Escape... Oceania

Tahiti

2008-12-16T18:26:00.001Z

Our first thoughts on Tahiti: this place is NOT cheap! I suppose it says a lot that we booked into the Sheraton Hotel to save money... by making an internet reservation when we were in Australia we actually managed to save a fortune. Saying that, it's still possibly the most expensive accommodation we've had this year! Ah well. At least it is beautiful!

We crossed the Date Line during our flight to arrive in Tahiti the day before we left New Zealand, very appropriately in the middle of the night. The airport is in Faa, about 6 km from Papeete the Capital of French Polynesia. And after collecting our luggage we were horrified to hear that a taxi for the 3km to our hotel would be about 20 quid! Eeek! So Gary in fractured French asked a friendly family lurking in the airport shop the way to the Sheraton, received a rapid and extremely prolonged response (and thankfully hand-pointed directions)... so we set out to walk instead. 3km? Peanuts! Actually we didn’t even have to walk that far. As we strolled down what we frantically hoped was the right road a bus which was more like a converted red-and-white lorry picked us up. So we arrived at our glamorous 5 star resort on the back of a lorry laden with rucksacks. I bet they don't get that here often! To their credit, the people at reception managed not to stare at us too much as we checked in.

And I suppose our week here has continued much along the same lines. We were as determined as we have been all of this trip to do the things we really wanted to despite the cost, but we have no problems with getting most of our food from a supermarket and cramming it into the mini-bar-fridge! I mean, we had several nice (and pretty pricy) meals out when we felt like it. And best of all, we really splashed out and went scuba diving again.

The Sheraton resort is a 20 min stroll from the centre of lively Papeete, perched on the edge of the island over looking the lagoon. As you'd expect, it has pretty gardens, a lovely pool and Jacuzzi, restaurants... and dive centre. As we'd been deprived of diving on the Great Barrier Reef we couldn't resist, which was just as well as this was bay far the best scuba diving we've done yet. The first of the two dives in particular was sensational. We were taken by boat to the outside of the barrier reef that forms the lagoon around Papeete, and then descended 20 meters or so to a lush coral garden filled with tropical fish. It was all very vivid and beautiful, but this was completely eclipsed by the denizens. A huge leopard ray flapped its way through the water in the distance, giant tuna drifted by, and of course there were the sharks! LOADS of them. More than you could count... hundreds must live in that region as there were always more than 20 near us. And I mean near us - they would brush past us as we swam, avoiding touching us by inches. Most were quite small black fin tipped sharks, only 1 to 1.5 meters long, but they still looked the part - every inch evil predators. There were a few grey reef sharks around too, and these were slightly bigger, up to 2 meters long. But the star was the lemon shark that dropped in - a 3 meter long monster! We all went very still as she swam through our group before meandering on with a flick of her tail. I don't think I'd have made much more than a mouthful for her.

Which I suppose brings me to the most fascinating point - we were completely safe. Apart from being advised to swim with our hands close to our bodies to avoid having our fingers nibbled we just drifted along as usual. They simply weren't interested in eating us. But they were very interested in eating a large tuna steak our dive guide let out of plastic bag he was carrying at the end of the dive. He warned us to stay back first, then flicked the bag open, the tuna popped out, and - Zooooooooom! Sharks can MOVE! They are incredible! They zipped to the meat in a fraction of a second and devoured it voraciously, swerving about each other to get a good bite. I've never seen anything like it.

The second dive was also fantastic, although perhaps not quite so sensational! We visited two wrecks, an aeroplane and a large ship, both of which had been sunk for over 50 years so were being reclaimed by the sea. Lots of coral, beautiful fish, glowing sea-slugs - very pretty. The wrecks were somewhat disconcertingly near the runway to the airport... which made us wonder about our next flight out of here! But we were told after the dive that they had been sunk deliberately as they were no longer needed, which we thought was an improvement on being formed by a drunken pilot missing the runway or something.

Anyway, tonight we fly to Easter Island, another small island in the midst of the Pacific. This one is under Chilean rule rather than French, so we'll have to practice our Spanish as we visit the massive and mystical stone statues that lie in clusters all over the island. But for now, au revoir and see you in http://catch-up-with-the-sun-southamerica.blogspot.com !

Tahiti Photographs

2008-12-14T18:05:00.007Z

One very beautiful sunset, on the oh so slightly manufactured beach of our hotel! Very pretty palm trees for me to stand under none the less. And a lovely view out over the Tahiti lagoon towards the nearest island, Moorea. Below you can see an interesting photo of Gary outside the hotel, at the edge of the lagoon-like swimming pool... as the sea is so close behind him it looks as if he is walking on water! You can see a plane taking off from the nearby airport too - luckily not too nearby so we could easily get some sleep.

The crabs that lived off the rocks near the hotel were huge! Well, not quite Hakodate-sized monsters, but a good 20 cm across. I found it fascinating to watch them skuttle sideways as the waves hit them and knocked them from thier prime sunning spots.

Another beautiful sunset, more lovely palm trees, and a good view of Moorea (on the right half of the horizon). That island (like Tahiti) was always smothered in clouds. You could never see the mountians at the centre of the isle, only the coast line. And frequently the clouds would encroach over the coastal regions too, giving us a soaking as we walked into town!

Return to Auckland

2008-12-14T18:03:00.000Z

Our return to Auckland was a brief one, as we had spent a reasonable amount of time here when we first arrived in New Zealand. But the city had changed a bit since our initial visit. Very confusingly for us it had become notably warmer as spring faded into summer, but at the same time they were truly gearing up for Christmas. In other words people would be wandering around in shorts and flip flops past fake snow, pine trees and giant Christmas decorations. Really big ones. They seem to go in for that here – the biggest Santa Claus I’ve ever seen was pinned to the side of the book store opposite the cinema… he was a good 4 storeys high! Or near the harbour there was a towering yacht converted into a decoration by strewing its mast and rigging with Christmas baubles and tinsel. And every now and then you’d stumble across some massive shiny red bauble with silver snowflakes painted on the side plonked randomly in a public space – each at least 5 meters high! Oh, and the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, was also lit up for Christmas each night in red and green. Very pretty!

But the prize for the most memorable display has to go to the department store across the road from the giant bookstore-Santa. They worked on a smaller, but infinitely scarier and more surreal scale. Each of their 8 odd shop windows was decorated with a different Christmas theme: Santa, reindeers, Snowmen, presents, mangers and so on. Which is fine - if they had left out the music. But unfortunately although each window scene was only separated by a wooden beam 5 cm thick, they all had their own individual blaring sound tracks. So you’d get ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ blending with ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, clashing horribly with ‘Rudolf the red-nosed Reindeer’! Walking past all 8 windows was a nightmare – we were always glad to hear ‘… and a partridge in a pear tree!’ simply because it was the display on the end of the shop and therefore the last deafening assault! Why couldn’t they just pick a tune?

Anyway, on to Tahiti, where hopefully it will be warmer, and we can relax in our only truly luxury accommodation this year. In other words you can’t find any accommodation that isn’t 5 star there, so since we’ve only got a week on the island we thought we may as well check into the Sheraton and get into the spirit of things! I wonder if they have Christmas trees…

Return to Auckland Photos

2008-12-12T18:37:00.007Z

Sunset over the docks in Auckland. Pretty pink sky! And below you can see the Sky Tower dressed up in green and red for Christmas. All very festive and colourful!

Rotorua

2008-12-07T04:13:00.000Z

The first thing you notice as you drive into Rotorua is the smell. And the steam rising from a geothermal park on the outskirts of the city – but that’s not as notable as the smell. Rotten eggs. Having lived near the steal works in Portalbot for much of my life I’m quite familiar with this one – every time you drive past the place on the M4 you get that distinctive sulphide whiff! I’ve always felt sorry for the people living right next to the thing, and wondered if their sense of smell adapts over time to completely block it out.

Rotorua may have the lovely sulphide stench in common with Portalbot, but little else. And after having spent four nights there at least I do know now that your sense of smell adapts quite happily to block it out after a while… but it comes back all too readily if you leave the area for a few hours! In the case of Rotorua of course the smell is due to the geothermal activity of the place, which is of course why were interested in visiting in the first place. There is actually a section around Lake Rotorua near the eastern end of town which is called ‘Sulphur Bay’ – where unsurprisingly yellow deposits on lava-formed rocks near belching fumaroles are the norm, the water is strongly acidic and the smell is particularly bad! This area is very popular with birds which nest on the shore of the lake as the hot ground keeps their eggs warm. Another great thing about Sulphur Bay is a hot-spring complex called the Polynesian Spa. We spent a very relaxing afternoon lazing in hot pools gazing out over the acidic lake complete with steam rising in the distance! They have pools of geothermally heated water at different temperatures… some very pleasant, others a bit hot! My favourite pool was situated right on the shore of the lake where the view was sublime and the water a toasty 41 degrees Centigrade. This proved a bit warm for Gary who preferred a 39 degree tub with a woody smell to the water. And we both thought the hottest tub was a bit much – after 5 minutes in the 42 degree Celsius water we nearly passed out!

While we were staying in Rotorua we thought we might as well make the most of the geothermal attractions. After Taupo we had developed a healthy fascination with them! The most notable features are in parks or reserves… meaning you have to pay to get in unfortunately, but how often do you get to see multi coloured steaming lakes or geysers?

So we first went to Te Puia in the Whakarewarewa Thermal reserve on the edge of Rotorua itself. The main attraction here was Pohutu geyser, apparently the most impressive geyser in New Zealand. And it was pretty impressive! As we entered the park we could see it spurting water in the distance, but by the time we had wandered around to it the devil had gone dormant, only letting a plume of steam out. OK, we did take a while to get there as we’d stopped at some particularly entertaining gloopy mud pools on the way… But signs near the geyser reassured us that it performed regularly, 2-3 times an hour, so we joined a few other bored lingers to wait for a good view of the next spurt. Pohutu took its time – well over an hour – but it was worth it. Eventually some water started to gush from the hole in the beautifully coloured silica terrace surrounding the geyser. And these feeble spurts were soon replaced by torrent of water that must have reached 20 meters above the ground! And once it got started the geyser continued for some time, not quite so forcefully, but enough to keep us entertained. We tried to avoid getting caught in the fine spray from the geyser though – it was freezing cold and smelt REALLY strongly of bad eggs!

The next day we visited the volcanic valley of Waimangu. This is apparently the newest active geothermal region in the world – formed by a big eruption just over 100 years ago. At this time a geyser which spurted water, mud and rocks up to 400 meters in the air was active… but sadly it died in the early 20th century. But in the 100 years since the geyser died a truly beautiful place has evolved – lush subtropical plants surrounding vivid blue-green steaming lakes and colourful silica terraces formed when the hot water from springs and streams deposits minerals onto the ground over time. We walked for 4 km from one end of the valley to the other and were truly impressed. It might not have any active geysers, but as a geothermal area Waimangu knocks the socks off Te Puia!

The final area we visited was also pretty special – as beautiful as Waimangu, but in a more desolate but surprisingly colourful way. This was Wai-O-Tapu, which like Waimangu is about 30 km south of Rotorua. It has a geyser called Lady Knox, which isn’t very active… to get it to perform someone has to pour soap suds into it! This is done at 10:15 every morning, after which the geyser foams a bit before erupting a good jet of water that reaches about 10 meters in the air. Pretty and fun to watch, but not as impressive as the Pohutu geyser. But the rest of the park was incredible, lots and lots of small caters with bubbling water and mud were near the entrance, and colourful volcanic deposits were sprayed all over the nearby rocks. But as you ventured further into the park it became even more fascinating and beautiful, the highlight being the huge neighbouring hot pools of the Champagne lake and the Artist’s Palate. Here vivid blue water rose fizzing and steaming over a bright red rock lake edge to flow gently into orange yellow pools which gave way into a vast white silica terrace. Hopefully some of the pictures below might give you and idea – it was stunning. And there were other active valleys beyond this to stroll through until they gave way to a huge crater lake. Amazing place.

Anyway, although we’d happily stay here longer (despite the smell), we now move on back to Auckland. After all, we do have a plane to catch to Tahiti in a few days time…

Rotorua Pictures

2008-12-03T09:11:00.010Z

This was the impressive Pohutu geyser in Te Puia! The jet of water spurted into the air here is about 20 meters high (as you can see if you look at the very small people standing on the bridge in the bottom left hand corner). Better still, at the base of the jet is a terrace of mulitcoloured silica depositions, surrounded by a sulpur-tinted wasteland. Beautiful!

Bubbling muck! These globules are formed every ten seconds or so - starting as bubbles of gas rising through mud formed by acidic errosion. When the bubble bursts a huge drop like this rises, then splats! There were more violently exploding mud pools too - where splatters would jump up to over a meter high - but they woren't as elegant as the simple gloopy ones. And below are the Cathedral Rocks - a lava structure at the edge of the beautiful fryingpan lake (the largest hot-spring in the world). This was in Waimangu reserve. The colourful rocks just steam continually... complementing the fantastic patterns made by the wind swirling steam rising from the lake.

The inferno crater, again in Waimangu. This is meant to be the largest geyser-like structure in the world... the water depth changes in a complex but predictable pattern over cycles about a month long (it must be female!). Beautiful blue, isn't it? I'm pearched on a fence as usual to get in the photo. Lots of scalding water beneath me if I fall off and so on...!

Gary by the Warbrick Terraces - more fantastic colours made by silica deposits, plus a lovely bubbling hot spring. You can see why we found these geothermal parks hypnotic, no?

The elegant Lady Knox geyser in Wai-O-Taupo park. Not quite so impressive as Pohutu geyser, but still nice. Not so active either though... this erruption occured only after the administration of soap suds!

The beautiful Artist's Palate and Champaigne Lake in Wai-O-Taupo. These incredibly vivid structures are the reason the park has the reputation of being the most colourful geothermal area in New Zealand. Stunning - especially with the steam rising and being swirled into different patterns by the wind... Here you can see the pools from two different angles - one with me next to them looking sheepish, and the other showing the colours off a bit!

Taupo

2008-12-03T00:49:00.000Z

We were a bit sad to leave the south island. Driving around there was a lot of fun – we saw seals, albatrosses, penguins, sea-lions, lots and lots of sheep, and some of the most spectacular scenery we’ve ever seen. But none the less we had to move on back North to move forward… after all, we do have a flight to Tahiti to catch in a few weeks! So we gave the Nissan back to ACE rentals at Picton, hopped on another ferry across the Cook Striates and stopped-off in Wellington briefly… during which time it never stopped raining. To avoid dissolving completely we swiftly hired another car which turned out to be yet another Nissan Sunny… this one automatic to my horror (although Gary admitted he missed gears too – he’ll see the light!). And so we prepared to drive up to Auckland … stopping off at a few places en route of course.

We decided to spend a few days in Taupo - to wander around the beautiful lake we had glimpsed a few weeks earlier on our long coach journey south from Auckland to Wellington. Lake Taupo is the largest in New Zealand, a hugely scenic expanse of water snuggled in the midst of volcanoes. But as we drove north from Wellington we got a bit distracted! As soon as we left Wellington it stopped raining (yay!) but oddly for New Zealand the scenery wasn’t that remarkable at first. But this all changed when we reached the ‘Desert Highway’. Not a good title – definitely not a desert. No sand, cactuses, and it was pretty chilly, despite being late spring. The ‘Desert’ is actually an area of volcanic ash left from an eruption of numerous surrounding volcanoes in the past. It’s mostly a barren wasteland, with only tufts of grass punctuating black soil, but in the distance you can see the snowy peak of one of the volcanoes responsible for all the destruction... very beautiful!

Anyway, realising we’d ventured into volcanic country we decided to have a break from our journey on the southern shore of Lake Taupo at a small thermal spring area. And here we became completely addicted to wandering around natural hot-pools and holes of bubbling muck! It’s strangely fascinating and hypnotic to gaze at steam rising from a crystal clear bleu-green pool, or watch mud to burst up in miniature liquid explosions from the ground! And of course to try and photograph the perfect mud bubble bursting! Saying that, we also found watching the sun set over the volcanoes flanking Lake Taupo later that evening pretty fascinating - the clouds turn more colours than seem possible.

I suppose this sums up what we enjoyed most about Taupo: geothermal activity and water! Just north of lake Taupo is Hukka falls and the Aratiatia Rapids, where pale blue crystal water cascades in impressively powerful jets over the rocks… although unfortunately the cascading only happens a few times of day for the Aratiatia rapids as they’ve built a hydroelectric dam just above them and open the water gates every now and then. But it’s all very pretty to watch if you turn up at the right time! We also liked a much smaller stream near Lake Taupo which was naturally hot – flowing directly from a geothermal hot spring. It seemed to be a favourite place to go and bathe for locals, although we just waded about for a while.

But perhaps our favourite thing in Taupo was The Craters of the Moon. This is a small geothermal park – a very hyperactive, small geothermal park – which formed relatively recently following the construction of a geothermal power station nearby. Unfortunately it doesn’t boast any hot-springs, but has wonderful craters, pools of mud, and very active fumaroles belching vast quantities of steam into the air. We spent ages wandering around the tracks gazing at the sulphuric wasteland near the craters, or the patterns the rising steam made when swirled by the wind. Absolutely beautiful in a very desolate way… as long as you ignore the smell of rotten eggs!

Which is perhaps why we’re so excited about our next destination – Rotorua. This town is situated in the midst of the most geothermaly active areas in New Zealand. It has geysers! And (apparently) Rotorua has much more impressive areas of geothermal activity than any near Taupo. Brilliant!

Taupo Photos

2008-12-01T01:05:00.007Z

The stunning 'desert' of volcanic ash in the central North Island, complete with stunning volcano in the background!

One very steamy hot-pool - fantastic green water, crystal clear, and very warm. In this particular area on the south shore of Lake Taupo there were a number of springs, each with beautifully clear blue or green water. There were also a few small mud pools, where liquid mud plops continually! Moving down, these with the rapids below the hydro electric dam near Taupo. Spectacular (if brief) flow when the flood gates are opened!

The Craters of the Moon! OK, it didn't look much like we imaginged the moon, but it was still great. This is Gary by a particularly impressive hot steam vent.

After being thrashed in mini-golf, Gary had to show his skills at the real thing... sort of! His shot out to the mini island in Lake Taupo was pretty brilliant - the ball landed just next to the target (where I've marked the cross on the water).

A beautiful sunset over Lake Taupo. And it was like this virtually every night...

Nelson

2008-12-01T00:57:00.000Z

Nelson is on the coast, right at the Northern end of the South Island. Now since Queenstown is only about a quarter of the way up the South Island, and duel carriage ways are as rare as the kiwi in New Zealand, unfortunately we had a bit of a trek to get there. OK, a trek through yet more stunning scenery, this time predominantly mountainous. The most striking things we saw were some large turquoise blue lakes in the Southern Alps (have a look at the photos below). They were amazing – as if someone had dissolved vast amounts of copper sulphate in the water. Apparently the colour is due to the mineral composition acquired by the glacial melt. What minerals? I don’t know! But it looks incredible!

Anyway, after a good 12 hour drive we arrived at Nelson, which turned out to be a pretty little didn’t have the energy to wander far the following day! But after a bit of recuperation we spent a day driving to the west side of the north coast, to Farewell Spit. This is a huge sand-spit, stretching miles and miles out to sea in a graceful curve to the north east. You could see it on an atlas or satellite image – a bit like a scimitar sticking out from the top of the South Island! As it’s pretty remote, Farewell Spit acts as another reserve for rare birds and seals to bread. So if you go to the right place you can see baby seals playing in pools on the beach!

On our way back to Nelson we called in on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. This reserve takes up a large part of the mid section of the north coast, and is pretty inaccessible by anything other than boat (or walking I suppose). We only had time (erm, daylight) for a short wander near the water but it was still lovely.

Anyway, we now leave for the north island by ferry – and intend to round off our visit to New Zealand with fire. Literally! We plan to spend the last few weeks in the geothermal areas of Taupo and Rotorua where you can find hot-springs, bubbling mud, geysers, steaming pools… yet another contrast!

Nelson Photographs

2008-12-01T00:51:00.003Z

Turquoise water? These lakes in the Southern Alps were incredible. The water really was the colour you see in the photo - we didn't use a filter on the camera or anything!

One of the large sweeping beaches on the North East coast of the South Island. With a very small Vicki looking dwarfed by the mountains!

The graceful curve of sand stretching off into the distance (and off the photo for that matter) is Farewell Spit. We wandered out onto the spit as far as the end of the trees... which took about an hour!

Abel Tasman national park. Or at least the edge of it.

Queenstown

2008-11-23T04:14:00.002Z

So far in New Zealand we’ve seen a lot of the outdoors. Very impressive outdooredness at that – beautiful volcanoes, sublime beaches, spectacular lakes and waterfalls… you get the picture. And of course we’ve had some fantastic encounters with wildlife along the way. But as well as its untouched natural state, New Zealand is also famous for adventure tourism. You know – white water rafting, skiing, jet boating, parachuting, that sort of thing. And the capital of adventure tourism in New Zealand is Queenstown.

Queenstown is in the middle of the southern South Island, amongst the mountains on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. It’s another idyllic setting – although when we first arrived it was pouring with rain and looked incredibly bleak! We thought we should enter into the spirit of the place, and so as soon as the weather cleared up we decided to take a gondola to the top of the nearest mountain so we could jump off! Yes, bungy! Neither of us had tied it before, and as commercial bungy jumping was started in New Zealand it seemed only appropriate to give it a go here…

We fancied ‘The Ledge’ bungy. This 45m drop is placed right at the top of the mountain (conveniently near the gondola station), so as you plummet from the edge you have fantastic views of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu 400m below you. Making the drop seem even more impressive… It’s one of the places where they strap the bungy rope to a harness you wear on your body rather than your feet, so you can take a running jump over the edge. Gary decided not to run – he kind of stepped over and then went straight down! I ran and then dived over the edge…

It’s a strange feeling as you drop – your mind knows that you’re strapped to a thick elastic band but your body protests ‘what have you done!’ as you jump! I think it’s impossible not to yelp with surprise as you actually freefall – and this goes on for some time. And trust me, it feels a lot longer than the few seconds it is! Gary had an advantage here. As he couldn’t jump with his glasses on (and he’s virtually blind without them), he had reassuringly fuzzy images as he fell – compared with my crystal clear views of Queenstown 400m below me! Argh! But then you feel some reassuring resistance on the rope, slow down a bit and – doing – bounce back up all over the place! Great fun! Really silly!

Anyway, we now have to abandon the Southern bits of the world, and start to return north. We think we’ve just passed the point where we’re the furthest from the UK in Te Auau. Now we have a very long journey ahead to Nelson at the top of the South Island, before we loose our little Nissan car and jump back on the ferry across the Cook Strait in a few days time.

Queenstown Pictures

2008-11-23T03:51:00.008Z

This is a view over the beautiful Lake Wakatipu from the top of the gondola ride out of Queenstown. And it is a very similar view you get to this as you plunge 45m or so from the bungy jump…

… from this ledge! Here you can see Gary dangling from a long rope as he finishes his jump.

But here you can see a few piccys of us jumping, falling, swinging, and generally making idiots of ourselves. Its great fun! Very scary.

Another lovely view from the top of the mountain area, this time as we went for a gental walk around rather than throwing ourselves off the edge.

Gary at the bottom of the valley, on the edge of the lake near Queenstown. It’s a very pretty place from this level too.

Te Anau and Milford Sound

2008-11-23T03:48:00.000Z

The south east corner of New Zealand’s South Island is occupied by a series of fjords – dramatic flooded glacier sculpted valleys. The only one of these to be properly accessible by road is the most northerly, Milford Sound. And in all fairness even Milford Sound takes a bit of effort to get to!

There aren’t many options for staying there once you do arrive either, so we checked into a motel in Te Anau, a small town on the second largest lake in New Zealand. This is the last stop before Milford Sound – the last trace of civilisation (i.e. petrol station) for the 120 km trek to the fjord itself! Te Anau is a pretty place, especially good for evening strolls as the sun sets over the mountains around the lake, but it is small. Unless you compare it to Milford village of course.

The 120 km drive to the fjord from Te Anau is spectacular. It starts along the shore of the lake before continuing down a huge glacier carved valley: dramatic mountainous snow capped cliffs on either side rising from the near flat valley floor. After passing a few more lakes the road then twisted up the side of a mountain to a new valley and followed it along – before rising to a flattened rocky area almost at the snowline. We inevitably had to wait for a while as the road plunged down through a steep tunnel through the mountain, a one-way tunnel with traffic lights set to a 15 minute delay! But at least there was plenty to keep us entertained: lots waterfalls cascading down the cliffs around and plenty of mountain Kia (intelligent New Zealand parakeets) playfully begging for food. After finally getting through the tunnel, the road then wound down the steep lower mountain slopes in a series of hairpin bends, past yet more dramatic waterfalls, to reach the forest below, and then finally to drop into Milford Sound itself.

The fjord is really beautiful – more dramatic cliff-mountains, this time half drowned in water, and even more dramatic waterfalls than any we’d yet seen en route. We wandered around parts of the shore that were actually accessible (the bits that weren’t cliff faces), and as the tide was out ventured out over the seaweed and pebbles usually covered by water. And we took lots and lots of photos!

Anyway, pretty though Milford may be, we are now moving on to Queenstown… which we are reliably informed is also very pretty! What a surprise! Queenstown is also the home of adventure tourism in New Zealand – you know jet boating, skydiving, bungee jumping, white water rafting. This should offer a nice change of pace.

Te Anau and Milford Sound Photos

2008-11-23T03:24:00.005Z

A nice view down one of the glacier sculpted valleys we saw on our drive down into Milford Sound. It was a bit chilly – as you can see we get pretty close to the snow line up here. And the wind chill factor outside the car was impressive!

Milford sound itself. Beautiful valleys half drowned where the river meets the sea. It was stunning – especially if you consider the beautiful waterfalls cascading down the valley walls…

… such as this one!

This is a Kea, a highly intelligent parrot that doesn’t fly much, but wanders around mountain slopes (especially where drivers stop off to give a few crumbs)! They treat visitors to the area with the distain they deserve.

Another beautiful glaciated valley, between Milford and Te Anau. This one had a perfectly flat meadow as its base which looked unbelievably green and lush.

Sunset over the lake at Te Anau. Not a bad view from our motel room eh?

Dunedin

2008-11-17T06:01:00.000Z

Dunedin is described by our Rough Guide a ‘the Edinburgh of New Zealand’. The name is even meant to e derived from a Gaelic version of Edinburgh apparently. So we weren’t exactly surprised that we arrived to bleak skies, howling winds and drizzle. Very Scottish!

Dunedin is a pretty little place though – nestled in the hills off the coast of the south-eastern South Island, near the Otago Peninsular. It’s a lot smaller than the original Edinburgh, but just as wet, and with some comparable hills and mountains around. Bleak, gorse-strewn and windswept, with the odd rain-soaked shivering sheep wandering by! Perhaps that’s a bit unfair – for most of our stay it was actually quite sunny (if a bit chilly) – but as we first arrived we drove over the hills from a beautiful afternoon on the east coast, to descend into Dunedin and drizzle. And then pulled up by our hotel just by the Cadbury’s factory whose hauntingly nice smells gave us chocolate cravings!

The journey from Christchurch down to Dunedin wasn’t quite as scenic as that from Picton, but it wasn’t bad. Most of the first half of the journey was through the planes south of Christchurch, pleasant enough - large, lush, very flat cattle pastures and glimpses of the distant Southern Alps - but a bit dull after an hour or so of driving. Fortunately the road then returned to the coast making the trip much more interesting… and much longer since we kept on stopping to have a look! Harbours with turquoise water, sandy coves, sweeping beaches with mysteriously round honeycombed boulders… and more wildlife of course! We drove off down a 5 km gravel track to an old wooden lighthouse so we could watch a yellow eyed penguin catch fish off a tiny isolated beach (while much lazier seals basked on the sand nearby). Penguins waddle so clumsily on land – but swim beautifully smoothly.

We found that Dunedin is actually a very good place to stay to see even more creatures since it is immediately adjacent to the Otago Peninsular. We spent quite a bit of time driving around this place than we originally intended - well its very pretty, and has loads of weird animals! Albatrosses for instance. The headland of the peninsular is the breeding ground for Royal Albatrosses – imagine something a bit like a seagull but with a 3 m wingspan! We weren’t too impressed with the idea of them before we saw one, but then we stayed around for ages in the freezing wind spotting more. They are absolutely huge – wings like gliders. And they never seem to flap, they just hang in the air somehow.

Just next to the albatross headland was the home of another set of birds – this time little ones. Blue eyed penguins nest there. They are only 20 cm tall, spend all their days fishing to come home in fleets at dusk. We saw about 50 of them come onto the beach and then hurry up some steps from the sand to their burrows. They were possibly as sweet as those koalas we saw back in Australia! There are less sweet inhabitants of the peninsular however. While waiting for the penguins to return home from their hard day fishing we took a stroll along a nearby beach and almost bumped into a sleeping sea lion. It was tucked up at the edge of the dunes and had almost covered itself with sand. We had taken it for a rock and only realised our mistake when we were a few meters away – this wasn’t meant to be a beach where seals or sea lions were common! And sea lions are actually very big, grumpy and aggressive, so you are never meant to get within 5 m of one - or between it and the sea. Which is exactly where we were when we saw it! It seemed to be snoozing happily however, so we walked swiftly past, and then climbed onto the top of the steep sand dunes behind it to walk back along the beach to where our car was parked. Much safer and more sensible yes? Well, we thought so. But the very rough track along the dunes gave us an excellent view of the sea lion at a safe distance, so we couldn’t resist a few photographs. At which time the monster woke up, decided he didn’t like us and barked very fiercely. Showing lots of big white teeth! We got the hint and dived away into the shrubbery on top of the dunes. Not the best route! A quarter of an hour of scrambling through tough grass and spiky shrubs brought us to the side of someone’s back garden… where a local dog took offence and we got barked at again. And we were only trying to have a nice stroll on the beach! Leave us alone!

Ah well, next we go to Te Anau, a lakeside town close to the Fiords of South Western New Zealand. Apparently this is the gateway to some of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Which based on what we’ve seen so far should be pretty impressive!

Dunedin Photographs

2008-11-15T07:45:00.007Z

This bay was at Oamaru, halfway along our route from Christchurch to Dunedin. Apparently yellow eyed penguins can be seen here in the evening, but unfortunately we were here too early in the day to see them (so we stopped a little further down the coast to spot one instead). It was a lovely cove anyway, with a pretty cliff-top walk overlooking the beach. If you’re wondering, I’m balanced on a 5 cm wide fence at the top of the cliff so Gary could get as much of the scene in the photo as possible… and behind me is a near vertical drop down to the beach below. Nice to have a good sense of balance eh?

A very beautiful beach, with some very beautiful boulders in the distance on the left...

The Moeraki boulders. These spherical lumps of rock were stranded halfway along a vast and beautiful stretch of sand… kind of in the middle of nowhere. Lots are now broken up, revealing a sort of honeycomb interior, but there are plenty of intact ones too. The largest are about 2 m diameter – perfect for jumping between! I think I must have hopped back and forth between these rocks about 25 times before Gary got the timing perfect for the photo… and he didn’t exactly volunteer to have a go himself. I don’t think he liked the thought of falling off into the surf and getting wet! Wimp!

Gary by the rocks, from the safety of the beach. Well, at least he thought he was safe. A few minutes later while photographing me perched on a different rock he didn’t notice the waves coming in so got his feet wet anyway!

This picture was taken near the albatross centre on Ontago Peninsular. The headland overlooked a bay almost sealed off by an impressive sand spit. And this headland was home to more than a few seagulls as well as albatrosses – these two flew straight at me as I was about to take a photo of the sand spit, so I thought I might as well snap them too.

A magnificent Royal Albatross. Yes, I know, it looks like a sea gull. But it’s not. It’s much bigger, OK? Trust me. You have to see these things in the flesh to appreciate the 3 m wingspan, but I think this photo gives some sort of an idea.

The first small group of very very sweet blue eyed penguins coming home at dusk. These little ones were followed up the beach 10 minutes later by a group of over fifty! But by that time it was so dark that photography was impossible – even this photograph was a nightmare to get in the very low light!

Our friend the grumpy sea lion. No, he didn’t eat us, but I think he would have liked to! And he was certainly big enough. This photo was taken from the top of some sand dunes behind him – so we weren’t blocking his passage to the sea (apparently they really don’t like that). And we weren’t even very close. But his bark was still loud enough to send us running!

Christchurch

2008-11-12T00:01:00.001Z

Christchurch is about half way down the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. As we had to check out of our Wellington Hotel at 6.30am to catch a ferry across the Cook Straight to Picton and then hire a car for a 4 hour drive, we were stealing ourselves for another long, tiring travel day. Generally travel-days have been the least enjoyable parts of this trip – its being in the interesting places and having a chance to explore them that’s fun.

But this time we were wrong. OK, the day didn’t start too well – getting up at 6am is not our idea of fun, and we had a freezing 30 minute walk along Wellington harbour to get to the ferry. But at least the reflections of sunrise on the water were pretty. Unfortunately the ferry ride itself wasn’t so great. The boat was just too cold! Imagine a freezing, crisp, clear morning on a boat with no heating and all doors held permanently open. I spent the entire time shivering like crazy – even Gary found it cold towards the end. Luckily the coffee bar people took some pity on me and gave me cups of hot water to hold as hand-warmers! The café did serve BLTs but, unluckily for Gary, only at lunchtimes…

So we got into Picton a bit tired and disgruntled and migrated to Ace Rentals to pick up our hire car. This was funny – they gave us a Nissan Sunny practically identical to Gary’s car back home – only a newer, cleaner model, with a manual gearbox and power-steering! So he was delegated the driving seat for day (on grounds of Nissan experience) and after a moment working out how to use a gear-stick again he zoomed us off south towards Christchurch.

Here the travels became much more fun. New Zealand is beautiful. We have seen lots of pretty places, idyllic scenes, and dramatic views on this trip, but they are usually at least slightly spaced out. Most countries have boring bits – industrialised planes, sprawling suburbs, etc. New Zealand doesn’t. It has consistently amazing scenery that continuously changes. So we started by driving through vineyard-filled valleys flanked by green forested mountains, before swiftly hitting the most stunning coast I’ve ever seen. Volcanic mountains slopping towards black-sand beaches, long curving bays – or other areas where sheer cliffs descended straight into the water and the road was forced to twist through a series of tunnels. And best of all, halfway down the coast at Ohau Point was a colony of seals, apparently the largest group on the South Island. There were dozens of them! Lolling on the rocks, sunning them selves, or occasionally getting up and flopping over to the sea for a swim. Beautiful!

Anyway, getting to Christchurch was stunning, so it’s just as well the town itself was pretty or it would have been a bit of a letdown! Actually, surreal is probably the best word I could use. Christchurch is actually named after the Oxford College, and so you might expect a bit of an English atmosphere. But we didn’t expect the punting! They have a very shallow river running through the centre of town that looks as if it belongs in either Oxford or Cambridge. As we walked along the river through the lovely botanical gardens and watch tourists being punted, we found it hard to believe we were the other side of the world from Cambridge, with a 13 hour time difference! Really weird!

While we were in Christchurch as well as exploring the worryingly familiar centre of town we ventured on a drive along the nearby Portland hills. Actually this was a bit unexpected. We had a few hours to spare in the evening on a really nice day when I’d just twisted my ankle falling down a broken drain… so we thought we might as well go for a drive recommended in our Rough Guide. It turned out to be (perhaps predictably) spectacular. The summit road gave stunning views in both directions – back over Christchurch and the surrounding planes stretching back to distant mountains, and onward to a volcanic crater lake connecting with the sea. But the barren mountain-top itself was even more familiar to me than punting – fields and fields of sheep – just like Wales! As it’s spring here there were loads of pretty lambs around too, looking a great deal sweeter and fluffier than their mums.

Anyway, now we will move onward again, further South to Dunedin – the ‘Edinburgh’ of the South! And for the first time this trip we’re actually looking forward to the trip more than arriving…

Christchurch Pictures

2008-11-11T23:43:00.009Z

The scenery on the coastal drive down from Picton to Christchurch is really stunning - volcanic beaches, black sand, crashing waves... and that's not considering the wildlife. Take this huge, graceful bay for instance. We didn't really know how to photograph it - too big and magnificent!

And of course every now and then you do meet the wildlife - this is a fur seal. He seemed reasonably happy to pose for us!

One of the most starling things about the coast is the colour of the water. Its almost turquoise!

OK, this is surreal. Christchurch has several areas that could have been taken straight out of Oxford and Cambridge... especially punting on the river. Though the water is so shallow here that it must be a doddle!

Driving out from Christchurch to the Portland hills... on one side you get stunning views over the town and surrounding planes (with a few fields of sheep in the foreground)...

... And in the other direction you gaze out over a volcanic lake. New Zealand is far too pretty!

Wellington

2008-11-10T02:19:00.000Z

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, nestled at the south end of the North Island. It’s a shame it’s not connected better to the largest city, Auckland. You’d think it should be… Unfortunately the rail service here has more or less become defunct – only three trains a week run between the two most major cities in winter! So road is the only option, meaning a 12 hour bus ride. Or 13-14 hours if your bus breaks down… Great.

Anyway, a very long time after leaving Auckland we checked into a cosy little hotel in central Wellington with a very friendly owner. And the following day after a lot of compensatory sleep we started to explore the town! Like all the cities we’ve recently visited Wellington is on the coast. The bulk of the town centre lies just uphill from the water, and across from the working harbour. Above the CBD some hills rise swiftly, and similar to Hong Kong they have an old-fashioned tram that ascends from the city centre to the summit. OK, it’s not quite such a dramatic peak, but its still a fun ride with good views from the botanical gardens at the top. We were really lucky – as we left the tram a fine rain started to fall over the town below while we remained in bright sunlight. This led to very weird lighting and a fantastic rainbow over Wellington. The walk back down to town was equally nice – someone had marked out a scenic route through a series of pretty gardens with some pink flowers spray-painted onto the path. We’d never have found such a pleasant route if we had simply followed our map: even Gary had to admit (probably for the first time in his live) that the flowers were a good idea!

But unfortunately our luck with weather did not hold. And after a lovely walk back to the hotel along the waterfront it conspired to rain for most of the rest of our time in Wellington. Although I’m not entirely sure how rain was possible as it felt as if the temperature was well below zero! We managed a quick dash along the Oriental Promenade (another waterfront walk) the next day before having to run into a café for shelter. Fortunately they did a good BLT and chicken caser salad!

What worries us is that our next move is south, across the Cook Straights by ferry to Picton, the major port of the South Island. And from there we’ll be hiring a car and driving even further south to stay in Christchurch for a few days. Before heading even further south… we’re getting near to Antarctica here! We thought we’d be catching nice sunny springtime weather in New Zealand when we planned this trip – we haven’t got warm enough coats for this! I wonder if when we reach the snowline Gary will still wear his sandals!

Wellington Photos

2008-11-10T02:02:00.005Z

Wellington Harbour, with some pretty menacing clouds overhead. They soon made their presence known in other ways, making us flee for shelter in a café (or perhaps that was Gary’s excuse to get his BLT fix).

One beautiful view down into Wellington from the botanical gardens, complete with the tram that brought us up and a rainbow! It looks a little like a child’s painting! And of course there's also a photo of Gary with the nice rainbow and Wellington spread out behind him.

And as we descended from the tram terminal we passed through the impressive botanical gardens (following the path marked with pink flowers). This part was full of things that looked like alpine cacti.

Walking the plank! I thought it would make a nice photo if I walked to the end of this random plank sticking out over Wellington harbour. And it did… but as I walked out the wind suddenly picked up – as you can see I’m bracing myself against it. Trying desperately not to fall off into the icy water below!

A lovely sunset over the harbour. New Zealand is a very pretty place!

And a lovely sunrise! We had to make a painfully early start to get to the ferry for Picton, but at least we were rewarded with the first light of day falling across the water.

Auckland

2008-11-09T06:56:00.000Z

Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city, but not it’s Capital. It lies perched on a very narrow section of the North Island, and so appears to have more than it’s fair share of coastline. As a result Auckland has a very pretty harbour which is made even more scenic by several little volcanic islands just offshore. In summary – a nice place. Friendly people too. The only downside is that it’s more than a bit chilly. Especially when the wind picks up. Or when it rains. Which is pretty often. Auckland does remind us quite a lot of Wales!

OK, Wales does not have any volcanic islands or a SkyTower - or anywhere near as many sushi restaurants for that matter. We spent most of our time wandering around as usual. We took a ferry over the harbour to Devon Port – a suburb with a lovely waterfront full of little cafes with good views back towards Auckland central. The highest point of Devonport is the optimistically named Mount Victoria, which is more of a volcanic hill than a mountain (the summit is only 190 feet above sea level). But it does give stunning panoramic views of the Auckland bay area – the city centre, volcanic islands, harbour bridge… And if you wander back to the ferry terminal along the sea front you can at least see a little evidence of the volcanic eruption: the rocks along the shoreline are all jet black lava-flow relics.

We also spent some time wandering through the town suburbs. Parnell is a short walk off to the east of the CBD, and has yet more cafes and boutique gift shops, a University, and a lovely park called The Domain. We wandered by accident through the student’s campus, grabbed lunch, and then strolled through the park grounds on the way home. There was a pathway through a forest area called ‘Lover’s Walk’ and in keeping with this, Gary (very uncharacteristically) picked a buttercup for me - probably the fourth time he’s given me flowers since we’ve been together… about 6 years! However once we’d walked 20 yards down the path it was closed off for renovation… I think that says it all really.

But we had slightly more success in town – Gary managed to get his hair cut. This was less of a traumatic experience than in China as the hair dresser actually spoke English, so communication didn’t consist of holding up a passport photo and mime-language! The results are nice, but when he hasn’t shaved for a few days his stubble gets longer than his hair now.

Anyway, we now face an excruciatingly long trip to Wellington - an unbelievable 12 hours by bus for a distance of only 658 km (that’s about 400 miles). The speed limits are a bit slow here by our standards, and buses are never the nippiest in any case. Ah well, it should be more comfortable than a coach in Laos or India!

Auckland Pictures

2008-11-07T00:22:00.009Z

Auckland - this picture was taken of me (aptly) on Mount Victoria, the highest point of Devonport. You can see Auckland town itself in the background, complete with Skytower and a very active harbour. This was probably the warmest day of our trip so far - beautifully sunny - but even then we had to wear coats. I'm missing the warmer temperatures of Asia, but Gary's in his element - wearing sandals in hailstorms!
Gary in Devonport, on the harbourside. You can see some lava flow on the left of the photo - the lack rocks just visible above he water. There was a pretty impressive set of sea-gulls resting there, about twice the size of the ones we see in the UK.

Auckland has a lovely park called The Domain, with a few trees which are made for climbing. I couldn't resist the one below!

And finally a picture of Gary in the rainforest part of The Domain. Under a few particularly nice palm trees. I didn't know they had palms in New Zealand - thought it was too cold!

Return to Sydney

2008-11-04T07:47:00.001Z

Sydney isn’t a bad place to spend your last few days in Australia. It has a lovely city centre – although many of the outskirts we dove through to get there weren’t quite so hot. But get to the centre, near the water and its beautiful on a nice day. Almost as scenic as Hong Kong. Almost!

We climbed Sydney Tower and wandered around the botanical gardens to the far side of Sydney’s Opera House on a stunning day. Beautiful views, warm breeze – lovely. Unfortunately the weather went off a bit towards the end of our stay, and so when we took the ferry across the harbour to Manley it rained on us all day. As a result, the lovely little seaside beach looked as if it was off the North Sea rather than the Pacific! And the breathtaking views of the city centre and Opera House from the boat on the way back were, well, murky. Have a look at the pictures below to see what I mean. Ah well, at least being brought up in Wales has taught my Mum to always carry an umbrella and a pack-a-mac…

Which brings us to the end of our stay in Australia. Mum flew back to the UK a day before we flew to New Zealand… to arrive home in Wales several hours after we checked in to our very plush hotel in Auckland. Poor thing! Now she’ll experience the particularly evil form of jet lag that crossing 12 time zones brings and have to go to work on Monday! Now you see why we think travelling around the world with out working is the way forward.

Return to Sydney Pictures

2008-11-04T07:11:00.006Z

The lovely Opera House and Harbour Bridge from the Botanical Gardens on a truely beautiful day. We walked from here around past the Opera House - where we found the white shiney roof is actually made up of cream diamond tiles. Strange!
Hyde Park Sydney. Not quite as large as the London equivilent, but still pretty green and nice. They had loads of strange giant photos on display while we were there - along with a food festival. Nice to know they really use their public spaces out here.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge with my Mum sitting on a bench (the Opera House was right behind me as I took the photo). Lovely day...
...and not quite such a nice day. This is the beach of Manley - a peninsular in the Sydney Harbour. It's a pretty town, but we didn't really explore it properly as it was just a bit damp!

On the boat trip back from Manley to the city centre you do get fantastic views. The ones we had were dramatic - but a bit dismal! On the other hand it did lead to this is a very atmospheric shot of the CBD and Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House at night. With a just about clear sky. A few minutes after we took this photo it started to rain again... the nice weather was asking a bit too much. This makes me wonder what its going to be like in New Zealand...!

Katoomba

2008-11-02T07:15:00.001Z

OK. Australia. Down under. Christmas on the beach. Vast central desert. Hot weather. This is the traditional perception, right? Erm, well, this is what we thought. And even after some chilly evenings in Perth, tropical Cairns had restored our faith! But no, we flew back to New South Wales at a horribly early hour to hire a car and drive to the Blue Mountains. This is a beautiful range of gorges only a few hours from Sydney, but unfortunately the climate is more like one you’d expect in Snowdonia. When we arrived, the temperature was a balmy 2 degrees Celsius, and the clouds promptly started to bombard us with hailstones as soon as we walked down the road from our motel to Echo point, one of the most scenic lookouts in the Blue Mountains. Hmm. Although our motel-lady-owner did say it was meant to be the coldest October in 80 years… but a few days later admitted she’d lived over on the West Coast until last year – so she definitely wasn’t speaking from personal experience!

The strange thing was that she recommended all sorts of walks and local attractions when we arrived too, but again later admitted that she’d never done any of them! This we found this very odd, especially as the motel was great, comfy and on the outskirts of Katoomba, just a few minutes walk away from the Three Sisters and the Giants Stairway. The sisters are three outcrops of rock at the edge of a dramatic cliff which local Aborigine legend claims were three beautiful sisters who were turned to rock by the tribe witch doctor to protect them from the men of a rival tribe. Although you have to wonder what fait could be much worse than being turned to rock for millennia, but hey. On one side of the Sisters a stairway of over 800 steps was cut form the rock, leading to a very dramatic and beautiful descent followed by a stunning walk along the bottom of the cliff-face. You didn’t even have to climb back up again, but could catch a cable car or railway. Anyway, it was a great walk through stunning scenery with a fun trip back up to the top. But our motel lady had never done any of it, even though she was only 5 minutes walk away. Weird!

Anyway, we enjoyed exploring Katoomba and the nearby areas. Dodging hordes of Japanese tourists as they were shepherded from one bus to another. It is a very pretty part of the world! Another UNESCO protected region – I’m loosing track of how many of these we’ve visited on this trip.

We also ventured just out of the mountains to a wildlife park as my Mum wanted to see some kangaroos and koalas. As it happened, the place we went to had a huge advantage over the park where Gary and I had seen koalas in Newcastle – some of the animals were loose! You could wander through enclosures with kangaroos hopping around and give them some food or a stoke. But they were not as strokeable as the koalas. There was one area where you could stroke a little koala while it sat peacefully eating eucalyptus leaves on a tree stump. Their fur is so soft! And they are so amazingly sweet! Fantastic creatures.

Ah well, after four days of scenic freezing we’ve now returned to Sydney, where we’ll stay until leaving Oz. Hopefully without loosing a few toes to frostbite!

Katoomba Photos

2008-11-02T06:53:00.009Z

The Blue mountains... yes they really do look blue as they stretch into the distance! There are a few competing explanations for this (based on eucalyptus trees, dust, light diffraction or mist), but to be honest, whichever is right its very pretty! The 'mountains' are really cliff faces which surround a huge, impressive gorge (more on the scale of the Grand Canyon than Cheddar Gorge). This picture is taken from Echo Point, a very dramatic lookout at Katoomba.

And if you look to the left of the scene above you , you'll see the Three Sisters. These stripy rock formations are scaled by the Giant's Stairway, all 800 odd steps of it leading down to the valley below. With some nice views enroute as you can imagine!

The cliff I'm perched on below was a fragment of rock suspended above the drop a few miles away. I like heights! I had to do my climbing when Mum wasn't watching though.. Gary didn't seem to mind when he was taking the photo... Next to this you can see Gary and my mum near a very lazy kangaroo in the wildlife park we visited, and below a few adorable koalas. They make the kangaroo look positively hyperactive!

This is Charlie - a lovely little koala that we got to stroke and have piccys taken with. He didn't mind - he seemed to like the attention! A warden was very nearby at all times to make sure he was happy though. So we couldn't run off with him, much as I'd have liked to take him home!

The most evil resident of the wildlife park was without doubt this 3 and a half meter saltwater crocodile though. After our disappointment of not seeing any reptiles browsing on swimmers in Cairns it was nice to see a really nice big croc! Like the marsupials above he didn't move much either, just opened his large menacing eyes from time to time... are Aussie animals intrinsically lazy?

Cairns

2008-10-31T08:35:00.000Z

Cairns is on the coast of Northern Queensland – one of the most popular access points to the Great Barrier Reef. But as a coastal town it’s not quite what we expected. Gary and I have got used to tropical beaches over the last few months, and they usually look pretty different from beaches you’d find in the UK: crystal blue water, white sand, and no tide to speak of. A bit of a contrast to Swansea bay where a huge expanse of sand is exposed at low tide but on the very highest days the water virtually laps the coast road. Oh, and the water is more grey than blue there too! Strangely for the tropics, Cairns beach was more like Swansea – we arrived at high tide after an evilly early flight from Sydney and wondered why the sea looked brown from our balcony. Several hours of recovery later we wandered out onto the front to discover the answer - the sea had retreated on the tide, leaving a vast expanse of exposed mudflats. Not quiet what we expected when visiting the Great Barrier Reef!

We actually stayed a little out of the centre of town in a self-catering apartment. This proved to be much better than getting a hotel room – as the apartment block owners were decorating the pool area throughout our stay they gave us a free upgrade, so we stayed in an enormous luxury flat complete with full size kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two balconies, and even a laundry cupboard! We even had two-full sized sofas to laze on in the evening after our long wanders into the centre of Cairns.

Actually wandering into town along the waterfront was probably the nicest thing about our trip. Even with the tide out and the huge mudflats exposed it was a really pretty route and you could see lots of creatures along the way. Pelicans preening their feathers, stork-type birds wading for fish, fruit-bats dangling from the trees or whizzing about at dusk, or little purple crabs scuttling into sand holes. The one disappointment was that we didn’t see any crocodiles! Ben had warned us back in Brisbane to stay off the beach in Cairns as there are meant to be huge salt-water crocs that come across the mud to dine on the odd tourist every now and then. So we’d really been looking forward to a bit of croc-spotting. But we didn’t see one of the devils all week! Not even when some kids and their parents were helpfully acting as bait by wandering along the sand! Grr!

Anyway, of course the main reason we came to Cairns was to see the Great Barrier Reef. This also proved to be trickier than we’d imagined – we had originally planed to scuba dive here, but this ended up being unfeasible for a really irritating reason. When I was a child I was diagnosed with mild asthma. Very mild mind you – so mild I’ve been able to ski race internationally, compete in I don’t know how many other sports and climb Kilimanjaro. Oh, and of course scuba diving in the past has never affected my breathing at all – asthma is not considered a problem in most places as long as it’s mild. And mine is milder than mild! But in Queensland they are more than a little touchy about such things, and after a barrage of mixed comments we were told (at the last minute before booking) that I wouldn’t be able to dive without seeing an Australian Dive Doctor first. Crazy unnecessary paperwork to satisfy a litigation culture. But we couldn’t get around it. And as we’d been told this wasn’t needed when we asked earlier in our stay we didn’t actually have time to see the Doctor and get the box ticked. So no diving. Sob.

They couldn’t stop us from snorkelling however. We went out to Green Island - a coral Cay. This is a small island formed over time from debris collecting on the sheltered side of an exposed section of reef. Mum wanted to see the reef from an island base as she tends to get a touch of sea sickness… and the wind had been blowing with avengeance ever since we’d arrived at Cairns! So we waited as long as we could for it to die down, which never really happened. Mum had a ride on a glass bottomed boat and semi-submersible while we snorkelled… and so she got to see the cool sucker fish in the photo below. We didn’t find any of those, but did see some startlingly big parrot fish and a large sting ray!

Anyway, we’ve now returned to New South Wales to go to the Blue Mountains. And after tropical Queensland it’s more than a bit chilly!

Cairns Photographs

2008-10-30T09:58:00.005Z

Cairns at highish tide... water, and pelicans instead of mud. This flock of birds were always sitting in exactly the same part of the beach, facing the direction of the wind. Every day! We were fascinated by their beaks - it looks really odd to see them swallow a big fish. It just doesn't seem to want to fit, but somehow their entire head and neck just expands! Weird!

Green Island - the coral cay we visited. lovely sandy beaches, reef just offshore on the right, and a tropical rainforest in the middle. Shame the only hotel on the island is a bit pricey.

But our room had a nice view too - the photo of the rainbow below was taken from the balcony during a particularly dramatic rainstorm. And if you wander along the beach south into the town centre you come across lots of nice palm trees, swimming areas - complete with lots of stupid tourists baking on their backs in the sun! Turning intereseting shades of reddish pink...

This fish was seen by my Mum - it attached itself to the bottom of her glass-bottomed boat when she visited the reef around Green Island. Gary and I were a bit jealous - we've never seen one! But at least we spotted a nice big sting ray. He he.

Sydney

2008-10-26T10:41:00.001Z

I feel a bit sorry for my poor Mum! By choosing Australia as the place to visit us on our travels she condemned herself to an evilly long set of flights (20+ hours), and some spectacular jetlag. And thanks to some dodgy advice from a travel agent, she even ended up arriving by coach in Heathrow about 5 hours before her flight… extending a reasonably long trip. Longer than any of the treks we’ve done so far this year - but at least she got to sit in a posh new Airbus 380 (which she loved and can’t stop ranting about) rather than some of the crumbly age-old buses and trains we’ve ricked our necks on in Asia!

Anyway, we arrived in Sydney shortly before my Mum did so we could pick her up from the airport. We then spent the next few days gently trying to realign her circadian rhythm with the local day night cycle – while exploring! Sydney is a great city to explore. I suppose the best thing about it is the location on the riverside. All of the best bits we’ve seen so far have been on the water edge. The Sydney Opera house for instance wouldn’t look nearly so cool if it was in the middle of town rather than stuck on a thin peninsular of land within a stone’s throw from the harbour bridge. Saying that, we haven’t actually got as far as the Opera house itself yet, but saw wonderful views of it from the Rocks - the outcrop of land below the harbour bridge that formed of the earliest European settlements. Darling Harbour is nice too – this is the other side of the headland so you can’t gaze at the Opera house. It’s formed by a small natural bay, which has been developed into a large pedestrianised area complete with lots of designer restaurants on the waterfront – and luckily a food court where us cheapskates could get a sandwich! Darling harbour also has a nice selection of gardens and parks with great water-features, palm trees and lot of ibises. In fact this is the only place in the world I’ve seen where they’ve managed to make the underneath of a motorway flyover look scenic!

We’ve also looked around China town, which has a pretty tree-lined central street which wouldn’t look out of place in one of the touristy regions of Shanghai. The rest of Chinatown is pretty dispersed and difficult to differentiate from the neighbouring parts of town expect for the odd sign with Chinese characters. But it does also have a small Chinese garden, which was surprisingly authentic: a lovely miniature lake with surrounding rock areas and willows, with the odd pagoda and hall thrown in for good measure. Best of all, it had plenty of lazy reptilian residents who seemed to have no energy to move in the cool of the afternoon. They left themselves draped over rocks and bridges throughout the garden - and as each was at least 2 feet long and would let you get REALLY close without batting an eyelid, they were by far the best animal models we’ve snapped yet on our travels. Great show-offs!

We will be returning to Sydney for a few days at the end of our time in Australia, so we will get a chance to see the Opera house close up – and catch the ferry over to Manley Island. But for now we’re moving on again, this time flying north to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some even better photos of lazy lizards from there… saltwater crocs maybe!

Sydney Pictures

2008-10-26T10:14:00.009Z

The Sydney Opera house, on a beautiful day, with my Mum and Gary in the foreground. Mum looks surprisingly alive for her first day in the southern hemisphere… she passed out a bit later!

And below is the Harbour bridge. This picture was actually taken from almost the same place as the snap of the Opera house above – an area near the foot of the bridge called the Rocks. Mum loved it as it had loads of little shops. Gary wasn’t so keen for the same reason. Strange that…

OK, this is the same picture of the Opera House as the one above, I know. But I loved the sea gull in the air above Gary, so I put it in anyway. So there! And this is the Chinese Garden. It was a water feature garden, based around the lake that my mum and I are sitting in front of. Behind us were a few lovely waterfalls and streams, all surrounded by beautiful rocks with big lazy lizards basking on them.

The best lizard model I’ve ever seen. This one sat on a bridge (see below) and just stayed there. He didn’t care if anyone came close for a picture – and we weren’t the only ones interested. He was absolutely beautiful!

Gary and my favourite lizard on the bridge… it was a very pretty Chinese garden. Really authentic. And we have seen one or two this year to compare it too. We were really surprised to find one quite this good in Australia!

Newcastle

2008-10-26T01:54:00.001+01:00

Confusingly for us, Newcastle isn’t up North. Its actually nearly as far South as Sydney – which is probably roughly equivalent in Australia as everything is upside-down in the southern hemisphere! Even more confusing was that Newcastle is in New South Wales, and has suburbs called Swansea and Cardiff! Now as I come from Neath that’s just weird – we kept on seeing buses and signs to ‘Swansea Heads’ and so on. If we’d come straight here from Asia the inverse culture shock would have been really bad!

Anyway, Newcastle Oz is a coastal town with a big shipping port - specialising in coal export according to one friendly local who didn’t’ want to stop talking to us. So if you walk along the river / sea front you see lots and lots of large ships being guided in and out by tugs. It’s a nice place for a drink in a nice bar at sunset. We spent a lot of our time wandering up the river towards the coastal headlands from here, where large waves break against the rocks and teenage blokes try (pretty unsuccessfully) to surf into the nearby beaches. Australia is dashing quite a few of our expectations – again, the sea is pretty chilly, and most Aussie men we’ve seen wrestling with surf boards don’t seem to be able to ride waves very far. I thought they were all meant to be natural boarders before I came out here! And of course it’s sunny and warm all year… maybe not.

To be fair to Newcastle, it may have been a bit chilly, but the sky was beautifully blue each day we were there. Perfect for wandering around the sea spits and beaches, or through the nice little nature reserve 10 km or so from the centre of town. This was very exciting – we saw our first koalas! Along with lots of other wildlife native to Oz, including kangaroos, emus, possums, and lots more. Loads of peacocks were wandering around for instance, completely unconcerned with the hoards of kids playing nearby. But my favourite were the koalas. They look so unbelievably cuddly! Small, fury, lazy – with fantastic fluffy ears! Lovely. Although most of the ones in the nature reserve were completely uninterested in anything but sleep, despite having a hoard of juicy fresh eucalyptus leaves supplied for nibbles.

Anyway, our next stop is Sydney, where we will meet up with my Mum. She is very sensibly skiving off work for a few weeks (unpaid leave they call it) to come and join us for our last few weeks in Australia. I can’t wait to see her, but also can’t help wondering what her jet-lag is going to be like after a 20+ hour set of flights. Poor thing!

Newcastle Piccys

2008-10-26T01:48:00.011+01:00

Newcastle had some impressive waves breaking on its shores from the Pacific. We saw a few surfers braving the freezing waters, but they avoided these crackers of waves, and (to be honest) were pretty rubbish on the little ones they did decide to tackle!

Gary however didn’t mind standing close to the end of the harbour breaker for a dramatic photo. Not quite close enough to get wet of course.

And so it was only fair for me to perch on the rocks too… Not so many big waves hitting this one, but it was more of a balancing act to get to - with a higher risk of getting wet if I fell off! And below you can see Gary on the rocks… not quite where the waves are but close! Brave? Or foolish?

Newcastle’s wildlife reserve had a lovely spacious pen with some wallabies, birds, snakes, and a few gorgeous koalas. This one was particularly beautiful! They are sooooo sweet – but incredibly lazy. Most of the little things just slept while we were there, but two decided to move oh, a meter or so for a snack of eucalyptus leaves. The rest just perched on a branch and snoozed. Such a hard life! And there were also beautiful kangaroos. The Kangaroo enclosure was huge. So big that you couldn’t see across it – great for the animals, but not so great for all the people wandering around it trying to see the kangaroos! Luckily this little one stayed close enough to the outside of the pen to be photogenic.

Surfers Paradise

2008-10-12T04:54:00.002+01:00

As you might guess from the name, Surfer’s Paradise is on the coast. And it has a beach where you can surf. Quite a big beach actually – you can walk along it for hours and feel like you haven’t moved… as we found out one afternoon. We set off northward along the sand for a nice stroll, and after several hours of messing around, talking about nothing, skimming stones and paddling in the sea we noticed the town behind us looked tiny. Which is saying something as one of the buildings has over 80 stories and is the tallest residential block in the world! We also noticed the sun was setting. So spent the next few hours walking back – still messing around, talking about nothing, skimming stones and paddling in the sea! We don’t learn.

Surfers is the focal point of the Gold coast – the area south of Brisbane full of hotels, residential blocks, shops and theme parks, all with easy access to the amaizing shoreline. Think of Miami meets Waikiki meets Brighton and you’ll have some sort of an idea! The same pristine, white, straight beach as Miami (but much less plastic, fake and pretentious). A similar feel to Waikiki (plus the surfing of course – but no nice big volcanos to explore here). But unfortunately the temperature is more like Brigton! Admitedly Brighton on a very nice summers day - but after Asia we didn’t really feel like b raving the water. We’ll have a go at surfing in Tahiti.

Getting to Surfers from Brisbane is meant to be easy according to the guide books as it’s only an hour away, and lots of buses run along the Gold Coast. In fact it turned out to be the easiest travel day of our holiday to date as Ben was working in Surfers the day we moved down, so he gave us a lift. We saw Ben and Catherine again the following weekend too as they came down to join us for a break, and showed us around the mountainous Gold Coast Hinterland, complete with a tour of local winerys, cheesaries, and even a vodka distillery. Gary was in his element – and at least we could buy Ben a well earned beer at the harbour pub later in the evening after having to pass up nice drinks for driving. We look forward to returning the favour in the UK.

Anyway, we’ve now moved an agonisingly boring 13 hours down the coast towards Sydney (after this year I’ll be happy if I NEVER see a coach again) to stay for a few days in Newcastle. Yep, Newcastle in New South Wales. Not quite like home, especially as it still has a thriving coal industry. Wierd!

Surfers Paradise Pictures

2008-10-12T04:53:00.002+01:00

Surfers Paradise - a place with a very nice beach! You can see Surfers itself in the distance on the left. We'd walked for a few hours along the shore to get this far, and were quite astonished when we saw exactly how far we'd come. Saying that, we did have the company of a few kite surfers and a man with a nice sheep dog.
One lovely view at night from our bedroom window - a funfair I think. There were always a few distant screams drifting through the window anyway...
The Gold Coast Hinterland - a mountainous area just to the west of the coast itself with nice wineries, cheesaries, and a great vodka distillery. Poor Ben was driving!

Brisbane

2008-10-02T13:31:00.000+01:00

When we booked our original around-the-world tickets we decided to hop from Perth over to Brisbane. Leaving out lots and lots of desert in between… and Ares rock unfortunately. We knew it was a bit of a cop-out, but Australia is very big, and we simply didn’t feel we had the time or money to cross it overland. And given that the flight was almost 4 hours long (i.e. further away from London than Moscow, Athens or Lisbon) I think we were right.

So, we skipped neatly over 2 time-zones to land just in time to catch the last train into town in the evening. One thing we did notice either end of the flight was the strange lack of people using public transport. It’s wired – in Perth they have a very convenient and cheap local bus to the domestic terminal but we were the only people on it with travel bags (everyone else was obviously only going to the local housing estates). And in Brisbane things were similar – the train into town was mostly deserted, but the queue to the (empty) taxi rank was over 50 yards long! Very odd.

Anyway, most of our time in Brisbane we’ve spent catching up with one of my friends from Uni that I haven’t seen for years… well, it’s been a little difficult to since she’s moved to Brisbane! Catherine and her husband Ben have really looked after us here. They’ve shown us around Brisbane, driven us to lovely towns, introduced us to local wines and beers, insisted on taking us out for dinner… just been generally fantastic. They even managed to find us some wild kangaroos and possums! Seeing twenty odd kangaroos bouncing around a secure mental health facility was particularly great after our deserted island in Perth (erm, I know, apparently there are always lots of them in the beautiful park maintained for the patients). It brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘hopping mad’! As you might have guessed from this, I got to know Catherine while I was at medical school, and she’s still practicing out here.

Brisbane itself if a lovely city. OK – we did have the benefit of seeing all the nicest bits courtesy of Ben and Catherine! It’s built on the river like Perth, and they have really made an effort to make the waterside area beautiful and used. The shore is filled with parkland, kid’s swimming pools, restaurant-lined walkways, or lively market areas. And I suppose it helps that the weather never seems to be anything but glorious – thankfully it’s a few degrees warmer than Perth here, and the sky never seems to be anything but a deep, brilliant blue. Saying that, we were told that Brisbane has suffered a severe drought for the last two years due to rainfall shortages… so there are drawbacks.

Anyway, our next move is just down to the Gold Coast to Surfer’s Paradise which also sounds a lot of fun (so highly recommended by Ben and Catherine that they’re going to come and join us for a day or so!). And from there we’ll start our trek down south towards Sydney, which will involve the most painful bus ride since Laos…

Brisbane Photos

2008-10-02T13:02:00.006+01:00

Brisbane has a lovely waterside - especially nice on hot sunny days. Catherine and Ben (see below) showed us all around over the weekend, focusing on the botanical gardens, parks, pools and (of course) the boutique markets!
Here Gary, Ben and I are positioned in front of an old steamer which apparently does lovely cruise dinners... but a bit too expensive for mortals. And below you can see Catherine and me in the mountains above Brisbane - in a nice little town with pretty shops, views, and a fantastic winery (to keep Gary and Ben happy)!
We found kangaroos! OK, at night, in a secure mental facility. Hopping around like nobodies business. Which makes photographing them in low light very tricky... Gary did well to hold the camera still enough for this photo.

Perth and Fremantle

2008-09-25T04:08:00.001+01:00

Coming to Australia has felt more than a little bit odd. This is the furthest we’ve ever been from home, yet it’s more similar to the UK than anywhere we’ve ever been! Which has lead to a bit of inverse culture shock – it took us a few days of wandering around to get used to talking to people in the native the language (erm, English)! Gary came up with the cracker almost a week after we arrived: he looked at the menu of an Italian restaurant and then turned to me in a confused way and asked ‘It’s interesting that the menu is in English. Oh, they speak English in Australia don’t they? Scratch that, scratch that!’

I suppose in some ways this is similar to when we visited the UK for Amit’s wedding a few months back. After spending so long in Asia, familiar old London still felt familiar, but somehow less comfortable to be in than say Hong Kong or Shanghai. And when we rocked up at Heathrow’s immigration, I had an odd but overwhelming urge to say ‘Sawat di kah’ to the official – ‘Hello’ in Thai! Overall, this unfamiliarly a very odd sensation, but only lasted a few days. By which time of course we were flying back to Thailand – which then in turn felt weird…

Anyway, other than our problems with the native language, we’ve done a fair amount of our usual wanderings in the Perth area. We’re only on the west coast for a very brief time before flying over to Brisbane, so we haven’t been able to travel extensively. Distances are so large over here that moving from place to place is a major undertaking, costing a lot in both time and money. So we weren’t able to make it up to the Nigaloo reef as we’d hoped, but after hearing yesterday that a sizable section of it has recently been destroyed perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Perth itself is a nice place. In fact it’s booming at the moment – which has made finding a hotel a bit of a trauma. Gary thinks it’s a lot like Bedford, which I think is unfair on Perth, but he insists is a compliment as he thinks of Bedford in a nice way! But, unlike Bedford, the best bits of Perth are parkland – the stretches along the river (including some nice islands) and the lovely King’s Park area with its water gardens, fountains, botanical gardens, and woodland tree-top walkways. The town centre itself is nice enough too, but it’s scarily similar to modern towns in the UK. If you were plonked down in the pedestrianised shopping centre of Perth and told it was in Essex (or Bedfordshire!) you wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Especially at the moment as the weather has been frankly freezing. We thought it was meant to be hot in Oz!

Near to Perth is the small town of Fremantle, where we also spent a few nights. This is a costal place, with a pretty (but pretty freezing) seafront and harbour, complete with oodles of Fish‘n’Chip restaurants, and some classy pubs. The best was called ‘Little Creatures’, and had huge vats of fermenting beer in an unpretentious converted aircraft hanger (I know it sounds odd, but it worked). It actually served great wood fired pizzas too, and had a lovely little beer garden overlooking the harbour. All very nice, but it reminded us a bit of Portsmouth!

Ah well, we’ll be heading over to Brisbane soon, and then travelling down the coast towards Sydney. I think we’re going to have to start renting vehicles to make the most of Australia though It is substantially more difficult to get around here than most of the parts of Asia we’ve visited - unless you wish to hop on a dreaded coach tour that is…

Perth Photos

2008-09-25T04:07:00.005+01:00

Fremantle - the pretty little harbour town half an hour by train from Perth. It has a lovely marina, with lots of very spenny yachts (just out of the photo on the left). Despite the lovely day and clear blue sky it was absolutely freezing... this is Australia?

Perth itself also had a lovely waterside - this beach is actually just off the river rather than the sea. There are a few river islands you can visit too. We spent a nice (but frustrating) day walking to one which has a kangaroo fence - thinking we'd see loads of wild kangaroos hopping around. But no, not a single one! Despite walking three laps of the islands and scrambling through bushes to see if they were hiding. Ah well, maybe we'll see them boinging around in Brisbane.

Kings Park on the North side of Perth is particularly nice. It's learnt a bit from the Chinese, and installed the fun water feature (which has geyser-like shooting fountain jets) you can see behind Gary.
And if you wander towards the edge of Kings Gardens you see the river - and Perth in the background. Nice! But again, freezing. Don't let the beautiful clear blue sky deceive you!