Almost A World Tour!

Ok - so we've made it to Queenstown but only just. We had a connecting flight from Christchurch to Queenstown and were given 1 hour to clear immigration, collect our bags, walk the entire length of Christchurch airport, stand in the wrong queue for 10 mins, stand in another wrong queue for a further 10 mins before we were rescued by a rather flustered member of the Qantas floor staff who bundled us onto our plane. All this excitement and we hadn't even left the airport...we're gonna like New Zealand.

We checked into our hostel which is run by a cat called Thomas. I kid you not it's called Thomas's Hostel and Thomas is a rather knackered looking old cat who wears a cravat and runs the hostel via telekinetic's. We headed out for a quick mosey, the hostel was right on the bank of a massive lake and surrounded by mountains it has a real Ski resort feel to it and it also feels abit like being in Scotland but we're at the other side of the world.... We returned to discover we were sharing a dorm with a young American girl (Andrea) who was like Uber "oh my god" "that's sooo totally awesome" American and an older Kiwi guy who was pissed (it was 6pm) So we all headed out for drinks, Andrea kept on getting shushed by fellow patrons as she had the loudest voice in the world ever and the Kiwi guy got more and more drunk. Then the Kiwi guy (we never knew his name) had a massive go at Andrea for being so American and then he passed out and we went to a Halloween party.

The following day we decided that climbing a mountain would be the perfect hangover cure so off we set after a hearty Subway lunch. The mountain was only an hours walk but it was hard going so we were relieved to reach the top and rest our feet. The views from the top were amazing I really am totally impressed with the scenery New Zealand has to offer - very Lord of the Rings. We discovered you could take a cable car to the very top of the mountain and then take these little Go-Cart style cars called Luge's down again. The Luge's were wicked, on your first run you had to do the scenic route down which was pretty good but after you have proved you are capable of steering a little car down a hill you could take the advanced route so we caned it down there a few more times proper boy racer stylie.

Worth a stroll up a hill for.

We climbed Queenstown Hill the following day which was pretty much the same set-up as the previous day. Alot of panting, glugging of water and a decent set Subway sweats later we reached the top, took even more photo's but no Luge's on the way down this time. I am waiting for MBNA to send me a new credit card which is why I we have been doing alot of walking (it's free) and not throwing ourselves off cliffs and canyons (MBNA need to finance that) so we decided to head over to nearby Wanaka for a few days whilst MBNA where dispatching my card.

I do own more than 1 T-Shirt..honestly!

Not sure what this is but thought it looked cool

Wanaka - (not to be confused with Wanka)

We stayed in a hostel recommended by our Irish mates from Melbourne - it was by far the best place we've stayed in on our travels. Our first day in Wanaka was spent at Puzzling World, Wanaka's premiere tourist attraction. Puzzling World is home of the worlds biggest maze which we spent about 90 mins trying to get out of and also has a series of trippy themed illusion rooms. The highlights where one room which felt like it was on a tilt but it wasn't so as you walked in you got all disorientated and nearly fell over. It was a really bizarre feeling and you could do strange things like play pool uphill. There was also a room which when you looked through the window it was totally normal but when you went inside one side was really small and you banged your head (ever Mark did) and the other side was massive. And there was this freaky wall of famous peoples faces which followed you as walked past. So we had alot of fun being totally puzzled by Puzzling World.

Hope this is covered by my travel insurance..

A little privacy - please!

Mark getting freaked out

We did another walk on our second day in Wanka - seriously though the scenery is so good that although it may sound boring just waking up and down hills all day it is actually really good - honestly! We got really lost on our way back and ended up in a tiny town called Albert Town (Pop: 13) but then we found Lake Wanaka again so we walked all the way round the lake which took about 4 hours to get back to our digs.

We went back to Queenstown to discover that my MBNA card still hadn't arrived so decided to do a road trip for a few days until it arrives.

Our next stop - Dunedin via Invercargill and The Catlins.

So were back in Sydney after knocking around Melbourne for a while freezing our neenies off. It's a pretty long slog getting from Melbourne to Sydney (12 hour bus ride) so we decided to take the night bus so we didn't waste a full day travelling and also, more importantly, we are so poor travelling overnight meant we saved $24 on a dorm bed. The journey was abit painful to be honest, I got a major case of the fidgets so didn't get much sleep and the driver put on a DVD which turned out to be the shittest (sorry Mum) film ever made ever about time travel. We guessed the plot after the first 5 mins and our version was so much better. I did finish my book about the couple who set up Lonely Planet - now I want to be a travel writer.

Buskers at Central Station

Anywho, we arrived in Sydney feeling abit tired and got the ferry across to Manly to catch some rays on the beach. Apparently it hasn't gone unnoticed that I haven't got a very good tan - better put that right. We had a right rigmarole getting booked into a hostel but eventually got a bed and our dreams of catching abit of sleep shattered courtesy of a moody french bird banging her tunes out. So we hit the beach and spent the afternoon shivering (still no tan) and watching the surfers.

Opera House from the ferry

The following day we had to move hostels so we packed up our worldly belonging again and trotted across the road. We were issued keys to the dorm from hell - I swear to god I have never in all my life seen such a shit-tip not even after 3 months in SE Asia. It wasn't that the room itself was that bad it was the sheer state the people staying in there had got it. The whole room was like that well mingin' toilet from Trainspotting. I promptly had what can only be described as an emotional meltdown and refused to stay there so we went down to reception and the nice girl from the desk came to see what all the fuss was about. She nearly passed out from the stench and agreed to put us a different room with a lovely german couple so we were all happy again.

Manly is a pretty cool little surfing town and the hostel turned out to be a real good un'. It had a great communal area so we met loads of people and had some decent nights out one which resulted in Mark being asked to leave as he was "overly intoxicated" something he is immensely proud of. We played alot of Daytona USA (an old racing video game) I only mention this because I was totally awesome at it and kept on beating Mark who is good at everything.

Sunday morning in Sydney

Time to move back to the city for our last few days. We got totally soaked sitting at the front of the ferry. One of the guys working on the ferry did warn us and we were like "yeah whatever" cue a massive wave that soaked us. We spent our first day exploring Darling Harbour which happened to be hosting the International Australian Motor Show so we popped in and admired very shiny, expensive cars for the afternoon. There were also numerous cool hot-hatches there which we did alot of sitting in and I am now frantically trying to justify a purchase to myself.

My next purchase

In my dreams

Today we went to Bondi Beach just to say that we had been, twas Ok but neither of us were that impressed. There were some cool skateboarders doing crazing tricks, I tried to take some photo's but they didn't come out too well.

So the end of our Australian adventure beckons. After a ropey start (mainly due to the culture shock after Asia) it has really grown on me. We have visited some top-notch cities, seen some stunning scenery and discovered goon.

And then to New Zealand

We hadn't originally planned to travel as far south as Melbourne but we had cracked through the East Coast quicker than expected and time was on our side. We opted to stay in St Kilda a few Km's from the city centre - popular with the young, rich and beautiful so we figured why not hang out with our own kind for a week or two...!

I liked Melbourne as city but it's pretty different to Sydney in that there are alot less sights to see. The main part of the city focuses around big shopping centers, trendy bars & expensive restaurants, not ideal when your travelling on a tight budget but we really enjoyed moseying around and looking at stuff we couldn't afford. After a good look round the city and went to the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Federation Square to watch some funky short films but the majority of our time was spent hanging out in St Kilda. We were staying in a hostel which was a converted old house so it had a really homely feel to it and we shared a dorm with some nice Irish folk so we spent alot of time hanging out with them.

Melbourne is of course home to Neighbours so we thought it would be a right laugh to go on a Neighbours tour.

Would you feel like a wally on this bus?

FACT: Producers came up with the name Erinsborough the factious town Neighbours is set from the acronym Neighbours itself.

We clambered aboard the tour bus to a blaring Neighbours theme tune and cruised out of Melbourne listening to pop songs by old Neighbours cast members - plenty of Kylie, Holly Valance & Jason Donavan etc. When we arrived at Ramsey St (although obviously it is called something else in reality) we were all pretty surprised how small it was, there are literally only 5 houses on the street all of them had people living in them permanently. The guide gave us a brief history of each house so a proper walk down memory lane with the likes of Mrs. Mangle, Doug Willis, Helen Daniels & Bouncer. Then we were free to take our photo's. After Ramsey St we drove to the school they use for Erinsborough High and also past the studio's where they do the majority of the filming. Unfortunately with it being a weekend we weren't able to go and have a look at the sets. It was a good trip out but the real treat came on the drive home when we had to decide which classic Neighbours episode we wanted to watch. The overwhelming majority opted for Scott and Charlene's wedding, it was so cheesy but there still wasn't a dry eye on the bus.

Ramsey St

Can't believe I'm on Ramsey St!

The Great Ocean Road

We also took a 2 day trip along the Great Ocean Road one of the worlds most scenic roads along the coastline of south-west Victoria. There are lots of sights to see along the way.
On our first day we visited the Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, London Bridge and then watch the sunset over the 12 Apostles. It was amazing to learn that these sights have been created by the erosion of coastline by a combination of ocean and weather over thousands of years. The sunset really was spectacular, we were really lucky that it had been a clear day. After the sun had gone down there are hundreds of these tiny penguins which come ashore to spend the night on the beach to re-waterproof themselves ready for the following day (there is probably a more technical term for this procedure but they basically have a waterproof oil on their skin which protects from the water and cold conditions. They have to renew this every evening so they do this on the beach) They are only 30cms high so they really are tiny and they like to travel in groups for protection against predators so as they start to come onto the beach they wait until there are 40 or 50 of them and they all leg it up the beach together.

Bay of Islands

Bay of Martyrs

The 12 Apostles at dusk

Sunset at The 12 Apostles

We stayed in a really tiny hostel in the really tiny town of Port Campbell for the night. We had a BBQ for tea and then a group of us ventured out to the local pub. It was a proper locals place so we met some interesting characters including a older guy called Wozza who took abit of a shine to us. He was a really nice guy who said he just loved talking to travellers so we had a good chat. When the pub shut he wanted us all to go back to his caravan to carry on drinking and look at his photo's (of tuna...?) - we've all seen Wolf Creek and the plot seemed all too familiar (strange local guy befriends group of travellers and invites them back to his caravan in what seems like a random act of kindness... a mass murdering session me thinks) We said our goodbyes to Wozza and hit the hay.

For our second day on the Great Ocean Road we went back to the 12 Apostles where myself and Mark decided to take a helicopter ride over the 12 Apostles. It is the only way you can see all 12 Apostles (well there are actually only 11 left - one crumbled down last year) on a line. It was the first time I'd been in a helicopter - it was a pretty cool experience. We got some wicked photo's and were especially impressed that we got to wear Top Gun style headsets so we could communicate with one another during the trip. In the afternoon we visited Bays Beach one of Australia's best surfing beaches and where they filmed Point Break and also the lighthouse where they used to film Round the Twist if you remember that (Have you ever, ever felt like this, when strange things happen are you going round the twist?)

We had one last night in Melbourne but to be honest we were so exhausted from all the excitement of the Great Ocean Road that we just chilled at the hostel with our Irish dorm buddies. The following day we had to be out of the hostel by 10am but our night bus back to Sydney wasn't until 7pm so we had alot of time to kill. We decided to hit the casino in town - why not try and double our travelling budget...! The casino was massive, it had loads of pokies (Aussie for slot machines) which were being propped up by elderly Japanese women who looked like they had been in residency for weeks. They also had poker tables. I managed to resist the $100 poker tables, a decision based largely on the fact that eventually after 5 months of travelling I have only just about mastered Rummy. I thought I may look abit of an amateur playing with the big guys. However, we had a good afternoon wandering round and watching other people win big and lose big - then it was time for the bus.

Our next stop - Sydney (again)

Canberra was established in 1911 to create a national capital for the newly federated country of Australia. The task was awarded to master designer Walter Burley Griffin a Chicago architect who won an international design competition. The city certainly has a very planned feel to it, everything is very well laid out and green. The city is arranged around Lake Burley Griffin an enormous man-made lake featuring the Captain Cook Memorial Water Jet. Canberra doesn't appear to feature too heavily on the backpacker route and we soon discovered this was because old Walt forgot to include any form of nightlife!

Captain Cook Memorial - Lake Griffin

The cool thing about Canberra is that there is plenty of stuff to see and what's even better is that it is all funded by the government so its free. We ended up staying in a pretty awful hostel so we figured it was best to spend as little time as possible there. On your first day we went to the National Museum of Australia on the north side of Lake Griffin which detailed how the city was planned and built. It featured a pretty cool model of the whole city complete with commentary and flashing lights.

Next we hit the National Gallery where we had an hour long guided tour by an art expert. I have never been much of an art lover but this guide was awesome. She explained in a very "arty" fashion all about various paintings and what the artist was trying to convey. I just thought a painting was a painting but soon we were all openly discussing each brushstroke - scary. Things got even scarier when I got told off for touching this well old painting from the 1800, I mean it's not as if I was going to smudge it!

National Gallery - Art anyone?

We were on a cultural role (well there is nothing else to do in Canberra) so we headed over to Parliament House. After another brief tour we were able to go in and watch a session in progress. It was abit disappointing actually, i'd heard Australian politics can get pretty fizzy a times but there wasn't so much as a brief scuffle. Having said that it was actually pretty interesting to see how it all worked and building itself was seriously impressive.

We hired bikes on our second day as you have to walk for miles to get anywhere in Canberra, even by our standards it was abit much. We spent the morning at the National War Memorial resisting the urge for a 2 hour tour this time. Then we cycled over to check out the Prime Ministers gaff but you couldn't see anything apart from a big set of gates. We loitered for a while hoping this might provoke some action but no such luck. After a brief trip looking at all the different embassies we retreated, a little exhausted to the park to chill.

National War Memorial

I'm glad we checked out Canberra, I did learn a fair bit about Aussie politics, Aussie War, Aussie architecture and Aussie art - this travelling lark isn't all about chilling on beaches drinking goon you know!

Now get me to the pub...

Our next stop - Melbourne

It was a pretty lengthy bus journey down to Sydney but luckily we were kept well entertained by a group of young girls who were making the most of their school holidays - I've never heard language so foul (learnt a few new ones). It felt good to be back in a big city, we sourced ourselves a decent hostel and then typically ventured out on one of our infamous walking tours.

We covered quite alot of the main city until eventually we hit the two big ones, The Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Although this is my second time in Sydney they are both just as impressive sights. To be honest I made abit of a tit of myself, as we arrived at the harbour Mark was like "Hey check out Harbour Bridge - that's pretty cool" and I was like "Nah - that's not Harbour Bridge, Harbour bridge is red" turns out I was confusing it with the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - what a lemon!

Sydney Opera House

We took loads of photo's of the outside and then decided to take the tour inside the Opera House. The guide was really good and very knowledgeable so we learnt alot about it's controversial background - some of which I already knew from reading a Bill Bryson book. The architect was a young guy from Copenhagen called Jorn Utzon who's original drawings were rejected by the panel of judges due to the complexity of the design. However, there was one american judge on the panel who felt that Utzon's sails design would look well wicked and persuaded the rest of the panel to pursue it. The building began in 1957 but they were working purely from Utzon's drawings, arguably, it was beyond the capabilities of engineering at the time. It wasn't long before they were over budget and the New South Wales government refused any further funding, Utzon's resigned from the project. The building was eventually finished in 1973 and although Utzon did re-join the team and went on to design the majority of the interior he has never been to Sydney to see the finished building. Today the Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognised and photographed buildings in the world.

Main concert hall

We were lucky, there weren't any performances when we took the tour so we went into both the main concert rooms which really were really amazing but smaller than I imagined. The interior is very retro and has alot of exposed concrete, apparently Utzon was a fan of "Brutalism" initially it looks abit weird but I suppose it helps to make the building unique. All in all it was a really interesting tour. We did try and get tickets for that evenings performance of Pirates of Penzance but weren't really that surprised when informed that tickets typically sell out weeks in advance. We went back to our dorm and met Matt (from Texas) and Andrews (from Norway) so we headed out to drink some beer, they were really funny guys, we had a top night.

The following morning, despite feeling abit rough we headed back down to circular quay with Matt and Andrews to go Jet Boating. The concept is pretty straightforward, you pay $30 to be ragged around the harbour for 30 mins in a 850 horse power speed boat reaching speeds of 80km per hour. The boat does 270 degree spins and loads of other tricks to basically get you soaked. We held on tight, we nearly hurled, we certainly got soaked but it cured our hangovers so we were more than happy. We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out more of Sydney.

Our plan was to move on to the beaches of Bondi and Manly but the weather took a turn for the worse and with it forecast to last a few days myself and Mark decided to make the 2 hour train to Katoomba to explore the Blue Mountains.

FACT: The blue haze that gives the mountains their name, is the result of the ultrafine oily mist given off by Eucalyptus. Seen from a distance the haze makes the mountains look blue.

Katoomba is a pretty small place in itself and we stayed in a really weird hostel run by a really weird guy but you can't knock Katoomba for its scenery. We headed to Echo Point in the Blue Mountains National Park as we were both pretty keen to see the Three Sisters. The views really were amazing, we spent the afternoon walking around the National Park and taking lots of photo's which all look the same.

The Three Sisters

After a few days in Katoomba we got the train back to Sydney but the weather so still abit ropey so we decided to continue our journey south and hit Sydney's beaches before we fly out at the end of the month.

Our next stop - Canberra