We flew to Sydney from Melbourne on the afternoon of March 16, 2010 and stayed at the YHA Sydney Harbour for 4 nights. This hostel was brand new and was right on the water with amazing views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the rooftop. We had a great three days in Sydney and quickly fell in love with the city. We are happy that we chose to stop there, because originally we were going to bypass it and fly directly up to Cairns. We thought of Sydney as possibly just “another big city”, but we were wrong!
We spent our first day walking around The Rocks (the area we were staying and one of the oldest parts of the city), went to the Sydney Aquarium, and strolled along Darling Harbour. That night we went for a run along the Harbour Bridge and took in the sights. The next day we took the bus to the famous Bondi Beach. While in NZ, we also watched “Bondi Rescue” on a regular basis so it was exciting to get there and see it in person. It was a beautiful day and the waves were great. The water was perfectly clear (this wasn’t the case the day before as many people had been stung by a certain kind of jelly fish), so we took advantage and played in the waves a couple of times. They were filming “Bondi Rescue” that day, so we were eagerly (not really) waiting to see a rescue….the only thing they rescued was a stray dog who was wondering around the beach. At any one time, there can be 40,000 people on this 1km stretch of beach…that’s the whole population of Charlottetown! The lifeguards perform 2500 rescues per year and nine times out of ten it’s the dumb tourists who don’t understand the dangers of Aussie waters! That evening, we were pretty tuckered out from being in the sun all day, so we went down to the Opera House and had a drink at the Opera Bar which was huge and runs along the lower level of the Opera House right on the water. It was amazing to sit there and take in the view of the city skyline and Harbour Bridge at night. Our last day in Sydney, we spent walking…lots and lots of walking. We visited Chinatown, Paddy’s Market, Hyde Park and the ever popular Kings’ Cross which is somewhat of a red light district. We were there at 4pm so there wasn’t much going on, but there was the odd girl standing in the doorway of a strip club trying to entice people in for a Friday afternoon drink. All in all, we had a great few days in Sydney and are so glad we made the stopover. We would have liked to have taken the ferry over to Manly, but we just didn’t have enough time. If there is anything we have learned, it’s that you can’t do it all!
Almost forgot…when we were at Bondi I had had enough of the waves and made my way back to our towels while Clement stayed in the water. On my walk back I stopped to wring out my hair and at my feet was...you guessed it, another crisp $50 bill!! I couldn’t believe it. I almost ran back into the water to get Clem but waited patiently until I saw him walking up the beach. This time, we did a really enthusiastic high-five in celebration. Aussie is treating us well so far as we are $103.00 richer without lifting a finger!
We have just arrived in Cairns as we flew in from Sydney this morning. We have been up since 3:30am and just waiting to check into our hostel. We are going to book a snorkeling tour of the Great Barrier Reef for tomorrow and then pick up our campervan on Monday morning, which we are so excited about!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Back in Melbourne
Since we last blogged, we ended up spending another three nights in Apollo Bay. We met two people from France (Celine and Romain) who both worked at the hostel and convinced us to stay another night. We hung out with them for the three days and had a blast. Clement and Romain hit it off and went mountain biking every morning up to the top of a small mountain overlooking the town. It took them 50 minutes to climb to the top and ten minutes to get down. We spent the days chilling on the beach, which was a 2 minute walk from the hostel and played many hours of frisbee. The boys were equally as excited to find out that they “finally had a good frisbee partner”…as Romain put it, “Frisbee Sportif”. In the evenings, we hung out on the balcony at the hostel while Celine cooked up a storm. She loves to cook and spoiled us with warm homemade chocolate cupcakes, fresh bread made from scratch, pizza, sushi, vegetable rolls, scones, etc! We were sad to leave Apollo Bay and wish we could have stayed longer.
After leaving Apollo Bay we had one more night before we had to return the rental car in Melbourne. We stayed in small town called Lorne on the Great Ocean Road. We didn’t spend much time here as we had to leave early the next morning to get back to Melbourne. We did have some excitement when a Huntsman spider came for a visit. Clement went to hang his towel on the line and saw him chilling on the wall. He was the size of Clement’s palm. I didn’t go to see it, but the picture he took was all I needed to know that I was not going to get any sleep that night. After doing some googling about this type of spider (I don’t know why I do these things), I found out that they can travel at high speeds and jump around. We always find it funny when the locals talk about all of their deadly creatures. Some of the best we’ve heard include “Everything we have here will kill you” and “Don’t worry about anything but the crocs”. My personal favorite is when they refer to something as “harmless”. For example, the Huntsman spider they refer to as “harmless”. To them, this simply means they won’t kill you. They still have fangs, eat small lizards and are the size of a grown man’s hand, but they are “harmless”?
We made it back to Melbourne and were able to see a lot more of the city. We took the free bus around the whole city, which allowed us to see the important things, as we only had one full day. We enjoyed the city and its many small lanes of cafes, pubs and restaurants. We quickly realized that Melbourne has a lot to offer and can easily see how they have been undergoing a population boom for the past little while. While we were in Apollo Bay, we met a couple about our parent’s age who live in Melbourne. They were very interesting people and ran a law practice out of their home. She also used to be a nurse for many years before going into law. When we told here where we were from in Canada, she knew all about PEI! She loves Anne of GG and hopes to get to the east coast of Canada some day in the near future. They do a lot of travelling, so we hope they do make it to PEI. They were very kind and invited us over for dinner when we arrived back in Melbourne. We took them up on their offer and took the train to their house which was in Williamstown (a small historic suburb of Melbourne). They served us a four course meal and then took us out for gelato and on a driving tour of the city! It was so nice to go into someone’s home and hear about the real Aussie way of life. We will keep in touch with them and hope to see them in Canada.
When we were walking around the city on our way to the train station, we were stopped at a crosswalk. The red man was flashing and usually we bolt across, but we stopped because we were hot as it was really muggy. It’s a good thing we stopped, because sitting at Clem’s feet was a crisp $50 bill!! He quickly picked it up and we high-fived. This was the third time he had found money in Melbourne, as he had previously found a loonie and a toonie in the bathroom at the hostel. Needless to say, we were stoked!
After leaving Apollo Bay we had one more night before we had to return the rental car in Melbourne. We stayed in small town called Lorne on the Great Ocean Road. We didn’t spend much time here as we had to leave early the next morning to get back to Melbourne. We did have some excitement when a Huntsman spider came for a visit. Clement went to hang his towel on the line and saw him chilling on the wall. He was the size of Clement’s palm. I didn’t go to see it, but the picture he took was all I needed to know that I was not going to get any sleep that night. After doing some googling about this type of spider (I don’t know why I do these things), I found out that they can travel at high speeds and jump around. We always find it funny when the locals talk about all of their deadly creatures. Some of the best we’ve heard include “Everything we have here will kill you” and “Don’t worry about anything but the crocs”. My personal favorite is when they refer to something as “harmless”. For example, the Huntsman spider they refer to as “harmless”. To them, this simply means they won’t kill you. They still have fangs, eat small lizards and are the size of a grown man’s hand, but they are “harmless”?
We made it back to Melbourne and were able to see a lot more of the city. We took the free bus around the whole city, which allowed us to see the important things, as we only had one full day. We enjoyed the city and its many small lanes of cafes, pubs and restaurants. We quickly realized that Melbourne has a lot to offer and can easily see how they have been undergoing a population boom for the past little while. While we were in Apollo Bay, we met a couple about our parent’s age who live in Melbourne. They were very interesting people and ran a law practice out of their home. She also used to be a nurse for many years before going into law. When we told here where we were from in Canada, she knew all about PEI! She loves Anne of GG and hopes to get to the east coast of Canada some day in the near future. They do a lot of travelling, so we hope they do make it to PEI. They were very kind and invited us over for dinner when we arrived back in Melbourne. We took them up on their offer and took the train to their house which was in Williamstown (a small historic suburb of Melbourne). They served us a four course meal and then took us out for gelato and on a driving tour of the city! It was so nice to go into someone’s home and hear about the real Aussie way of life. We will keep in touch with them and hope to see them in Canada.
When we were walking around the city on our way to the train station, we were stopped at a crosswalk. The red man was flashing and usually we bolt across, but we stopped because we were hot as it was really muggy. It’s a good thing we stopped, because sitting at Clem’s feet was a crisp $50 bill!! He quickly picked it up and we high-fived. This was the third time he had found money in Melbourne, as he had previously found a loonie and a toonie in the bathroom at the hostel. Needless to say, we were stoked!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Great Ocean Road
After our experience with the flooding in Melbourne, we have come to find out that it was a cyclone and a “once in a lifetime storm for Melbourne”. We were able to get out and walk around the next day for an hour or so before the rain started again. Many businesses remained closed due to flooding and we saw a few cars completely submerged in underground parkades. The city reeked of sewage and the damage was more apparent. We weren’t too disappointed that we were getting up the next morning to drive the Great Ocean Road.
While we were at the hostel in Melbourne we had come across a much cheaper deal for the rental car and on top of that would get 10% off because we are YHA members. We thought about cancelling our other reservation, but decided that it wouldn’t be worth it with cancellation fees, etc. So, we checked our rental car agreement that I booked in January which told us to take Tram #59 to the “Airport West” stop and then call them and they would pick us up. When we arrived at that stop, we felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere and of course there was no phone. I had mentioned to Clement on the tram that I had a funny feeling about this car rental. After walking around for a bit we finally found a payphone and called them to get us…only for them to tell us that we didn’t have a reservation! (We had the confirmation in our hands). Even though they couldn’t find it, they said they would be there to pick us up in 10 minutes. Forty-five minutes later this man pulls up in a minivan and asked if we had a rental car reserved and of course we said we did and hopped in. Well, this man wasn’t from the company we had booked with but had received a phone call from them telling him to pick us up and to basically rent us a car. This was fine with us, although it was a bit of a gong show. We ended up having to pay more than our original quote and had to wait almost another hour before this one man show got his shit together. We were slightly frustrated, especially seeing as we had found the better deal and were worried about cancelling! It wasn’t worth our while to get back into the city and arrange for it, so we stuck it out and three hours later were on the road to the Great Ocean Road in “Blue Bell”.
We have renamed the “Great Ocean Road” to the “Great Dried Up Farm Road”. We’re not sure if we had overly high expectations, but this certainly wasn’t what we were hoping for. We don’t mean to sound so negative, but it just wasn’t what we thought it was going to be. After spending 4 months driving through the beautiful NZ countryside and coastline, the Great Ocean Road didn’t appear so “great”. Besides, only about 1/3 of the road is actually along the ocean with the majority of it being through dried up farmland! Once again, the weather didn’t help as it continued to poor rain.
Ok, so it wasn’t all bad…we were cruising along and saw a koala sitting in a tree! He was so cute and looked so cuddly. After this random sighting, we were once again happy as things were looking up. We continued along to a place called Apollo Bay, which is about the halfway mark of the Great Ocean Road. We wanted to stay here because the YHA was right on the beach and was built entirely as an eco-friendly hostel. When we checked in the host Gilbert, kindly took the liberty of putting us in a room by ourselves with a double bed!! We were so excited to have our own room, let alone a double bed! This hostel is like no other and I could write a book about it…it’s that good (best one I’ve seen in Europe, NZ, and Oz). It felt as though we were at someone’s luxury home, but without the uncomfortable feeling of being in someone else’s home. It opened in 2005 and is designed completely with the environment in mind. I’ll outline some of its features, which will hardly do it justice:
• Windows are all facing the north to take advantage of the sunlight
• Solar panels on the roof to heat the water system
• Rain water reserves
• Worm farm to help with the compost
• Herb garden for everyone’s usage
• Low wattage lights
• Waterless urinals
These are just a few of the many features. It is such an amazing hostel, with lots of areas to chill including a big, beautiful sitting area with a fireplace. We only stayed on night, because we wanted to get out and see more of the Great Ocean Road, specifically the “Twelve Apostles”. We continued on with our next destination being Port Fairy, a small town about 170 km from Apollo Bay. We got to see the Twelve Apostles which were cool and also stopped at other viewpoints. We couldn’t get over the size of the waves. Because there is nothing to break the wind between Antarctica and the south coast of Australia, this area is known for its swell. We passed a small town called Torquay along the way, which is Australia’s surf capital. The Rip Curl World Championships are being held there in two weeks. They say that at times, the waves can be 30 meters high!
After driving through more farmland we arrived in Port Fairy, which was a really small town with not much to see or do. We check into the hostel which was an old farmhouse, to find out that our room was in the hayloft. In the hayloft, it was! We were crammed into the roof of this old barn and of course my biggest fear was spiders. We quickly discovered that this shouldn’t have been my biggest fear, as the other guests were the weirdest, creepiest, dirtiest people we had seen in a while. There was one old man (in his 70’s) with one eyeball who talked and laughed to himself and did everything as if he was in a rush. He and this old woman (who didn’t know each other) fought over what to watch on the communal TV, while everyone else sat back and listened to them bicker. We could go on about this short-lived experience as all we did was sleep and get the hell out of there as soon as we could the next morning. It wasn’t without seeing a spider though. As I was preparing for my shower, I set my towel down and closed the door to find a big black spider staring at me in the eyes. It was a good job I hadn’t yet undressed, because there would have been a screaming, naked girl running around the farm! After making Clement come in the women’s bathroom to see it, I went to another shower. This time I felt like I was in a comedy movie, only I wasn’t acting. As I was bending down to shampoo my hair (the shower head only reached halfway up my chest), I noticed a HUGE black, furry spider hanging in the ceiling above me. I tried to quickly get the soap out of my hair, knocked everything in sight over, almost slipped on the “slip proof” bath mat and finally made it to safety dripping wet in my towel that was barely covering what it should have been. I’m sure someone thought I was beating myself up in there, but I survived and lived to tell.
We did have a great evening in Port Fairy when we visited this park, which is an old volcano that last erupted 7000 years ago about 14km away. We were told that you could see different wildlife in there in the evenings. We only met one other person in the park and saw tons of kangaroos (mamas and their babies), wallabies, and emu. We really enjoyed this and even watched one wallaby eat an apple from 2 feet away. We liked it so much that we went back the next morning to see if we could see anything else. We saw a couple of more kangas, but it was pretty quiet. So, having been out of the city in Australia for 24 hours, we had already seen koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, emu and the dreadful spiders! We were really happy with this and could spend hours just watching the animals in their natural habitat.
With not much to see further west of Port Fairy, we decided that we had a lot of time to kill before returning the car in Melbourne on Sunday (the Great Ocean Road is only 263 km long). We returned to Apollo Bay and opted to stay at the beautiful hostel for two nights. We stopped at a grocery store on our way and picked up all we needed for a hearty home-cooked meal (not the usual oatmeal, soup, and our own famous sandwich rotation). We checked into the hostel to find that Gilbert had once again given us a room to ourselves with a double bed for the price of a 4 person dorm! We sit here now, reading and blogging in the lounge in front of the woodstove full from the chicken souvlaki we made for supper! We are so happy that we decided to come back here and have made this our home away from home. It feels like a resort, so we are looking forward to chilling here for the next couple of days. Also, the weather is forecasting sun so things are REALLY looking up! We may even head to the beach and make it look like we’ve been in Australasia for 4.5 months…but not before enjoying our cozy sleep in our double bed, with maybe even a sleep-in
While we were at the hostel in Melbourne we had come across a much cheaper deal for the rental car and on top of that would get 10% off because we are YHA members. We thought about cancelling our other reservation, but decided that it wouldn’t be worth it with cancellation fees, etc. So, we checked our rental car agreement that I booked in January which told us to take Tram #59 to the “Airport West” stop and then call them and they would pick us up. When we arrived at that stop, we felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere and of course there was no phone. I had mentioned to Clement on the tram that I had a funny feeling about this car rental. After walking around for a bit we finally found a payphone and called them to get us…only for them to tell us that we didn’t have a reservation! (We had the confirmation in our hands). Even though they couldn’t find it, they said they would be there to pick us up in 10 minutes. Forty-five minutes later this man pulls up in a minivan and asked if we had a rental car reserved and of course we said we did and hopped in. Well, this man wasn’t from the company we had booked with but had received a phone call from them telling him to pick us up and to basically rent us a car. This was fine with us, although it was a bit of a gong show. We ended up having to pay more than our original quote and had to wait almost another hour before this one man show got his shit together. We were slightly frustrated, especially seeing as we had found the better deal and were worried about cancelling! It wasn’t worth our while to get back into the city and arrange for it, so we stuck it out and three hours later were on the road to the Great Ocean Road in “Blue Bell”.
We have renamed the “Great Ocean Road” to the “Great Dried Up Farm Road”. We’re not sure if we had overly high expectations, but this certainly wasn’t what we were hoping for. We don’t mean to sound so negative, but it just wasn’t what we thought it was going to be. After spending 4 months driving through the beautiful NZ countryside and coastline, the Great Ocean Road didn’t appear so “great”. Besides, only about 1/3 of the road is actually along the ocean with the majority of it being through dried up farmland! Once again, the weather didn’t help as it continued to poor rain.
Ok, so it wasn’t all bad…we were cruising along and saw a koala sitting in a tree! He was so cute and looked so cuddly. After this random sighting, we were once again happy as things were looking up. We continued along to a place called Apollo Bay, which is about the halfway mark of the Great Ocean Road. We wanted to stay here because the YHA was right on the beach and was built entirely as an eco-friendly hostel. When we checked in the host Gilbert, kindly took the liberty of putting us in a room by ourselves with a double bed!! We were so excited to have our own room, let alone a double bed! This hostel is like no other and I could write a book about it…it’s that good (best one I’ve seen in Europe, NZ, and Oz). It felt as though we were at someone’s luxury home, but without the uncomfortable feeling of being in someone else’s home. It opened in 2005 and is designed completely with the environment in mind. I’ll outline some of its features, which will hardly do it justice:
• Windows are all facing the north to take advantage of the sunlight
• Solar panels on the roof to heat the water system
• Rain water reserves
• Worm farm to help with the compost
• Herb garden for everyone’s usage
• Low wattage lights
• Waterless urinals
These are just a few of the many features. It is such an amazing hostel, with lots of areas to chill including a big, beautiful sitting area with a fireplace. We only stayed on night, because we wanted to get out and see more of the Great Ocean Road, specifically the “Twelve Apostles”. We continued on with our next destination being Port Fairy, a small town about 170 km from Apollo Bay. We got to see the Twelve Apostles which were cool and also stopped at other viewpoints. We couldn’t get over the size of the waves. Because there is nothing to break the wind between Antarctica and the south coast of Australia, this area is known for its swell. We passed a small town called Torquay along the way, which is Australia’s surf capital. The Rip Curl World Championships are being held there in two weeks. They say that at times, the waves can be 30 meters high!
After driving through more farmland we arrived in Port Fairy, which was a really small town with not much to see or do. We check into the hostel which was an old farmhouse, to find out that our room was in the hayloft. In the hayloft, it was! We were crammed into the roof of this old barn and of course my biggest fear was spiders. We quickly discovered that this shouldn’t have been my biggest fear, as the other guests were the weirdest, creepiest, dirtiest people we had seen in a while. There was one old man (in his 70’s) with one eyeball who talked and laughed to himself and did everything as if he was in a rush. He and this old woman (who didn’t know each other) fought over what to watch on the communal TV, while everyone else sat back and listened to them bicker. We could go on about this short-lived experience as all we did was sleep and get the hell out of there as soon as we could the next morning. It wasn’t without seeing a spider though. As I was preparing for my shower, I set my towel down and closed the door to find a big black spider staring at me in the eyes. It was a good job I hadn’t yet undressed, because there would have been a screaming, naked girl running around the farm! After making Clement come in the women’s bathroom to see it, I went to another shower. This time I felt like I was in a comedy movie, only I wasn’t acting. As I was bending down to shampoo my hair (the shower head only reached halfway up my chest), I noticed a HUGE black, furry spider hanging in the ceiling above me. I tried to quickly get the soap out of my hair, knocked everything in sight over, almost slipped on the “slip proof” bath mat and finally made it to safety dripping wet in my towel that was barely covering what it should have been. I’m sure someone thought I was beating myself up in there, but I survived and lived to tell.
We did have a great evening in Port Fairy when we visited this park, which is an old volcano that last erupted 7000 years ago about 14km away. We were told that you could see different wildlife in there in the evenings. We only met one other person in the park and saw tons of kangaroos (mamas and their babies), wallabies, and emu. We really enjoyed this and even watched one wallaby eat an apple from 2 feet away. We liked it so much that we went back the next morning to see if we could see anything else. We saw a couple of more kangas, but it was pretty quiet. So, having been out of the city in Australia for 24 hours, we had already seen koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, emu and the dreadful spiders! We were really happy with this and could spend hours just watching the animals in their natural habitat.
With not much to see further west of Port Fairy, we decided that we had a lot of time to kill before returning the car in Melbourne on Sunday (the Great Ocean Road is only 263 km long). We returned to Apollo Bay and opted to stay at the beautiful hostel for two nights. We stopped at a grocery store on our way and picked up all we needed for a hearty home-cooked meal (not the usual oatmeal, soup, and our own famous sandwich rotation). We checked into the hostel to find that Gilbert had once again given us a room to ourselves with a double bed for the price of a 4 person dorm! We sit here now, reading and blogging in the lounge in front of the woodstove full from the chicken souvlaki we made for supper! We are so happy that we decided to come back here and have made this our home away from home. It feels like a resort, so we are looking forward to chilling here for the next couple of days. Also, the weather is forecasting sun so things are REALLY looking up! We may even head to the beach and make it look like we’ve been in Australasia for 4.5 months…but not before enjoying our cozy sleep in our double bed, with maybe even a sleep-in
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Mr Weatherman, what the hell is going on?
We made our flight from Christchurch to Melbourne on March 5 with no problems. We were a little bit worried about going through customs because we had heard of how strict they are with visitors. You can’t enter Australia without a ticket out, so when we booked our original NZ tickets back in September, our travel agent had made up a mock itinerary showing that we were leaving out of Darwin on April 3. The other thing that had us really worried about Australian customs was a tv show that we had watched religiously while in NZ, called “Border Security”. It is all about Australian customs and shows various real-life scenarios in the Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney airports. So, after throwing out all of my notes showing our possible Australia travel plans, we arrived at customs with our Australian Visitors Visas in hand. On our way down the ramp there is a huge sign posted “Channel 7 is here today filming “Border Security”. Please advise one of the television crew members if you do not wish to be filmed”. I thought surely this was a sign…and not a good one. We approached the customs agent to have him ask which medication we were declaring (we had checked off this box because we had a bag full of anti-malarials for SEA). To our surprise, he replied with “Good on ya mate” and sent us on our way. He didn’t even ask for the visitors’ visas which kind ticked me off because it was an extra $40 that we could have spent on something else! (Amazing how your perception changes when you travel, eh?). Ah well, we got through with no problems and once again, my worrying was all for nothing.
We booked into the YHA for three nights in the heart of Melbourne. It’s a big city (bigger than we anticipated) with a population of 3 million. It had forecasted rain for the whole weekend, which wasn’t a big surprise to us seeing as the bad weather is apparently following us around. However, we woke up on Saturday morning to heat, sunshine and blue skies! We spent the morning and early part of the afternoon wandering around, going to the Queen Victoria Market (where they have everything from a full cow to cosmetics to Asics running sneakers) and took the free city tram around the inner city. We did some more walking and were headed back towards the hostel to check into our other room (had to move rooms after our first night). We contemplated going to the waterfront first but decided against it and would go out later to see some more sights. Well, those plans quickly changed.
Not five minutes after we got back to the YHA, we heard what sounded like gun shots out the window. We jumped up to find golf ball sized hail pelting down and blanketing the streets faster than we could realize what was going on. After a couple of minutes of hail, the rain started coming down by the buckets and the wind went crazy. We watched in amazement from our window as it quickly turned to chaos. The streets started flooding and cars were quickly submerged. Garbage bins and other random items were floating by in the streets and people were up to almost their hips in dirty water. Everyone in the hostel was running around taking pictures, as this was extremely unusual for Melbourne. We did manage to get some entertainment out of it when a guy outside pulled out his boogie board to use in the street!
We planned on waiting it out and going out to see for ourselves what had happened, but when we got downstairs we couldn’t go anywhere. The bottom floor of the hostel was flooded! Not to mention, the bar that is attached to it that serves $5 pizza and beer. After talking to others who were out and during the storm, we realized that there was some major destruction and that we were really lucky to have opted to go to the waterfront later. The roof of the casino, the mall, and the grocery store had all collapsed (no injuries that we’ve heard of) and the harbor bridge was flooded at both ends. So, here we sit in a beautiful city in our hostel playing more Crazy Eights and bracing for another monster storm today! My biggest question is where are all of the spiders and snakes gone with this flooding? Yikes!
After speaking to a British guy about his Australian adventures, we now know that maybe the weather isn’t following us, but them. He’s been here for a month and was stuck near Sydney in a campervan due to flooding and washed out roads, then a small tsunami hit, and now this in Melbourne! Poor guy.
We are hoping we can head out later today and do some more sightseeing. We have a rental car booked for tomorrow morning when we take off for the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide for 6 days. Stay tuned…
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In a van, down by the river...
We said goodbye to all of our Wellington friends, packed up our life in our backpacks and took off to the South Island on February 23, 2010. It was quite the feat to pack everything into our packs and as per usual, we were amazed at the stuff we had accumulated over the last 3.5 months. We got almost all the way to the airport by taxi when I asked Clement where the camera was…it wasn’t with us. It was back in Mt. Victoria at our friends’ flat! So we rushed back and thankfully still made our flight to Christchurch on time. Speaking of our flight, we had an interesting experience at the Wellington airport. We checked in at the counter and got our passports out. When we handed them to the JetStar staff, he said “I don’t need those mate, I trust yas”. We didn’t think much of it, because we were just happy our bags were accepted and underweight (you have to pay to have your luggage with you and they charge you through the roof if they are even the slightest bit over). So, we continued on to the gate and kept wondering where security was. Finally, just as we see our gate we notice a small x-ray machine. Knowing that we’d have to put them all in a clear plastic airport bag, I had all of our “liquids, gels, and aerosols” packed into the front of one kitbag. When we got to the machine, I asked the woman for one of the famous clear bags. She just shook her head and told me it was only necessary on International flights. So, once again we pull out our boarding passes and our passports, only for them to wave us on through and not look at them. We thought surely at this point, they would be checking everything when we boarded the plane…nope! Not one person throughout the whole check-in and security process asked for identification! We were stunned. It was quite refreshing for a change…or was it? Either way, we had a quick flight to Christchurch where we arrived to 30 degree sunny weather!
We stayed at our friend Alan’s father’s house in Christchurch for the night. He had offered us to stay there and when you are travelling, you quickly learn to take anyone up on their offer for a bed! They lived a short ten minute walk to the city centre so we spent the morning walking around the city before picking up our “Wicked” campervan and heading out of town. We had somewhat of an itinerary for this 10 day trip, but the weather wasn’t cooperating the way we would have liked. We spent our first night in Hokitika (Jade or “Greenstone” as Kiwis call it capital of NZ). We pulled down this long gravel road and settled in for the night….in a van, down by the river. There wasn’t much to see or do in Hokitika so we took off early the next morning to head to the Glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers) on the west coast of the South Island. When we arrived, you couldn’t see anything! We were fairly high up and in the clouds, so there wasn’t much to see, not to mention the heavy rains. We quickly decided that because we have been to the Columbian Icefields in Alberta and had walked on a glacier before, we would continue on down the coast to Wanaka. We probably wouldn’t have stopped in Wanaka, except for the fact that this small ski town (similar to Jasper) was getting so much press from the skiers and snowboarders at the Olympics that we decided it was worth our while. All of the North American athletes come to NZ to train in the summer (which is in the heat of the ski season here). It was certainly worth our while. We were also pretty excited about being able to shower (no water, electricity or showers when you are freedom camping!). We spent the evening with a really nice couple from Washington, DC and watched the sunset from one of the mountains. We continued on to the talked about Queenstown. It is a nice little ski town that is very similar to Banff. We weren’t blown away by it, but it was certainly beautiful. It may have been because of all the hype that we expected more. Having said that, we spent one of our best nights yet just outside of Queenstown at a place called Moke Lake. We drove down this long dirt road (about 15km) where sheep were roaming freely to come to this small lake in the middle of amazing mountains. We pulled up and decided we would spend the night there. We were virtually all by ourselves surrounded by pure beauty. We cracked a beer, read our books and of course, boiled some Mr. Noodles for supper. We soaked it all in and had a great sleep with nothing much but the sounds of small fish jumping in the lake and the odd Baaaaaa in the distance.
On our way into town at about 0800 hrs (trying to avoid the wardens, ha), we noticed this person walking down the long dirt road with no shirt on (remember, there was nobody and nothing around with the exception of thousands of sheep). As we approached him, he turned to us and stuck his thumb out. Clement slowed down and was tempted to continue on until I said we should pick him up. We rolled down the window as asked what he needed. After lying and saying that we weren’t going into Queenstown (Clement told him we were going to some random place that we had seen on a sign), we finally decided to let him hop in. It turns out this guy (about 25 years old) was from BC and had lived in Wellington for the last three months! He and his friends were out at the lake fishing (and drinking whisky) the night before and they left him there! He wasn’t sure if he had pissed them off or if it was just a mean joke (the whisky did its job), but he woke up in a ditch with a car driving right past his head!! He had already been walking for two hours and was shivering. He was a heli-logger back in BC and was heading back to Canada the following day, so this was his last night out partying with his friends in Queenstown. It was really cold that night too, as we were high in altitude where they get frost. He was a really friendly guy so we told him that we lied and weren’t really going to “Glenorchy” and that we’d take him to where he was staying. He said he was going in to “punch some sleeping faces” (which I would have done myself if my friends did that to me). He was so grateful that we stopped to pick him up and it certainly spiced up our morning as we laughed with him the whole way back to town.
It was a beautiful sunny day so we spent the day outside cruising around, sitting by the lake and then checked into a campground to have a warm shower. In case you didn’t know, Queenstown is the “adventure capital of NZ” (and NZ is the adventure capital of the world). Seeing as Clement had gone skydiving in Taupo, I had planned on doing “something” I wasn’t quite sure what that “something” would be though. I thought about paragliding, but we took off early the next morning as it was once again, raining! Our destination was to Te Anau and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park. We arrived in Te Anau and booked a boat cruise through the Milford Sound for the next morning. We set up camp in a small area called Lake Gunn. It was raining so we tucked in under a tree and called it a night (not without a couple of hours of Crazy Eights first though...our new addiction and favorite pastime). It rained harder than we had ever seen it rain all night and when we woke up in the morning there was a rapidly flowing river next to our van! It’s a good job we didn’t park a couple of meters to the left, because we would have had a rude awakening and probably ended up in the lake! We drove up, over and even through a couple of mountains with hundred of huge waterfalls and rapids all around us. It was still raining extremely hard, so the water was rising quickly. We took a 3 hour boat cruise through the Fiord which was nice. We couldn’t see very much because of the heavy rains and high wind, but we could certainly see how spectacular it would be on a nice day. We were also told that going to the Fiordland National Park expecting to see a sunny day was like going to the desert and expecting it to rain. The guide on the boat with us explained how there are only 4 permanent waterfalls in that area and when we were there, there were thousands! Some of these waterfalls originated over a mile and half high. He explained that within 20 minutes of the rain stopping, the waterfalls also stop. It was an interesting and beautiful day, although we were a little disappointed that we didn’t stay another night in Queenstown to watch the Canada-US gold medal game…ok, A LOT disappointed. We’ve always said we were proud to be Canadian, but as we sit half way around the world we find ourselves more and more patriotic. A very proud couple of weeks these have been.
We did a couple of more night of freedom camping on a beautiful lake that was aqua blue with Mt. Cook in view. It reminded us a lot of Lake Louise and was amazing to watch the sunset and to wake up to such beauty in the morning. At one point in the night I had to wake Clement up because the van was shaking so hard from the wind that I kept having visions of us starting to coast down the hill and into the lake. He got up and pulled the parking break, which actually helped to steady the van. I didn’t get much sleep, but the views were well worth a sleepless night. We played many more hours of crazy eights and Clement finally finished his first book ever!! 800 pages on Neil Young…not exactly what I would choose, but he was pretty proud to finish it after lugging the 6 pounder around for 4 months. We are currently sitting in a campground in Fairlie (2 hours outside of Christchurch) and they have free wireless!! I almost couldn’t contain myself when I heard this news because it is simply unheard of in NZ. And the best part is that the connection actually works! So, we are no longer in a van, down by the river but enjoying the sun and preparing to head back to Christchurch tomorrow to drop off Popeye (our van’s name) and fly out to Melbourne! More to come from Aussie in the next week or two. Until then, stay fit and have fun.
We stayed at our friend Alan’s father’s house in Christchurch for the night. He had offered us to stay there and when you are travelling, you quickly learn to take anyone up on their offer for a bed! They lived a short ten minute walk to the city centre so we spent the morning walking around the city before picking up our “Wicked” campervan and heading out of town. We had somewhat of an itinerary for this 10 day trip, but the weather wasn’t cooperating the way we would have liked. We spent our first night in Hokitika (Jade or “Greenstone” as Kiwis call it capital of NZ). We pulled down this long gravel road and settled in for the night….in a van, down by the river. There wasn’t much to see or do in Hokitika so we took off early the next morning to head to the Glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers) on the west coast of the South Island. When we arrived, you couldn’t see anything! We were fairly high up and in the clouds, so there wasn’t much to see, not to mention the heavy rains. We quickly decided that because we have been to the Columbian Icefields in Alberta and had walked on a glacier before, we would continue on down the coast to Wanaka. We probably wouldn’t have stopped in Wanaka, except for the fact that this small ski town (similar to Jasper) was getting so much press from the skiers and snowboarders at the Olympics that we decided it was worth our while. All of the North American athletes come to NZ to train in the summer (which is in the heat of the ski season here). It was certainly worth our while. We were also pretty excited about being able to shower (no water, electricity or showers when you are freedom camping!). We spent the evening with a really nice couple from Washington, DC and watched the sunset from one of the mountains. We continued on to the talked about Queenstown. It is a nice little ski town that is very similar to Banff. We weren’t blown away by it, but it was certainly beautiful. It may have been because of all the hype that we expected more. Having said that, we spent one of our best nights yet just outside of Queenstown at a place called Moke Lake. We drove down this long dirt road (about 15km) where sheep were roaming freely to come to this small lake in the middle of amazing mountains. We pulled up and decided we would spend the night there. We were virtually all by ourselves surrounded by pure beauty. We cracked a beer, read our books and of course, boiled some Mr. Noodles for supper. We soaked it all in and had a great sleep with nothing much but the sounds of small fish jumping in the lake and the odd Baaaaaa in the distance.
On our way into town at about 0800 hrs (trying to avoid the wardens, ha), we noticed this person walking down the long dirt road with no shirt on (remember, there was nobody and nothing around with the exception of thousands of sheep). As we approached him, he turned to us and stuck his thumb out. Clement slowed down and was tempted to continue on until I said we should pick him up. We rolled down the window as asked what he needed. After lying and saying that we weren’t going into Queenstown (Clement told him we were going to some random place that we had seen on a sign), we finally decided to let him hop in. It turns out this guy (about 25 years old) was from BC and had lived in Wellington for the last three months! He and his friends were out at the lake fishing (and drinking whisky) the night before and they left him there! He wasn’t sure if he had pissed them off or if it was just a mean joke (the whisky did its job), but he woke up in a ditch with a car driving right past his head!! He had already been walking for two hours and was shivering. He was a heli-logger back in BC and was heading back to Canada the following day, so this was his last night out partying with his friends in Queenstown. It was really cold that night too, as we were high in altitude where they get frost. He was a really friendly guy so we told him that we lied and weren’t really going to “Glenorchy” and that we’d take him to where he was staying. He said he was going in to “punch some sleeping faces” (which I would have done myself if my friends did that to me). He was so grateful that we stopped to pick him up and it certainly spiced up our morning as we laughed with him the whole way back to town.
It was a beautiful sunny day so we spent the day outside cruising around, sitting by the lake and then checked into a campground to have a warm shower. In case you didn’t know, Queenstown is the “adventure capital of NZ” (and NZ is the adventure capital of the world). Seeing as Clement had gone skydiving in Taupo, I had planned on doing “something” I wasn’t quite sure what that “something” would be though. I thought about paragliding, but we took off early the next morning as it was once again, raining! Our destination was to Te Anau and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park. We arrived in Te Anau and booked a boat cruise through the Milford Sound for the next morning. We set up camp in a small area called Lake Gunn. It was raining so we tucked in under a tree and called it a night (not without a couple of hours of Crazy Eights first though...our new addiction and favorite pastime). It rained harder than we had ever seen it rain all night and when we woke up in the morning there was a rapidly flowing river next to our van! It’s a good job we didn’t park a couple of meters to the left, because we would have had a rude awakening and probably ended up in the lake! We drove up, over and even through a couple of mountains with hundred of huge waterfalls and rapids all around us. It was still raining extremely hard, so the water was rising quickly. We took a 3 hour boat cruise through the Fiord which was nice. We couldn’t see very much because of the heavy rains and high wind, but we could certainly see how spectacular it would be on a nice day. We were also told that going to the Fiordland National Park expecting to see a sunny day was like going to the desert and expecting it to rain. The guide on the boat with us explained how there are only 4 permanent waterfalls in that area and when we were there, there were thousands! Some of these waterfalls originated over a mile and half high. He explained that within 20 minutes of the rain stopping, the waterfalls also stop. It was an interesting and beautiful day, although we were a little disappointed that we didn’t stay another night in Queenstown to watch the Canada-US gold medal game…ok, A LOT disappointed. We’ve always said we were proud to be Canadian, but as we sit half way around the world we find ourselves more and more patriotic. A very proud couple of weeks these have been.
We did a couple of more night of freedom camping on a beautiful lake that was aqua blue with Mt. Cook in view. It reminded us a lot of Lake Louise and was amazing to watch the sunset and to wake up to such beauty in the morning. At one point in the night I had to wake Clement up because the van was shaking so hard from the wind that I kept having visions of us starting to coast down the hill and into the lake. He got up and pulled the parking break, which actually helped to steady the van. I didn’t get much sleep, but the views were well worth a sleepless night. We played many more hours of crazy eights and Clement finally finished his first book ever!! 800 pages on Neil Young…not exactly what I would choose, but he was pretty proud to finish it after lugging the 6 pounder around for 4 months. We are currently sitting in a campground in Fairlie (2 hours outside of Christchurch) and they have free wireless!! I almost couldn’t contain myself when I heard this news because it is simply unheard of in NZ. And the best part is that the connection actually works! So, we are no longer in a van, down by the river but enjoying the sun and preparing to head back to Christchurch tomorrow to drop off Popeye (our van’s name) and fly out to Melbourne! More to come from Aussie in the next week or two. Until then, stay fit and have fun.
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