve which ended up going awesomely and all to plan. We'd discovered a perfect look out point to see the fireworks from and a perfect bush to stash our cool bag of Champagne. We started the night at club Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour which we had tickets for and by 11pm were walking towards a hidden observatory park for the best local secret in Sydney.
We arrived at the small patch of green, retrieved our alcoholic goodies and realised that there were only about 30 other people sitting around to watch the display, there were even 3 portaloos, it like being at a mini festival or something!
As midnight approached we realised how lucky we were to be able to enjoy the fireworks with a few locals and the most incredible view while 1,000,000 other tourists jostled for position at predictable hot spots like The Rocks and Botanic Gardens, what a blag! As we left, the locals made us promise to keep the location a secret from others so shhhhhhh!!!
After the immense fireworks we walked back to the club for more dancing and eventually finished the night in the early hours. At this point I should mention that we 'could've' carried on as the headline DJ invited us to his private after party and then offered to by me a flight to Melbourne the next day(!) but we thought we should call it a day while things were good.
I can't really remember much between New Years day and leaving Sydney but I know we did manage to get down to Bondi once more on our last day when the sun began to shine again which was a nice send off. And as our little urban retreat month came to an end and our international visitors left one by one it eventually came the time to leave Surry Hills myself and make the now famliar journey on the Citylink train into the North Sydney suburbs to Turramurra and to a sanctuary of another kind, Marys.
Tina, Loz and I spent the 6th, the day before I left Australia chilling in her swimming pool, sunbathing, catching up and eating and drinking the effortlessly amazing food and wine Mary whisked up for us. It was so great to relax and use that time as a transition into what was round the corner.
On the 7th the day got off to a good start and after a bit of an emotional goodbye to Loz, my travel partner of 7 1/2 months, Tina and I got into the car and begun our non-stop journey to New Zealand.
The car journey to the train station went fine, no hiccups.
The train journey to the airport went all good, error free.
But getting onto the plane to take us to NZ was a different story and as we smugly approached check in with passports outstretched and e-tickets in hand the perky woman sitting in front of us very quickly wiped the smile off our faces by telling us we could not board the plane unless we had a return ticket back to Australia...and we had 40 minutes to get one... ah, slight problem then.
Composure crumbling around our feet, luggage trolley flinging itself in random directions and cowboy hat flying
off my head as I ran to the Qantas desk we hurriedly got quotes for a number of random return dates in around 5 weeks time and then split up to find free internet in order to make online comparisons.
You see, as much as we hate them it's the situations like this where our natural planner skills burst into action and we thrive. We soon realised that the only way to board our flight was going to be with another e-ticket print out and that we needed a Qantas printer to do that. In all the rush it was fairly stressful having to choose an exact date to come back and something we really didn't want to do but went for the 13th Feb, 2 days after my birthday.
Landing in NZ 3 hours later we bumped into another fairly annoying incident when we had our bags x-rayed and then pulled aside for a full open, rummage and search job. It was fair to say that we were highly unimpressed with the 'bio hazard team' for doing this as it was less than 5 hours previously that we had been sweating, shouting and swearing over our bags as we desperately tried to crowbar another vest top behind the bulging zips.
After concluding we weren't smuggling anything of 'bio hazard' nature into the country (although I did have my trainers
scrubbed clean of the remnants of Bryce canyon's red dust) we were allowed to make our way into Auckland.
We didn't do much with our first night except sample the local Burger King delicacy and panic about how we were ever going to travel about with our exploding bags. They seemed to be multiplying and reproducing baby bags and soon we would have a whole family to lug about. Tina was impressed with the hostel though, I think she had pretty low expectations so was pleasantly surprised. Meanwhile I think I was still in a state of shock about it being day 1 of chapter two and was walking around with a bit of a glazed expression in the eyes.
There's alot to write about as i've been pretty far behind with the blog recently (note to self: always write it regularly)
but i'll write the general gist of it down.
Our first morning in Auckland we were pretty nervous about the big green kiwi bus pulling up, we'd heard some very unfavourable rumours about it and the last thing Tina and I wanted was an 18-20's party and puke bus. It was an early start, like most of the morning pick ups but when we saw the other backpackers waiting on the pavement we relaxed a little. No crazy looking chavs waiting to board or anything like that.
Now skip forward 8 days (to where I am in time now) and I can probably give a more accurate run down of what we make of it...
I'll be honest, i'm not totally sure it was the right thing to do, and yes, Tina and I may have been way too excited back in Sydney when we booked the one with the most stops because to be honest, they're not all needed.
The problem is, i've been building up this trip of mine for about 7 years, I knew I was going to do a big trip from when I
was 18 but didn't know when (although 25 was my deadline). I've been building it up so much and creating the perfect trip and experiences in my head for so long that unless it matched my internal ideal I was always going to be disappointed and have to adapt.
I love New Zealand ALOT, it's just what I wanted it to be but i'm not getting that independent backpacker 'into the wild' vibe I desperately want. Then again, what was I thinking?! Of course I was never going to get that by boarding the most touristy bus in the country but it seemed a good idea when I booked it.
The alternative, renting a mini van and driving round for 6 weeks would've worked out the same price but then add petrol and the fact we'd have to actually drive everywhere and that's why we didn't pursue that option when maybe we should have done...
Oh well, what's done is done, yes we feel a bit like we're on a school trip being herded around like cattle, and yes it's
all a bit rushed stop to stop but I have to look at the positives and it would be unlikely that we'd see as much as we will in the 5 weeks we're here if we'd hired the van.
My regret and slight depression was only made worse when we bumped into some very cool Israeli musicians who were doing the 'car thing' and saying how awesome it was and then winced in disgust when we said we were with the Kiwi Experience. They even asked us to join them in their van on their trip but of course we couldn't.
I think the main problem is the time limit, because we were forced to book a return date and we chose one in 5 weeks time (not knowing that it wouldn't be long enough) we've been forced to move from place to place almost daily and we just don't feel like we're actually seeing much of NZ, just the inside of the bus.
HOWEVER, it's not all doom and gloom. We've got 7 extra days to play with and are using them mostly down in the South Island so we'll have a little more time at the important/good stops, we're hoping it won't all feel so rushed and school trippy then.
The other thing that didn't help was we've had a new driver who's REALLY annoying and just talks verbal diarrhoea into the coach microphone the whole time pissing the whole coach off in a big way!
Because of this, and the fact we desperately needed a break from being on the move we've used one of our spare days and 'hoped off' at Lake Taupo for 2 full days which has been really nice :)
The thing that's really perplexed me is the complete lack of isolation I feel, it's made me realise that the world is just TOO connected now. There's very little way that a person can feel totally alone anymore, too many internet cafes, wi-fi hotspots and skype centres. I guess travelling isn't what it used to be...and not what I was after.
Australia will no doubt be buzzing with backpackers too but we're both hoping that by not being on a tour it'll feel more spontaneous and then when we get to Asia I want total chaos, bring it on.
We've actually started to rebel a little and are now booking hostels independently of the Kiwi Exp just to regain that
feeling of control (!) but we've also started to get quite chummy with a few people on the bus, unfortunately we're the
oldest of the group but shhhhhh, we're trying not to mention any ages!
Right, out of the negative and into what we've done in the last week which is loadsssss!! Firstly NZ is absolutely stunning, it's a gorgeous country from what i've seen so far and will 100% come back. Our first day saw us driving up
to the Bay of Islands in the North Island. The Kiwi Exp. book all your tours/activities for you (which is a bit deadly on the bank account) but we signed up to do a boat cruise around 12 of the 144 islands up there. It was really nice but unfortunately the weather caved in and brought us some cold cloudiness. It was also at this point we met and got talking to a Liverpudian called Paul who became our 3rd musketeer until he hoped off the bus in Rotorua a few days later.
The next day we were straight up to Cape Rienga which is the northern most point of New Zealand and where the Maori believe their spirits leave the country to find their long lost ancestors after they've died. It's also the point at which the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean collide in a white watery fight, the Maori folk say it represents male and female meeting and becoming one, all very spiritual which I like!
That day we started off by driving to a bit of local rainforest and all taking a quick walk around a boardwalk which went pass some very old historic native trees, then we drove up to '90 mile beach' a stretch of beach which is actually 64 miles long but that was before people had the means to measure distances properly. That was pretty cool as the bus actually drove along the beach as the sea laps at the tires. Unfortunately for the heart strings we also passed a kite surfer doing his thing in the surf and I had to just sit and watch. The beach was very desolate though and we got a chance to get out, stretch the legs and write our names in the sand.
After that we drove to some nearby sand dunes and got to go sand boarding, something which i'm not sure was worth the exhausting climb to the top but pretty good fun, just remember to keep your mouth shut on the way down!
In the afternoon we squeezed in an hour at a beautiful beach near the cape and then it was back on the bus to swing by a fish and chippy and then back to Paihia...it was a very full on day!
The next morning we headed down to a place called Mercury Bay via Cathedral Cove, supposedly NZ's most beautiful beach. When we pulled up in the car park our dippy driver gave us 2 options, go and chill on the local beach for a couple of hours or do the 30min walk to Cathedral Cove and be back by 3pm. Unfortunately for Tina and I the dippy driver had parked in the wrong bloody car park so the 30 min stroll which we opted to do turned into a 50 minute power walk each way which gave us 15 mins at Cathedral Cove before we had to turn back and do another 50 minutes back on ourselves in the blazing sun. It was a gorgeous walk but not much fun under the circumstances!
The following day it was off again from Mercury Bay (a VERY sleepy town) to Rotorua, famous for it's natural hot springs, bubbling mud pools, steaming gysers and smelly sulphur gases which make the air smell very eggy eugh! In Rotorua we were squeezed for time once again and all got a bit hectic but we went to a guided tour of the natural earth crust phenomenas and in the evening splashed out on an activity called the Tamiki Village where locals have recreated a traditional maori tribe village complete with warriors singing, dancing, demonstrating their history and putting on a massive buffet at the end. These things can sometimes be a bit tacky but it was actually really good and helped everyone get into the cultural side of things a bit more.
Rotorua was the first stop where we had decided to break free of the 'recommended' hostel stops and Tina, Paul and I booked ourselves into an eco-friendly hostel called the Funky Green Voyager which had a great vibe and an honesty pot in the fridge for their $2 beers!
The next day it was up at 7pm and straight to Waitomo (see, told you it was full on!!) to see their caves. The activity of choice here is something called 'Black Water Rafting' which the Kiwi's invented a few years ago. Basically you put on a smelly cold damp wetsuit, grab a big black rubber ring and go down underground into the caves to swim/climb/clamber through the dark tunnels and jump off a couple of waterfalls.
The caves are also famous for their glow worms and the tour makes sure you get a great show when at one point everyone turns their helmet torches off and float down a long rocky tunnel with thousands of little yellow glowing stars (the worms) dancing above your head. It's very cool and Tina and I had a great time doing that but it's lucky we're prepared to splash out on all these activities as there's not much to do if you don't!
The next morning it was straight to Lake Taupo (where I am now) where most people were opting to sky dive, Taupo is the sky diving capital of the world and has 30,000 people jumping out of planes over it every year. We're going to do our dive over in Oz so didn't sign up for it. That afternoon we decided to make the most of the day by walking up to a natural hot spring that's in the area. On the way we ended up walking past Taupo Bungy and bumping into our fellow kiwi exp friends watching people take the dive.
One of the guys decided he needed an adrenalin rush and within 5 minutes of getting his wallet out had paid and was standing on the edge of the 50m drop into the river below. After his jump all the other boys started getting a bit alpha male syndrome and signed up to do one as well.
I've always dreaded coming face to face with a bungy jump as I knew i'd be tempted to do it or face the regret of letting something 'beat' me. If it had been ridiculously expensive like the one in Queenstown ($260) I could've justified not even contemplating doing it to save money for something I was more passionate about but this one, being 1/3 the size of Queenstown was only $109..50 quid...very do-able.
I must've stood there for over an hour watching plunge after plunge trying to make a decision but however much I tried I just couldn't move my feet to take me over to the pay and weigh counter.
The others had been and gone and after some meaningless encouragement from them I decided not to jump off the ledge...I can't believe i've finally met my match in the fear stakes!!! I've told myself i'll defo do one on my next trip here, I wasn't ready for it this time round.
After the bungy Tina, me and our new backpacking buddies bounced down to the lake and jumped in for a splash about in the natural hot spring water.
....and that brings me to today! Today has been my best day in New Zealand so far because we got up at 5am and took a mini-bus up to the trail head of the Tongario Crossing, rated one of the top 10 walks in the world.
The walk is 19.5kms long and was pretty damn challenging, it took us through a multitude of terrain ranging from dutch style fjord land to sharp rocky lava fields, from barren grassy mountain slopes to thick lush forest. My feet do feel a little sore but it was awesome and i'd totally recommend it. At one point I thought I was going to get blown over the sheer drop of the volcano crater when the temperature dropped to 5 degrees and the wind was gusting at 70kms.
Anyway, 2 glasses of wine, a beer and a white magnum later and i'm pretty happy with myself for doing that and seeing the real New Zealand! :)
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
And Then There Were 4.
It's Christmas eve and it's mine and Loz's 7 month travel-anniversary! I can't believe we've been away and out of England for 7 months, I also can't believe it's December 24th, it's still May isn't it? Doesn't time stop still when you go travelling??
A lot has happened in the last week, 2 have become 4 with Michelle (my mate from the uk) and Damien (Loz's mate from Paris) joining us in the Sydney flat and 4 will soon become 6 when Damo (Loz's brother) and his girlfriend Jess arrive on the 29th.
Something at the forefront of our minds has been preparing for Christmas in our own special way, we've been trying to work out what we want to eat, when we want to eat it and where all this eating will take place!
The original plan had always been to head down to Bondi Beach on Christmas Day and drink away with the other Brits sunning themselves on the sand until the weatherman put a stop to that and predicted glorious temperatures of 22 degrees and rain. RAIN!
For the relatively long 25 years that has made up my life there has not been one white Christmas and then the one bloody year I up and leave to travel a world renound hot country...it rains.
Anyway, life goes on and change forces adaptation so we've decided to do the Bondi thing today as it's hot and dry. Michelle, Loz, Damien and I have bought and prepared an extravagant picnic to lug down to the coast and delve into, and tonight, for the first and probably last time ever I am going out to the clubs on Christmas Eve. Normally I would be laying the presents under the tree in Brighton with Nicola, watching festive films round a real log fire and strolling up to midnight mass but tonight we're hitting the Sydney nightlife.
The past week we've been really busy exploring Sydney to the max and have walked some insane distances without quite meaning to. Last Tuesday Michelle arrived into Australia and it was my duty to head down to the airport at 6am and collect her. I was slightly unnerved by how quiet the families were in the arrivals area when greeting their loved ones, a gentle hug here, a tear of joy there...the tension in me mounting as flight BA15 emptied its passengers into the luggage lounge.
Finally I saw her walking towards me and let out an involuntarily high pitched half-scream in the word 'TINAAAAA!'.
After some coffees and a catch up at a little local place in Surry Hills we spent the day walking around the CBD and getting acquainted with the city in more detail, we actually ended walking 7 miles and needed a big cup of tea and multiple tim tams when we got back!
Tuesday we headed down to Coogee beach which looked very different in the summer sun, the last time I was there was in the Winter months when Loz and I first arrived into Sydney and although the skies were crisp and blue back then the beaches were empty of sun worshippers and only the brave adorned their wetsuits to catch a wave.
Tuesday however was very different, the sand looked like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt of bikinis and the sun's rays heated the sand up like hot coals.
Wednesday was another epic day of walking with the route beginning at the flat in Surry Hills, going down Oxford Street (a fashionable road lined with high end boutiques and vintage shops), moving through Kings Cross (backpacker and hostel central), around Wooloomooroo (the only suburb with 8 o's), round the Botanic Gardens, pass the Sydney Opera House and over the Harbour Bridge! This time our 8 mile walk landed us a little lost in a North Sydney suburb and we were forced to take the train back to our starting point.
On the Thursday the heavens opened and we had our first significant downpour since being here, it was a good thing really as there were a number of large scary bushfires raging in South Sydney and the fire fighters needed all the help they could get.
Tina (Michelle's nickname) and I utilised the grotty weather by going to Max Brenner for their INFAMOUS chocolate brownie with vanilla ice-cream and then walked up to King's Cross to buy some of the tours we'll be doing on this trip.
3 hours later...we walked out of 'Wicked Travel' having spent over $2,300 dollars on a number of very exciting and hopefully fun experiences! Some of the things we've booked onto include the Kiwi Experience tour bus for our time in New Zealand, a 3 day Melbourne to Adelaide coach trip along the Great Ocean Road, a 3 day/3 night camping trip in the middle of the desert to see sunrise and sunset at Aires Rock, 3 days hiring a 4x4 to drive around Fraser Island and 2 days/2 nights on a trimaran sailing boat cruising around the Whitsundays! We're also going to do a sky dive further up the coast but nothing's booked for that just yet :/!
I think we finished the day with some fajitas and a couple of beers, what could be better.
The weekend was fairly chilled with Saturday spent perusing around Paddington Market, a very artsy crafty type of place. I think I ate the best cupcake of my entire life on that day, it was banana, pecan and butter icing and was simply AMAZING. Infact, I would go back to that market just to find that stall and eat it all over again.
On Sunday I donned the old running trainers and attempted a little jog around a local park. However when I got there I realised that most of the park was sealed off by construction fencing for building work so I ended up running up and down the same path and then round and round in a circle 6 times.
I had aimed to do it 10 times and then jog home but a tramp appeared on his little bicycle and set up camp right by the path on lap 6 which really put me off and I headed back early.
I was also aware that the passing pedestrians had no idea I was running round and round in a circle as they were coming and going all the time but the tramp...well he would soon discover my little secret.
I also looked particularly orange compared to the other city dwellers that day...
That afternoon Tina and I hired the movie 'Into the Wild'. If you haven't seen it, see it. It's truly one of the best films
i've seen, defo in my top 3. You'll really appreciate it if you're either a deep thinker, like travelling, appreciate there's more to life than work, the concept of breaking free from society etc. etc.
So that brings me to Monday when Damien (who arrived on Sunday), Michelle, Loz and I trekked down to Bondi Beach for the day. Bondi is a nice beach, a crescent shape with houses built into the rocks around it and a line of shops backing onto the promenade. When the clouds started to move over in the afternoon we packed up and began the 5km walk from Bondi to Coogee over the cliff path which I would highly recommend. It was very scenic and reminded me of the drive up route 1 from LA to San Francisco.
We were knackered by the time we got back to the apartment but missioned it round the supermarket and bought all our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day food.
Tuesday was one of those unexpected lovely days, Mary (my relative in Sydney) drove into the city with her sons Hugo and James to meet the 4 of us for lunch. We ended up piling in the car and going over to Darling Harbour to a gorgeous restaurant called Yots where we sat round a large wooden bench type table with a Christmassy centrepiece and white floaty drapes to protecting us from the sun's heat. I sipped chilled white wine and ate a barramundi and mango salad while watching powerboats cruise past a replica of Captain Cooks Endeavour ship and was very, very happy.
After lunch we all played about in the water fountains, pretty much drying instantly afterwards, and then after Mary left began walking up to The Rocks by the Harbour Bridge to scope out the perfect viewing spot for NYE.
So that brings me up to date with yesterday! We ended up going down to Coogee again for some sun bathing, I got to meet Michelle's friend from the UK and some others girls and then in the afternoon we caught a bus up to the Botanic Gardens to try and get our faces on GMTV! They had asked Brits abroad to come down and send messages to their families etc and I had hoped to get on but there were too many people and in typical British fashion when the camera started rolling the crowds started heaving towards the lens crushing everyone.
I took to taking off my sequinned santa hat and swinging it manically above my head while yelling 'Brightonnnn' to get their attention!!!
Apparently you can see me very briefly, job done. :)
Right, so better go, we've got to put this picnic together...I can't believe it's Christmas Eve!
xxx
A lot has happened in the last week, 2 have become 4 with Michelle (my mate from the uk) and Damien (Loz's mate from Paris) joining us in the Sydney flat and 4 will soon become 6 when Damo (Loz's brother) and his girlfriend Jess arrive on the 29th.
Something at the forefront of our minds has been preparing for Christmas in our own special way, we've been trying to work out what we want to eat, when we want to eat it and where all this eating will take place!
The original plan had always been to head down to Bondi Beach on Christmas Day and drink away with the other Brits sunning themselves on the sand until the weatherman put a stop to that and predicted glorious temperatures of 22 degrees and rain. RAIN!
For the relatively long 25 years that has made up my life there has not been one white Christmas and then the one bloody year I up and leave to travel a world renound hot country...it rains.
Anyway, life goes on and change forces adaptation so we've decided to do the Bondi thing today as it's hot and dry. Michelle, Loz, Damien and I have bought and prepared an extravagant picnic to lug down to the coast and delve into, and tonight, for the first and probably last time ever I am going out to the clubs on Christmas Eve. Normally I would be laying the presents under the tree in Brighton with Nicola, watching festive films round a real log fire and strolling up to midnight mass but tonight we're hitting the Sydney nightlife.
The past week we've been really busy exploring Sydney to the max and have walked some insane distances without quite meaning to. Last Tuesday Michelle arrived into Australia and it was my duty to head down to the airport at 6am and collect her. I was slightly unnerved by how quiet the families were in the arrivals area when greeting their loved ones, a gentle hug here, a tear of joy there...the tension in me mounting as flight BA15 emptied its passengers into the luggage lounge.
Finally I saw her walking towards me and let out an involuntarily high pitched half-scream in the word 'TINAAAAA!'.
After some coffees and a catch up at a little local place in Surry Hills we spent the day walking around the CBD and getting acquainted with the city in more detail, we actually ended walking 7 miles and needed a big cup of tea and multiple tim tams when we got back!
Tuesday we headed down to Coogee beach which looked very different in the summer sun, the last time I was there was in the Winter months when Loz and I first arrived into Sydney and although the skies were crisp and blue back then the beaches were empty of sun worshippers and only the brave adorned their wetsuits to catch a wave.
Tuesday however was very different, the sand looked like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt of bikinis and the sun's rays heated the sand up like hot coals.
Wednesday was another epic day of walking with the route beginning at the flat in Surry Hills, going down Oxford Street (a fashionable road lined with high end boutiques and vintage shops), moving through Kings Cross (backpacker and hostel central), around Wooloomooroo (the only suburb with 8 o's), round the Botanic Gardens, pass the Sydney Opera House and over the Harbour Bridge! This time our 8 mile walk landed us a little lost in a North Sydney suburb and we were forced to take the train back to our starting point.
On the Thursday the heavens opened and we had our first significant downpour since being here, it was a good thing really as there were a number of large scary bushfires raging in South Sydney and the fire fighters needed all the help they could get.
Tina (Michelle's nickname) and I utilised the grotty weather by going to Max Brenner for their INFAMOUS chocolate brownie with vanilla ice-cream and then walked up to King's Cross to buy some of the tours we'll be doing on this trip.
3 hours later...we walked out of 'Wicked Travel' having spent over $2,300 dollars on a number of very exciting and hopefully fun experiences! Some of the things we've booked onto include the Kiwi Experience tour bus for our time in New Zealand, a 3 day Melbourne to Adelaide coach trip along the Great Ocean Road, a 3 day/3 night camping trip in the middle of the desert to see sunrise and sunset at Aires Rock, 3 days hiring a 4x4 to drive around Fraser Island and 2 days/2 nights on a trimaran sailing boat cruising around the Whitsundays! We're also going to do a sky dive further up the coast but nothing's booked for that just yet :/!
I think we finished the day with some fajitas and a couple of beers, what could be better.
The weekend was fairly chilled with Saturday spent perusing around Paddington Market, a very artsy crafty type of place. I think I ate the best cupcake of my entire life on that day, it was banana, pecan and butter icing and was simply AMAZING. Infact, I would go back to that market just to find that stall and eat it all over again.
On Sunday I donned the old running trainers and attempted a little jog around a local park. However when I got there I realised that most of the park was sealed off by construction fencing for building work so I ended up running up and down the same path and then round and round in a circle 6 times.
I had aimed to do it 10 times and then jog home but a tramp appeared on his little bicycle and set up camp right by the path on lap 6 which really put me off and I headed back early.
I was also aware that the passing pedestrians had no idea I was running round and round in a circle as they were coming and going all the time but the tramp...well he would soon discover my little secret.
I also looked particularly orange compared to the other city dwellers that day...
That afternoon Tina and I hired the movie 'Into the Wild'. If you haven't seen it, see it. It's truly one of the best films
i've seen, defo in my top 3. You'll really appreciate it if you're either a deep thinker, like travelling, appreciate there's more to life than work, the concept of breaking free from society etc. etc.
So that brings me to Monday when Damien (who arrived on Sunday), Michelle, Loz and I trekked down to Bondi Beach for the day. Bondi is a nice beach, a crescent shape with houses built into the rocks around it and a line of shops backing onto the promenade. When the clouds started to move over in the afternoon we packed up and began the 5km walk from Bondi to Coogee over the cliff path which I would highly recommend. It was very scenic and reminded me of the drive up route 1 from LA to San Francisco.
We were knackered by the time we got back to the apartment but missioned it round the supermarket and bought all our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day food.
Tuesday was one of those unexpected lovely days, Mary (my relative in Sydney) drove into the city with her sons Hugo and James to meet the 4 of us for lunch. We ended up piling in the car and going over to Darling Harbour to a gorgeous restaurant called Yots where we sat round a large wooden bench type table with a Christmassy centrepiece and white floaty drapes to protecting us from the sun's heat. I sipped chilled white wine and ate a barramundi and mango salad while watching powerboats cruise past a replica of Captain Cooks Endeavour ship and was very, very happy.
After lunch we all played about in the water fountains, pretty much drying instantly afterwards, and then after Mary left began walking up to The Rocks by the Harbour Bridge to scope out the perfect viewing spot for NYE.
So that brings me up to date with yesterday! We ended up going down to Coogee again for some sun bathing, I got to meet Michelle's friend from the UK and some others girls and then in the afternoon we caught a bus up to the Botanic Gardens to try and get our faces on GMTV! They had asked Brits abroad to come down and send messages to their families etc and I had hoped to get on but there were too many people and in typical British fashion when the camera started rolling the crowds started heaving towards the lens crushing everyone.
I took to taking off my sequinned santa hat and swinging it manically above my head while yelling 'Brightonnnn' to get their attention!!!
Apparently you can see me very briefly, job done. :)
Right, so better go, we've got to put this picnic together...I can't believe it's Christmas Eve!
xxx
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