Christchurch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?