SKippy-Blog

Following my last blog we headed on our way to Rotarua. We stopped of at Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where we looked at all the bubbling mud, steaming ground and geysers. They are supposed to be the most colourful ones in the country and were pretty impressive but VERY smelly. All the sulphur makes it all a bit eggy!

It was glorious sunshine again the next day so I decided I should jump out of a plane.... I decided that I'd give the skydive thing a go... Paddy decided that if I was doing one he had better do one too - He thought I might brag or something :oP We drove back to Lake Taupo as it's the cheapest place to do it and we could see Mt. Doom in the distance so it was pretty cool. We had non existing briefings beforehand and I was slightly unnerved when my tandem master grabbed me to drag me to the plane and quickly introduced himself as Damien. There was no going back :oS He was pretty cool though. It was great fun, though it doesn't last very long! Not quite what I'd ever imagined - really awesome. Ed and I both got videos done of our freefalls and now have action footage of us plummeting towards the earth - all pretty cool.

That night Paddy and I went along to a Mouri Concert and Hangi. It was a really weird experience. There were only 7 "guests" and we were outnumbered by the Maori performers who were all dressed up in their traditional costume along with face art. Being so few of us, none of us got away without getting up on stage doing a dance with them. I had to do a poi dance with the ladies and Paddy did the Haka with the men!! Very very funny! The food afterwards was amazing! There was loads of it and it was all delicious! We crawled back into our little campervan with very full tummies!

On we went from Rotarua up to the Coromandel Peninsula stopping off for a quick look at Hobbiton and then drove up around the coastline. We called in at Hot Water Beach where we had a paddle in the holes people had dug and sat in. Some were so hot you couldn't stand in the water! We were a bit to late in the day to hire our own spade and dig a hole so we just used other peoples which had been finished with :o) We did a walk to Cathedral Cove and took some photos there. We found ourselves an interesting sleeping spot perched on a narrow layby above the road and started early the next day.

We then drove all the way to the Bay of Islands where we camped in a disused airfield! The next day we did one of those super dooper 1600 horsepower jet boats to go through the hole in the rock. Afterwards we went to Waitangi to the Treaty house where the treaty between the British and the Maori was signed. It was a pretty interesting visit with some beuatiful Maori carvings. We continued on down the coast on our way back to Auckland. We stopped to see the Giant Kauri tree and camped in a nice campsite for a change.

Now we are in Auckland! We have handed back the Spaceship and are set up in a hostel which is lovely. Tomorrow we're doing a tour of the city and the next day we are going to the aquarium as we have some free tickets. Apart from that we are going to relax for our last few days in New Zealand!

Posted by SK at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kia Ora! Seeing as I haven't actually used that one yet!

We are now on the North Island! Our boat was delayed by a few hours so we didn't get much time in Wellington. A very weird capital city though... no buidings above 10 stories! We had a quick look around and jetted up the coast to our destination for the night... another picknic (as they seem to spell it over here in places!) site. This one was particularly grotty but we picked up some pizza on the way so we barely had to get out of our little bubble car after dark. Mr Nuggles will be very pleased we have been educating ourselves with Smallville :oS

The next day was spent travelling to and around Mt. Egmont - A HUGE Volcano! Sadly we had amazing views on the way there but missed to take a photo and when we arrived at the visitor centre it was all hidden in cloud :o( Very impressive drive in though! We did a little walk through the rainforest down to Dawson Falls (a very pretty waterfall) and waited in vain for the sun to come out again before heading on to New Plymouth. Now I don't quite get it... why build a big town beneath a HUGE (did I mention it was massive) volcano... I certainly would buy a house there! It was a nice looking little town though.

By the evening we had reached Waitomo where we booked on to do some caving the next day. We had wanted to do the cheaper Black Water Rafting Option but the lady seemed terribly keen for us to do the "more challenging" abseiling and caving option and gave it us for almost the same price. She also recommended a carpark to sleep in so that was nice!

We started our caving adventure at 8am. Yuck - it was still dark. They took us to the cave location and kitted us up with some rather fancy gear. Black Wetsuits and White recycled abattoir wellies complete with harness and helmet. Nice. We looked and felt suitably stupid. They introduced us to the most scary looking abseil device I have ever seen and then we climbed down into the caves. The abseils were actually quite fun - all the more so because we got soaked as we were going down waterfalls. We followed the river down quite a fair way and stopped here and there and turned off our head torches so we could see the hundreds of glowworms all over the caves. Very cool. Now some bits was rather tight squeezes... and I have some issues with tight squeezes... especially when they are full of water. I checked with the lady if there wold be any such things and she said no... but I call me flat on my tummy crawling through water and having to tilt my head to one side to breath rather tight. Still... the slightly chubby Mexican girl infront of me gave me faith I would make it through alive and I did... and it was great fun! :o) I have a picture to prove it! :oP

After the caving we quickly showered and headed over to Tongario National Park where they filmed Mt. Doom (using the active Mt. Tongario) in Lord of the Rings! We had hoped to do the 1 day walk across the Tongario Crossing, but it is currently Alpine Conditions with high avalanche risk so no guides are going. We found a carpark under the mountains and woke up to a gloriously sunny day with wonderful views! We did a little walk to get some views and have now driven to Lake Taupo. I'm looking at skydives but think I might have to pass... it's pretty expensive.

We plan to go to Rotaroa next to take in some Maori culture.

Posted by SK at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the roads were less windy and we got through the last bit a bit quicker than we expected! We're in Picton!

After Greymouth we drove up north and visited the Pancake Rocks in the Punakaiki Reserve and then went further north and visited a seal colony at Cape Foulwind... which stank! But the seals were very cute! We cut into land through the national parks and camped somewhere inbetween there and the Abel Tasmen in a carpark next to the Owen River.

Yesterday we made it to the Abel Tasman... which was really quiet. We went for a walk up the coast and saw lots of Oyster Catchers and other birds. We went to the weirdest campground as there was a "Spaceship Station" and we wanted to swap over our dvds (Yes... our Spaceship even has a 7" dvd player in it!) It was called "Old Macdonalds Farm and Campsite"... it was dead... there were a few cows.. and one or two ducks but no people. It was slightly scarey as the signs were all hand painted and circus like and were faded and worn out and so it looked deserted. Weird, because the things I thought were creepy were also the things I thought were quite cool! Old Macdonald did eventually turn up and we swapped the dvds and went on our way... would have been nice to have stayed if we'd had longer though - the cows and ducks were very cool! :oP

So on we went to Nelson... It was there that we stumbled across the first Chavs we have seen in NZ... 3 cars of them in the botanical gardens carpack! We decided not to leave the car there and went and found some safer street parking... this country is so like home in so many ways! We did the walk up a very steep hill to the centre of New Zealand. It's funny... we don't know how they worked out where the centre was... but they must have been very happy that it lay right on the top of the hill and not in a bog to the side! A nice man with a huge dog showed us one of NZ less treasured birds... the Native Pigeon... who are fat as. At the top of the hill, at the centre of New Zealand... we bumped into the boys who had been on our Glacier walk - we had also bumped into them at Pancake Rocks so that was very weird! Less weird than when we bumped into the girl on our Kakadu trip in Queenstown, but hey. We chatted to them then went our own way again and started heading to Picton.

Last night we had our 3rd freecamping night so this morning we made it to Picton (going via a few scenic bits) and arrived rather smelly! So we are in a 5* campsite with spa and are now squeaky clean ready for the North Island!

Posted by SK at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We spent only a day and a half in Queenstown as we're a bit too broken to do any of the cool extreme sports on offer... we'll save those for our next trip! We headed up around Lake Wanaka where we did a walk around the lake and then drove on up along the Haast Pass stopping off at waterfalls and scenic points. We found a cheap Department of Conservation campsite and parked up there for the night - it was freeeeezing! We got moving pretty early and continuned the journey across to the coast and up to Fox Glacier. We had a look at the glacier and went for a walk around the beautiful Lake Matheson which is nicknamed the Mirror Lake as it has brilliant views of Mt Cook with perfect reflections in the water. It was a glorious blue skied day and so the reflections were just like in the postcards! We then went along to the Fraz Josef glacier and booked ourselves on for a full day guided tour on the glacier starting at 8am the next day :oS

The glacier tour was interesting... I did feel like one of those victorians you see in old pictures... blatently a tourist going for a pleasant stroll on the glacier while a poor sod walks ahead cutting out steps for us with his mighty axe! It did get a little more interesting as we got up higher and we crawled through ice tunnels and squeezed through long narrow gullies deep in the ice. All pretty cool and we got nice and wet. The Franz Josef Glacier is pretty cool as it is actually advancing rather than receeding at the moment since 2004... the front grows about 20cm a day whilst the back moves up to 5m a day! This means the face of the glacier is very steep and huge chuncks actually fell off as we were walking up. It is also one of only 3 glaciers that actually goes below the tree line into the rainforest (the others being Fox Glacier and one in S. America). Theres so trivia for you!

When we finished our fun day out we jumped straight in the car and and headed up north... we free camped somewhere before Greymouth (not sure where!) and are currently in Greymouth... again! Our little campervan needed a new battery so we've had him fixed up and are about to go for another one of those lamb sandwiches... yummy!

Next stop... the Abel Tasman Park on the north coast of the South Island before floating across to the North Island.

Posted by SK at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well we've been in NZ for just over a week now. The TranzAlpine ride was brilliant, really pretty views and we both managed to take a ridiculous amount of photographs. Greymouth was rather plain BUT we did find a cafe with the most amazing sandwiches in the world!!!!!! Minted Roast Lamb sandwiches with big lumps of lamb... yummy yummy yummy! The ride back was just as good with sunset and we met an american girl who was studying in Wellington who gave us some info on the things to see which was cool.

The Rugby in Christchurch was awesome! The All Blacks beat Australia 27-12 and we met a girl Sarah (To be forever called "Crazy Rugby Girl") and some of her family. We went out for a few drinks after the match and stumbled around lost in Christchurch until we finally found our way back to the hostel! A great evening and a good crowd - cheers Crazy Rugby Girl ;o)

The next morning we went to pick up our "camper van" that we have hired for 3 weeks... it's called a "Space Ship" and is a bright orange people carrier that has had some "modifications". It's pretty cool and even has a dvd player and 2 dvds which we can swap around the country and with other fellow space ship commanders.

Now... on the rumours of New Zealand being a terribly wet country... it is true we have had some rain, but not much! We started our journey by travelling to Lake Tekapo and then Mt. Cook which was lovely and sunny. We spent the first couple of nights in some camp grounds to acclimatise ourselves. We then headed across to the East Coast to see the Moriaki Boulders (big weird circular boulders on the beach) and driving down the coast stopping off to see seals and fail to see penguiins. We didn't have enough time to stop at Dunedin so rushed onwards and "free camped" in a picnic area off the road. It was cozy enough though a little cold without the heater. We continued our journey along the South Coast stopping at view points at various beaches. We had hoped to see some waterfalls and caves but they were all closed due to a combination of season and possum poison! We did stop off at one place that really wasn't worth the bother... "Niagra Falls (NZ)" which was "comically" named by a "funnyman" of New Zealand... it's a babbling brook really. Another stop allowed Ed to reveil his bum but I'll save that one for the photo album!

So then we entered Fiordland... and it started to rain! We camped at another campsite in Te Anau as we couldn't find anywhere else. We took it easy the next day as it was still raining. Milford Sound (the most popular tourist attraction in New Zealand was inaccessable as the road was closed off due to heavy snow. We drove up as far as we could and took some nice photos. We had hoped to do a cruise on the Sound but instead booked ourselves onto a cruise on the quieter Doubtful Sound for the next day despite warnings it may be a bit wet again.

We found some free camping nice and early and froze to death but did manage to get up in time to go on the cruise. We had got 2 of the last tickets on the smaller, cheaper vessel in the area and we were very lucky indeed! It wasn't raining at all and didn't rain at all! Glorious sunshine all day - a very rare thing in the area at anytime of the year! Fantastic! The views were amazing and we had dolphins swimming right up next to the boat where you could almost touch them! They did manage to splash me once or twice! It was a brilliant day and well worth it! The sound was so quiet and we hardly saw any other boats... it was wonderful.

When we got back we headed straight over to Queenstown and free camped just outside. We've booked into a nice campsite tonight and are spending the day seeing the sights of the town. Everyone seems rather into thier skiing and snowboarding... it's not quite Whistler though... and Ed and I are still both sporting our injuries so we think we'll pass on that one!

Posted by SK at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After I blogged, Paddy and I had a wander about the city and visited the Opera House and did a tour around it. Our tour guide was a slightly irritating snobby sounding Australian lady who gave Ed and I some entertainment with her trying-to-be-posh accent! She was rather saccharine sweet - it was nasty! The Opera House was exactly as you've seen it in pictures, big and grand in a lovely location next to the Sydney Harbour and the famous Harbour Bridge. Paddy and I spent a while walking along the harbours edge past the botanical gardens and took lots of photographs! We sat and had some Barramundi and chips which was delicious!

The next day was our exciting Blue Mountains trip! I was really looking forward to doing this but unfortunately we didn't actually see the blue mountains! We did see a mist of pea soup cloud and a faint outline of them though... very disappointing! The other activities were good fun though - We went to the wildlife park and I went all soppy looking at more cuddly koalas and Paddy enjoyed looking at all the pretty birds (of the feathered variety). The winery provided us with lots of nice (and some foul) wine! We also had a night time ferry ride down the river and into Sydney harbour which was lovely. When we got back we took some night time pictures of the harbour and the opera house before heading back to the hostel exhausted!

Yesterday was our final day in Sydney. We rushed about, paid off our parking fine and then went up the lookout tower which was good as unlike the previous day it was sunny! We had excellent views across the city although you couldn't actually see the Opera house and harbour bridge that well.

Our flight to Christchurch, New Zealand was last night. We arrived at 10.30pm very tired and Paddy forgot he had an apple in the bottom of his bag. An apple is considered a "dangerous item" and he was promptly fined $200NZ on the spot. They very kindly didn't take him to court because they knew it was an accident... very nice of them ay? Hmmm... a nice introduction to New Zealand.

So we are here in Christchurch! Tomorrow we are going for a return ride on the trans alpine train to Greymouth. It's supposed to be a beautifully scenic route through the mountains so we are hoping the weather holds out for us this time! Our hostel is alright but worryingly has "What to do in the event of an earthquake" signs on the back of the door as well as bombscares.

Saturday is very exciting as we have got some 20 quid tickets to see the All Blacks vs. Australia in the Tri Nation tournament! The ticket includes transportation to/from our hostel and a couple of drinks! Sweeeeeeeeeet - it should be awesome!

Posted by SK at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Upon arriving at my Auntie Lib's we met her husband Tim (who I'd never met) and thier friend who was over from the US. We all went down to the local surf club where we me my cousins fiancé Jonny and had a fantastic meal. Paddy and I followed Lib's advice and went for the Seafood Lasagne which was jam packed full of prawns and fish and was delicious! There was also so much I couldn't finish it and Paddy had to help me out!

The next day Paddy and I were treated to an early morning surf with Jonny! We went to the beach before 7am and I'm sure I almost died several times! The sea was so rough and swimming was very difficult. I was slightly worried when Jonny shouted to me "go to the bottom and protect your neck!". The board was a proper one and not covered in the grippy foam we had learnt on so we were a bit rubbish! Paddy managed to stand up and I managed to do the splits on it! Maybe I should make a new sport... It was a great was to start the day though!

Later we borrowed my cousins car (as she's away) to drive down to Byron Bay. We had a look around the shops, walked on the beach, had fish and chips and got a parking ticket for $75. Lovely. It was great to see Byron Bay though; it's got a very pretty beach.

The next day Paddy and I walked all the way along the beach up to Surfers Paradise which took a good hour or so. When we got there we did some shopping in the surf shops and had some lunch. It's quite the mini Vegas with lots of neon lights - not quite what we were expecting... though I don't know what we expected! We went up the Q1 tower (the tallest residential tower in the world) and looked out across the city in all directions. The tower also boasts having one of the fastest lifts in the world... my ears popped 3 times on the way up!

The next day Paddy and I played mini golf at the Mermaid Beach Putt Putt course! We played on all three courses. I won the first, Ed the second and we were evens on the last. A total of 23 over par so we aren't quite pro crazy-golfers yet!

We caught the 6pm bus from Surfers to Sydney. Lib, Tim and Missy (their cute, cute dog!) all took us to the bus station to say farewell. Was a pity we couldn't stay longer as it was lovely there and it was great seeing Auntie Lib again and finally meeting Tim. It was great to be able to relax after our hectic journey down the coast!

We have arrived in Sydney this morning after 15.5 hours on the bus. Wasn't too bad but the vibrations on the buses seem to give me really bad tooth ache... bizarre. Tomorrow we are booked onto a tour of the blue mountains, a winery, a wildlife park and cruise on the sydney harbour. Wow... an action packed day!

Posted by SK at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well... actually Surfing and Koalas but catchy titles are what it's all about.

After our Fraser Island adventure we got the early bus down to Noosa. We booked in for two nights stay as the plan was to surf the first day and go to the zoo the second. We arrived at 11am and were surfing by 2pm as we booked ourselves onto a Learn to Surf lesson as soon as we arrived! We got to use beginners boards with lovely foam all over them to make them hurt less! :oS It also made them easier to stand on and everyone was standing up within a couple of attempts... Paddy and I were storming and I even managed to stand up all the way into the beach! I did find surfing quite a lot of fun... this was evident by the way I turned into a giggling wreck. The instructor (who was a huge rhino of a guy) was quite amused I think... he turned to me rather randomly... and said "You're a lovely girl" whilst laughing at the same time. I'm not sure what to make of that! \

The hostel we stayed at was a lovely old building which was the YHA in town. We had a lovely roast dinner and drank lots of wine as they started us of on a free glass to welcome the new guests - nice ay? :oP

We tried to book on for our trip to the zoo but... shock horror... the bus was full! I could have cried. Everyone we had met who had gone had been raving about the zoo. Australia Zoo is the one run by Steve Irwin aka Crocodile Hunter! I had been super excited all week and had heard how you could cuddle koalas and stroke kangaroos! Paddy being a lovely sweetheart and seeing my close to tears face said we could hire a car and go instead and cancel our second night at the hostel and drive straight on to my Auntie Lib's (the next destination!).

The zoo was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We saw loads of cool animals; koalas, otters, kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes, wombats, tigers, loads more and of course crocodiles! There was a big show with all the animals and as it was the school holidays Steve Irwin’s little 7 year old daughter did a dance routine with "The Croc Men"... all very exciting :oS We did indeed get to stroke kangaroos, wallabies and koalas and I even got to cuddle a koala and have a photo to prove it! We saw Steve Irwin dancing away to his daughter’s routine and also saw him driving on a little buggy with his little son shouting out "beep beep!". Seriously though it was a great day... we spent from 9.30am until 4pm so it really filled up the day!

Afterwards we drove past the Grasstop Mountains to Surfers Paradise where we dropped off the car and my Auntie Lib picked us up and took her back to hers.

Posted by SK at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We came back alive from 3 day 2 night adventure in Fraser Island. We managed to avoid being eaten by Dingoes by being "Dingo Safe" as they say! All quite simple really... don't leave food anywhere and bury your poo... and well... thats about it. They give you some rather pathetic "if you encounter a dingo" advice... cross your arms and slowly walk past them sounds a bit lame doesn't it. A ranger instead told us to shout "Dingo!" at the top of our voices and throw things at them such as pots and pans... sounds much more fun ay!?

Day one was a lovely early start where we got to watch an hour long video at 6.30am all about the Dingo Safe rubbish. Following that we went to the garage to pick up our vehicle and equipment and be briefed by a young Australian chap with some form of a speech impediment such that none of us really understood him. Occasionally we caught on to the fact that we were very liable for all sorts of damage to the vehicle... though we didn't catch on to quite how... hmmm...

Paddy jumped in the driver’s seat first and we went to the ferry port via the supermarket where we bought the groups food for the 3 days... all for $15AUS each... not bad eh. Everyone had stocked up on their booze previously. The ferry was fairly uneventful apart from one Dolphin teasing us by showing its tail causing us to jump out of the truck and rush to the side of the ferry... then it buggered off and didn't surface again. We drove across the narrow bumpy forested trails until we came out at the 75mile beach that is on the South Eastern stretch of the huge sand Island that is Fraser Island (The biggest sand island in the world!). We drove all the way up the beach (which is basically the main road on the island) to Indian Point where Captain Cook sighted natives looking out as he sailed around the island in 1770. From the point we saw a huge Raw and dozens of dolphins jumping in the waves. We then drove back down the beach and set up camp just off the beach.

Our campsite was quite a sight! We noticed the other groups who were touring with another company "Koalas" had lovely new tents... ours (from Palace) looked like they were used during World War I. They had one pole in the middle and holes in them. We also had 3 of them between 10 of us. We avoided having to actually sleep in them until fairly late by staying up and eating bbq and drinking wine. Luckily for us it rained only very slightly the first night and we woke up nice and dry! We had no dingo activity except for one peeing on one of the boys tent... right were his head was!

Day 2 we continued driving back down the beach and stopped off at the Coloured sands, the huge shipwreck that rests on the beach (and which I stubbed my toe on) and we walked inland to Lake Wabby where the rolling sand steeply drops down to the green water. That night we camped in the wrong place and got told off by a ranger but she let us stay so that was ok. We saw a few Dingoes which we scared away by shouting Dingo. We were less lucky with the rain and it bucketed down! The tents leaked and had big puddles inside. Thank god we were going back to town the next day! We managed to sleep despite being a little soggy.

Day 3 we went to the beautiful Lake McKenzie (not sure if thats spelt correctly). It's a beautiful crystal blue lake. We all had a swim and then made our way back to the ferry back at 4pm.

Rather exhausted we went for the $10 all you can eat pizza night at the hostel and stuffed ourselves with greasy yummy pizzahut pizzas. mmmmm...

Fraser Island is beautiful... we could have probably seen it in a day though but the group we were in was good fun so the camping was a good laugh.

Posted by SK at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)