safe in Oz

If your worried,care, or just following along, we landed safe and sound in Oz. It was a late arrival and we took a cab to the hostel we booked online. We stayed 2 nights at the Glenelg beachside hostel which in reality was about 3 blocks off the beach. We were lucky enuogh to have a 5 door room to ourselves both nights but we didn't sleep the best as the walls were paper thin and teh young backpackers were coming and going at all hours. We pretty much did all of Adelaide on the first day. We took the train downtown, walked around for 4 hours checking out a few sights and the cool shopping district. We then caught the train back to Glenelg where we walked around on the beach, swatting poo flies the whole time it was a short trip around the beach. After dinner and a better sleep than the first night (thanks earplugs) we caught the bus to the airport to pickup our car. We hit an outlet shopping area near the airport loaded up on a few snacks for the car, bought a 2007 road atlas of Oz on sale for $7 and headed out towards The Great Ocean Road.

New Zealand Last few days

We have had the privilege of spending our last days in NZ at our friends Ross and Alice's. They were kind enough to open up there home to us and even take some time out of there schedule to show us around a bit. We spent a few days touring around Christchurch and surrounding area. A and I went out and wandered around downtown a few days, took in some scenery, window shopped, and watched some street performers in the city center square. We rented a car few days to see out farther than walking distance.

After doing a bit of research we found out where we could rent a crash pad and headed out to the amazing Castle Hill, outdoor bouldering mecca. About 1 hour drive out of Christchurch we spent a good 5 hours out here hiking around, trying and mostly failing at these amazing bouldering problems, a lot different feel to the rock than what we are used to at around home.

Next few days feeling sore from climbing we did lots of hanging out, relaxing, and milling around not doing much, we checked out an art exhibit at the art center, we went to the biggest outdoor concert in New Zealand history for the earthquake relief fund raiser.

We have had a good time in NZ but we are ready to move on, Tomorrow afternoon we fly into Australia, we booked our first 2 nights in a hostel, and we booked a car for a few weeks to travel between Adelaide and Sydney via the great ocean road.

Next post from OZ

Omaru...land of the Penguins

We left Dunedin in the morning and we had to stop at the steepest street in the Guiness book of world records,  Baldwin Street.  Was good at first then it started to increase in grade and the walk got hard.  After the whole day of walking and sand dune climbing the day befor let me tell you this was not going to feel good.  Ray started, I watched........then I better do a bit of this at least.   Ray said write I went half way but I believe it was further than half.
We left and went onwards towards Moeraki, which is home to the Moreaki boulders.  We parked and walked along a nice hard sand beach 10min.'s or so then we stopped to check out these cool round boulders.  Different reasons why they may have formed and Ray and I will go with the scientific version, seems more plausable then the tall tale.  Went to the cafe for some drinks and snack and made our way back for some campervan lunch.
We drove onto Omaru which had one tourist trap but it's a good one, the yellow eyed penguin and the smallest penguin in the world "the blue penguin".   The buildings in this area are really neat, mostly made out of limestone and sort or eery I thought, very Victorian feeling architechture.  We booked our time in the evening to see the blue penguins and the yellow eyed penguins you can go see on your own for free.    So we booked in to our site relaxed, ate and got dressed warm for the evening outdoors viewing all the penguins.  We headed out late afternoon to see the yellow eyed penguin.
When we arrived there were alot of tourists lined up along the railing all trying to get a glimpse of the little guys.  We walked along the path, waited, then a nice gentleman was lending out binoculars to people to view them coming in and along the bushes.  When we looked through them we saw quite a few, most of the crowd had dispursed also so it was nice as the night was creeping upon us.  Ray gave me a wave from afar and I walked down the path to meet him and realized there was a penguin right below the rail in the bush.  Very cute and very cool to see one so close.  The nice gentleman with the binoculars informed us all the be quiet and respectful, to try not to disturb them.  Meanwhile some tourist thougth we were at the movies or something and started eating chips, stupid.  We took lots of pictures watched for a long while then made our way to the place to watch the blue penguins.
Again lots of tourists, this is a pretty popular thing to see here.  We checked in and made our way out to the bleachers in the windy cold air along the ocean.  The announcer went over some information about the penguins and to do's and not to do's.  Around 8:20 the first raft, which is about 25 to 40 penguins in one bunch shaped like a raft, came in.  The little cuties scrambled up onto the rock ramp slowly, fighting the waves, when they all collected together they all wobbled up to the shore into there  manmade habitat for breeding just by the rock cliff.  We watched a couple rafts come in and make there way home for the night then we called it a night it was pretty chilly out.  These penguins are very cute and fun to watch.
The next day we pack up again and make our way onwards, we weren't sure where at first then decided to make our way to Christchurch, which is our last stop in our adventure in New Zealand.

Dunedin pronounced "Din -e- din"

After our breathtaking adventure to Milford Sound we made our way towards Dunedin, know for surfing, shopping, bars/cafes, cadbury chocolate factory and Speight's Brewery.   The drive was not all that interesting, but we got there in good time, good enough time to at least fit in the chocolate factory tour.  I mean if you have to pick one to try first might as well be all about chocolate.  When we first drove near it you could smell the chocolate, smelt so good.
We started the tour and the lady gave us some sweet head wear and beard one for Ray since he had not shaved in a few days.   hahahahah!!! Lookin' good honey!  The tour took us through some of the workings of the factory but who really was listening when all you wanted was more chocolate.  If you answered her questions right she gave you free chocolate.  There was a chocolate shot and even for me it was hard to swallow, was very rich tasting.  The only really cool part was the chocolate waterfall, 1 tonne of liquid chocolate falling 3 stories in 30 seconds, loud but smelled good and it splattered the stairs with gooey goodness. After the tour we thought we had enough so did not buy anymore in the store, but later as we got back to the van quickly realized that the ones they give you are not the best by far.  So guess we will have to stop by store again on the way out for some more.
We needed some groceries so did that and headed to our campervan site for the night.  Met a nice older Australian couple that love to travel and have been it sounds like for some time.  Had fun chit chatting with them, got excited to go to Australia next.  We woke the next morning to a nice sunny day and drove to the beach near by and watched some surfers try a few waves.  Pretty cool, looks like alot of waiting for the right place and wave to come about, and cold too.
We decided to continue on down the peninsula and see Lanarche castle, kinda nice but expensive for what it is.  We will see better in Europe so....then we made our way to the beach where you can penguin watch, but first you must climb down a steep sand dune and walk the beach littered with giant sealions.  Uhhh....sounds ok until after we made it down I realized we have to go back up later.
A long nice walk on the beutiful sand beach trimed wiht rugged roacks and crashing waves, we walked all the way down the the end making sure to give the sea lions a wide berth. We got to the penguin hide stood around abit and quickly realised we times it way wrong, they come ashore near sundown and it was mid afternoon. Dodging the sea lions on the way back we got to the ever daunting sand dunes we had to climb out. 2 steps forward, slide down one... this is going to be along climb. After finaly cresting the top, sore legs and out of breath, we took one last look down to aknowledege our acompleshment... or stupidity... depending how you look at it :p
Back at the van we drove around a bit on the peninsula and made our way back into town, we hitup the Speight's brewery to sign up for a tour, we just missed one so we headed out on the town for a few hours to check it out, we walked through a public art gallery, walked around to a few shops, stoped at Mc Cafe to update the blog and check the emails, we just happend to be near the Cadbury chocolate factory so we stoped in to top up our supplies. Walked down the the train station which is apperently the second most photografed building in the world next to the Sydney opera house.  Making our way back to the brewery we hung out for a bit until it was time for the tour. The tour was pretty cool, had a nice guide and they place was setup really cool for tours, when we reached the pub, we se toff on the tasting. Unlike the Moteith's brewery we did on the other coast whose beer was good across the board, Speight's is not, there is one good beer one ok beer and the rest are not to our liking. After being a bit buzzed as they let you pour your own as much as you like in the short time you were allowed in the bar we headed down the street for a decent pub style meal to to fill our bellys, drove to our van site and settled in for the night.

Milford Sound

We left Queenstown on a rainy day once again and drove ourselves to Te Anua which is about a 2 hour drive to Milford Sound.   When we arrived it was Sunday and nothing seems to be open on Sundays anywhere, wish North America would adopt that back, but it does suck when you need things.  We did find a small tourist information centre and asked about taking a tour to Milford Sound.  After a hot chocolate, coffee and some debate we decieded on a smaller tour company with a smaller boat for a decent price since we have a coupon too.  We collected our lunch for the next day at the grocery store and headed to our site for the night to prepare for the next days adventure.
The forcast was suppose to be nice for the next 3 days, so we went to bed hoping for the best.   Upon waking up we were blessed with a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky but friggin' cold.  Since we had left Queenstown the temperature had slowly gotten colder and the trips to the bathrooms in the night or early morning were painfully chilly.  The first thing we did was get dressed in some layers as it was maybe only 2 or 4 degrees out and I think Ray and I put on all of the clothes we had.  Thank god for our HH base layers, just didn't want to have to use them so soon into our trip. We ate, cleaned up, finished packing the daypack and made our way to the road for our pickup.
A mini van pulled up and we hopped in, headed back into town to meet up with the tour bus taking us into Milford Sound. Our tour guid/bus driver "Allen" grew up in the area and gave us a nice comentary as we drove into the sound (which is apperently really a fiord). We stoped at a few places along the way for photos and a bit of background about the area. Crossing through Hommer tunnel, we headed on down towards the Beautiful Milford sound. Amazing views of the vally, we wound our way down to emerge from the trees into a pictureesc Milford Sound. Shortly after deboarding the bus, checking in at the counter and paying we were guided out onto the boat which would be our photo platform for the next few hours as we traveled the sound. Considerd the 8th wonder of the world by some and the most buitful place on earth by others your expectations are not let down, some of the most breathtaking scienery we have ever seen and our photos, as good as they are dont do it justice at capturing the true beauty of the area.
On our trip of the sound we encountered a yellow eyed penguin, just a single one hanging out on the rocks, the smaller boat we chose to go on (holds 75 people, had maybe 25 on it) got in close to the shore and all of the people on board took turns snaping some pictures of the well dresed bird. Heading out the mouth of the sound we passed a pod of Bottlenosed Dolfins. "A's" eyes, and face light up even more than they were already from seeing the penguin, the boat made a pass through the pod, turned around and passed through again, pretty cool the dolphins were a bit curious and played with the boat a bit. We headed out to the open ocean on the front of the sound and made our way in a big arc around back into and down the other side of the opening. On our way back in the Dolphins all of a sudden became really playful and surfed in the boats wake for a long time, we cought some relly cool pics hanging off the front of the boat. "A" was supper excited when she heard the dophins talking to each other and using there blowhols to shoot water up onto us taking pictures. It was really cool watching the dolphins turn sideways and make eye contact, you can really see the intelegince behind the eyes.
Having been all played out the dolphins turned off, and we made our way on back, we came accros a few fur seals bathing in the sun having a lazy afternoon nap. The boat pulled upto the highest permanent waterfall in the sound, A and I stayed out on the front deck and got soaked as the boat put the nose of the boat under the waterfall, we had a good laugh and headed inside untill we were clear of the fall. Meandering around the coast we made our way back to the dock and deborded the ship, everyone getting off the boat had a huge smile on there face. One of the guides on teh boat said it is very rare to see dolphins less than 8% of the time they go out and even more rare to see all three animals on one trip. We had a geoargus sunny day which is rare in Milford which is the wetest place on earth with an average rainfall of 27 feet a year. The busride back was fast and we were tired from all the fresh air, we had a good sleep and great memorys to take with us.

Wanaka....to Queenstown

4 new posts and a few more coming in the next few days




After we sleep in a bit and see that the weather is not the greatest we decide to move on to Queenstown..the adventure capital of New Zealand.  The weather did not improve along the way, but some beautiful lakes along the way.
We drove on and as we drove I thought of my dad because of the vineyard after vineyard, a wine drinkers dream in New Zealand and the road we took was littered with a million.   It is right near the area where all the wine tours run and the winery map if you wanted to follow them through the country.  We had a hard time deciding when and which one there were too many and Ray and I are not the best wine critics.  Then we saw it, Cheesery and Wine Cave Winery.  That caught our attention, we love cheese and wine without something to add to it is just not our way of drinking.  The place was beautiful and the winery and cheesery were two seperate building and owners, so we checked out the cheese first, they laid out samples everywhere of chutney, pestos, and cheese with crackers.  After a few tastes we were sold, I mean it was lunch time so we should eat anyways right?   We decided to walk over to the winery to sample some wines which were just ok, compared to the last place we tried which most of the wines were quite good.   So we trucked it back over to the Cheesery and purchased a platter of cheese,pesto,bread,crackers,jam and began our taste overload moment.   It was amazing the flavours we were in taste bud heaven.  After we left full bellies of cheese we drove onto Queenstown and knew we were close when we saw the bungy jumping over the gorge along the road.
Once we got to Queenstown we drove to the campervan site and walked down to the main town.  The weather starting to come in again and we just walked around, checked out the interenet and no one was on skype so we shopped a bit for souvenirs.  The town is very cute, but really busy too.  When we got back to the campervan site lowe and behold it started to piss down rain again and we ended up sitting around again.  It rained all night and part of the morning. So we decided to go indoor mini golfing.  They did a really good job of setting it up, and we had some fun, oh and I beat Ray finally at something thanks to my dad taking me golfing when I was younger. ahhahhaha!
We watched the weather and it was said to snow/rain in the afternoon so we treated ourselves to some massages and float  time capsle thing.  The float capsule was wierd, half an hour in there is suppose to be like 2 hours rem sleep but I didn't really notice.  We then set up for our massages, relaxed and got rubbed.  It felt good especially since we have been living out of a cramped van for the last 30ish days.

Glaciers and puzzles oh my

We headed on down and hit the Glacier area of New Zealand.  They have two the Franz Josef and the Fox Glaciers.  We got in sort of late so we decided to make the pitstop here.  We stayed at a really nice looking van site called the Rainforest Holiday Park.  They really made it look like a rainforest everywhere, great theme.  It had grown a bit chillier now that we have gone higher into the mountains so more clothing was essential to put on.  Once settled in we skyped a few family members and ate some dinner and just felt really tired from all the driving.
When we woke the sky was clear which it wasn't when we arrived the day befor so it was going to be a nice day for a hike.  We drove to the Franz Josef Glacier parking lot and made our way down a short path to Peter's pool which was a reflection pool of the moutain ahead of us.  After some pics we walked down another path to the Franz Josef Glacier walk which starts as a forest walk into a vast open area where the glacier was a long time ago, then a lake now just rock and stone.  We took the path across and walked to the edge of the glacier as close as we could without a guide.  Which we thought of doing but we have spent alot of money here and we can see a glacier up close at home.
We drove through to a small town and stopped for some coffee for Ray and a hot chocolate for me, sat next to a nice roaring fire and kept moving on.  We drove quite a bit this day, and ended up in Wanaka, another lake resort type area, known for skiing and mountain activities.  So much like Banff but not really.  It is really nice here, the lakes around here are gorgeous and there is alot to do.  The weather has been incredible here too, no rain, we even rented a kayak today for an hour.  Forgot how much work it is for a full hour of paddling.
Earlier in the day we went to Puzzling World. We spent about an hour in a huge maze 2 levels tall, good old rule of left, we made it through and found all the 4 color toweres you were supposed to find. Headed on into the store to check out the cool books, games, puzzles, and posters. Going into the illusion area they had a bunch of those 3D hologram pictures hung up , the ones they sell at Spencers and there is a store in West Ed that sells them. They also had a illusion room where it almost looked square but one door was full hight and the other was quite small, kinda lame. The last room we went in was built on an angle, the gravety felt about 10 times more than normal becouse of all the illusions, everything was built level in the room but the room was tilted, very cool but you got a headach if you hung out in there to long as it throws your equalibrium out of wack.

West Coast

West coast
First stop the Seal Colony just outside Westport.  We were the first to get there that morning, headed up the trail and what a view from there.  Wide vast ocean in front of us with a rough coastline and seals littering the rocks below.  What big eyes you have!!!!  We stayed for awhile and noticed it getting busier so we headed back, but very fun to watch the seals.
We headed on to Punakaiki rocks and blowholes.  A hip hoppin' tourist stop for sure, we followed the path of people and saw the pancake rock formations which was very cool and one blowhole gave us a bit of a show.  The designed pathway was nice and fun to walk.  We made our way to the small tourist shop across the road where we tried on some the current possum fashions,lol.......what the heck is with this possum fashions here.  Funny though!  The shop had some beautiful art and jewellery in it though.  We moved on and headed south to Greymouth which is our other stop that day and final stop for the evening.
Once in Greymouth we remember there is a brewery tour and decide to go to the 4pm tour.  We get settled at the van and then head down to drink some brews.  Monteith's Brewery is small but we found that every kind we tried which was 6 beers, and 1 cider were good all across the board.  Even the red and darks were tasty and not too much.  After the tasters they give you a glass of you choice which by this point, things are fuzzier than walking in especially since we do not really drink much.  We bought some of the apple cider which was delicious and finished those off that evening making steak and potatoes with a game of pool.  Nice and relaxing, fun day.
In the morning we head off to the next town which is big for Jade and different stones/shell jewellery.  Hoitika, was cute we saw so much jewellery I think Ray was going to pull his hair out, we didn't decide on any and decided to have a nice lunch not one in the van.  There was a small cafe/cheese shop so we decided to eat there.  Man we were ever glad we did the lunch was amazing.  Had a roasted veg/pesto pita and pumpkin ravioli with a blue cheese sauce.  What a nice surprise, it was very very tasty.  After deciding not to stay in town we drove on and on and on till we hit Franz Josef Glacier village and stopped to stay the night.

to the south

To the South Island...
We stayed in Wellington 2 days one as noted befor was pretty much rained out sitting in the van, rained for over 24 hours straight, ridiculous!
We showered the night before and must have been excited to see the South Island cause we both did not sleep very well at all.  We got up at 6:30, ate, got van ready and we were off to the Blueridge Ferry leaving Wellington at 8 am.  We waited in cue and rolled on to the big boat and off we went, tired and foggy headed.  The boat was ok, we decided to sit inside and Ray read while I tried to play some bejewled, but the tired and not good sleep, plus I had been feeling a headache all week led to some motion sickness.  So I suffered the chilly air and found a semi-warm bench and watched the horizon.  It warmed up a bit and soon we were in Picton, the inlets were beautiful, the water bright green and lots of pretty hills and rocks.
We drove out right away and headed to Nelson, what a cute town, and huge sandbar.  Reminded me of White Rock, BC with Sylvan Lake, AB facilities and feel.   The ocean there was nice you can tell this area is a resort, vacation spot for sure.  We tried another market in the morning downtown and hit another failed dirty gypsey garage sale dump.   So we left......and drove on South to Richmond and stopped at a winery/olive estate for some tasting.  This was Ray's very first wine tasting and I think he liked it, maybe the food more but it was good and neat to do.
We drove on and stopped at the suspension bridge, which was not what I expected from one's I have seen in Canada.  UHHH....little shoddy construction and very small.  Ray made a comment that he did not trust it which I was glad he told me after we had finsihed it since I am paranoid about these things.  We drove and drove, turn after turn... until we hit Westport and stopped we were tired and hungry by this point.  We left Westport right away, not a very fun looking town, and our van site felt more like a dirty gypsey site so we did not want to stay any longer.