The three day slog was as painful and boring as you could imagine and we were racking up some serious mileage at this point. The one good thing was that we got to stop at geikie gorge on the way back to break up the monotony. Its a pretty enough little gorge and worth the diversion. For a bonus we saw an olive python on the way out of the gorge. The rest was boring and we were super happy to get to Katherine. It was almost the end of the road trip and we had 5 days left to see the top end.
We set off for Kakadu NP and first aimed for Yurmikmik to do some hiking first. This was super dull and a waste of time. We vowed to stick to the highlights. We were told that Gunlom would require a high clearance 4WD to get there. We were later told that this is not true, but it was too late by then. Even more frustrating when we realised that the beautiful infinity pool shot from LP was taken there. Cannelle had wanted to check it out, but I said no as the car was already damaged. Stupid me. Afterwards we did go to Maguk (which actually needs a 4WD for one point) but we handled that fine. We were a little wary as someone had been eaten at Kakadu by a saltwater crocodile not long before our trip. I have never been as scared of water as I was in that park. Maguk is a beautiful little rock pool and well worth the 'hike' as the Australians call it. Yeah its a hike alright lol. Anything more than 1km is a hike for them. From here we headed to yellow waters where the boat cruise was too expensive but the wetlands themselves are really beautiful and well worth a visit. I think the tour is more for birdwatchers than mammal lovers. We finished up at Nourlangie rocks where we saw some aboriginal rock art. I liked some of them, but the others liked them a lot more than I did. There was one evil spirit who used to wear a head marker, bash women over the heads with yams and eat the people it killed. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a perfect description of a tribal Papua New Guinean so I assume that the evil spirit was probably based upon some Papuan raiders. We couldn't make it down to Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls because it needs a high clearance 4WD and we didn't want to risk it. Good job as our battery died only 2 days later.
The next day we went back to Nourlangie to take the longer walk on the other side. Apparently almost noone goes there because you have to walk 3.5km lol. It is a little pathetic when you can walk 60km a day that 3.5km is considered a big walk. I don't even consider less than 10km to be a walk, let alone a big walk. From here we headed up to Ubirr to see the main gallery of aboriginal art. This one is really beautiful and the views over into Arnhem Land were much prettier than we were expecting. Really special place. Even saw some rock wallabies. We then went down to Cahills Crossing. Here you can sometimes see crocodiles. We only got to see one on the bank. The river crossing for vehicles here is tidal and it had flooded so noone could get across. People were still standing by the side of the river. Despite the death and the warnings it seems that some people are still super stupid. We were disappointed not to see more wildlife there, though we did get to see a lot of birdlife. We figured we would get to the wildlife park on the way back to the city. On the way across to Litchfield we opted for a jumping crocodile cruise. Given the frankly ridiculous prices of tours in Australia it was amazing to see such a good tour for just $35. You get an hour on the river watching the saltwater crocodiles being fed and later some action from the kites. They claimed that noone has ever been killed on their river so they must be doing something right. The sight of these huge crocodiles attacking the meat is enough to educate you not to hang too close to the water edges. The raptor takes were equally impressive and it turns out that kites will take a fire and eat all the fleeing animals. Then they will pick up sticks and make more fire so they can hunt down even more animals. Impressive no? This tour is well worth the money and we were enjoying the North end of Australia.
We had got to Litchfield for the night and it was our last full day with the car when the battery went flat in the morning. It took a local to tell us as we had no idea. All car illiterate. Damn it. We had to wait 2 hours for the company to send someone to jump start the car. I think the mileage took the car way beyond its servicing date. We the discovered that there was dead bird in the engine as well. Nice. We eventually got started and decided to just do Litchfield as we no longer had enough time for the wildlife park. Litchfield is a small little park and has a number of waterfalls and swimming holes. I think its really pretty and would be a fun day trip from Darwin. There is nothing exceptional, but if you like swimming in safe, very cold water then that place will be for you. We finally limped in to Darwin and frantically cleaned all the sand off the car so that they wouldn't know what we had done with the car.
In the morning we gave it back and the road trip had come to an end. We had had a lot of fun on it and seen a lot of places with a lot of dull driving in the middle. We asked them how many kms we had done. Bear in mind we only had it for 3 weeks. The guy did a double take and said 'if this is correct then its 11,500km. Does that sound right?' Yep it does and we used the car well in that time. We had seen a large chunk of Australia. We would leave the country with just Queensland to really see. We were covered so the windscreen was no probem. That will serve them right. Cost them more money by getting us to take the insurance. We sat back and decided to kick back in Darwin for 4 days while we waited for the Ghan back down south to Adelaide. Varun only had 2 days so we visited the botanical gardens and the museum (which is a really interesting museum) and the sunday we went down to the waterfront and to the Mindil Beach sunday night market (this is an awesome place). It has kick arse music in its bars, a nice museum, is multicultural and has a nice vibe. After 3 days I think Darwin is probably the coolest city in Australia. I really like the place and would highly recommend it as a place to visit. Just going to head to the doctor maybe for my nose and go to the cinema tomorrow for cheap tuesdays. Trying not to spend any more money now as we just count down the days to Perth and hopefully until my passport arrives. Will probably be short entries until we go now as I am off to ring the passport people. England lost 2-1 Italy but I don't expect much from us in this world cup. We had a cool road trip. Australia is expensive and a lot of it is repetitive, but the outback is still a cool place. Just be prepared to drive a lot.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Australia Part 7 (Stuart Highway, Mataranka, Katherine, Kununurra, Broome, Karijini NP and Ningaloo)
We set off super early in the morning as we were intending to cover 1200km in a day. It was the start of some serious long slog driving. Just after leaving Alice Springs we were pulled over to the side of the road by some aborigines who had broken down. We didn't have a jump lead though so they decided they would wait for someone else. Cannelle and Varun were doing 300km each in relays and the first half was uneventful. My God what a boring road. We would drive some long and super boring stretches of road but this was one of the most painful. Thank God we only had to do it once. About halfway we came to the famous Devils Marbles. I had assumed they would be a few boulders on the side of the road and they actually have much more than that. It takes a while to walk around them all and they are better than the photos. Not saying they are anything special, but they definitely make for a pleasant break of journey on the way North. We stopped for lunch in Tennant Creek which was another depressing shithole and I was surprised to find a French girl working there. What possessed these foreigners to live in the middle of nowhere I will never know. Rather her than me. We detoured for Newcastle Waters ghost town but there is nothing much there now. Waste of time. We eventually limped into Mataranka quite late and decided to stay the night there.
In the morning we went to the famous hot springs and while they are not really hot (maybe 30 C or so) they are warm enough to have a pleasant swim in. A wallaby came down to the water edge while we were in them as well. We finished up there in the morning and headed on to Katherine Gorge. By this point we were in no mood to see yet another gorge. The boat ride is expensive so we opted to just walk for a view of the first gorge. Its funny how your targets on a trip are constantly shifting depending on what you have seen before. The massive amount of gorges had meant that we were reluctant to see any more. We saw another whip snake here though, which a park ranger identified for us. We spent a couple of hours here and then decided to push for Kununurra. At this point we were making good time and we realised that our ambitious plan could work although we were going to inevitably going to spend a lot of money on petrol. With petrol at on or around $2 a litre it was significantly more expensive here. The road across to Western Australia is much more windy and more fun to drive apparently. It also involves some changes of scenery. We had come from the desert of the middle into the jungle of the north and then back into the boab decked landscape of the west. The boab trees are super cool. I think the fact that they don't have forests but just pop up randomly all over the place makes them that little bit more special. At the camp site the woman told us the bungle bungles were cool but that with the creek crossings we were going to need a high clearance 4WD to make it through. I wasn't happy risking the car there. She also told us they had the mini bungle bungles in town so we decided to visit them in the morning. A 4WD tour to the bungle bungles is $300 for a day. Sick money. I think they list a lot of the 4WD tracks as 4WD when they aren't really, because they want people to take their expensive tours and not to risk their vehicles. I found out from the passport office that there were delays with the applications as well so I will try and call them again tonight to see if anything can be done.
In the morning we visited the mini bungle bungles which made for a pleasant hour or two. We then had a drive past the lake. I would say that Kununrra is a pleasant little town and its probably the only nice town that we saw from Melbourne to Darwin. We had to move fast and got to Halls Creek around lunchtime. There we grabbed some food and also went to visit China Wall which is a ice quartzite rock sticking out of the ground. Worth the diversion. We then did some mental relay driving to get all the way to Broome for the night. That's 1000km in a day including visiting some places. Again the Kimberley was much of a muchness but its probably the least boring of all of the drives. We decided to take a day off and just chill in Broome.
I am not sure Broome was the best place to take a day off the road. Its a bit ugly, there is fuck all to do there and I have no idea how it became a resort town. I pity the West Australians if that is the best they have. We wandered around 'china town' and then went to the famous cable beach, but couldn't be bothered to hang around until sunset. We went out in the evening and had a stroll around, but this town had the largest group of drunken aborigines and it was just becoming far too depressing now. Sometimes we saw some younger people who seemed integrated and you hope that's the future for them and not the drunken sitting around. I am not sure the money they are given by the government is really that beneficial to them. Anyway we were all underwhelmed by Broome but appreciated having the day off the road.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and set off for Karijini NP. We saw on the map that the entrance road was unsealed so we did not make it into the park as we didn't want to drive an unsealed road in the dark. Only the next morning did we find out that it is in fact sealed. The road between Broome and Port Hedland makes the fucking Stuart Highway look fantastic. Maybe Australians would be the only people to find the dull route 66 exciting.
We drove into Karijini and were super pumped because we had heard such great things about the park. It did not disappoint. First we went to Dales Gorge and did a little hike down to some waterfalls. It wasn't what we had seen online but it was very scenic. We spent the morning over there and then headed to the west of the park. We had a look out over jofre falls (which made me laugh as a game of thrones fan) and then we went for a walk down into knox gorge. This is why this place is so fantastic. Australians usually take safety way too seriously but here you are allowed to hang off rocks, scale little precipices and hike in somewhat unsafe terrain. Maybe the fact someone died by falling from the cliff in Kings Canyon today may change all that though. Here we had to balance over water while we traversed the rock place and followed the gorge to the end of the markers. You can take the easy option and swim or you can try to stay high and dry. We grabbed lunch and the best was now to come. We headed over to oxer lookout where you can see 4 gorges coming together. Then we went down into hancock gorge where you have to wade in ice cold water. Its so cold I thought I had frost bite after 2 minutes in it. Fuck it was cold. Reminded me of how fun it is to hike in Zion National Park. You have to do some hanging to make it round the rock walls and then some spider walking down to kermits pool. This is a lot of fun. Not sure you will gain too much from the $300 tour but if I had a crazy budget I would have been tempted. The gorge on the other side is even tougher where you have to wade almost up to your crotch in ice water and then lower yourself down slippery rocks on an iron bar. As there was no way I was going in that ice water I thought the last part was too much risk for the reward but this was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the highlights for all of us. Its a really beautiful place and a definite highlight of Australia. Get down there to see it. So much fun. We got out of the park and again drove through the dark to get to Nananurra roadhouse.
The next day we got to Exmouth by 10am to get to the furthest point of our mad drive. I forgot to mention that on the way to Karijini a road train let fly with a huge rock that cracked a chunk in the windscreen. Thank fuck we took insurance. We were now even more reluctant to take it on an unsealed road because we were uninsured there and if something happened we would be liable for a $2000 windscreen. When we got to Exmouth we found an awesome little bakery with great apple turnovers. We were also told that because of the huge wind all the boats had been cancelled. No diving, no snorkelling and no chance of taking the glass bottom boat out to see. This was disappointing as it had looked good and Varun was a little nervous about snorkelling in the sea as he hadn't been before. We took some snorkels from the visitor centre and headed to turquoise bay to go snorkelling on our own. How disappointing. Like a lot of things in Australia, the hype far exceeds the reality. The beach was beautiful and the water was only a little cold, but the snorkelling was shit and my mask was total bollocks. When you have dived in great places, you can't put up with this kind of bullshit snorkelling. I think I have to give up on snorkelling altogether as I am beginning to hate it as a useless sport. Maybe if we had seen the whale sharks ($400 when we paid $10 in the Philippines) or dived Navy Pier (too expensive for us this time) then it would have been good, but as it stands it was a waste of time going there to be honest. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun pissing around and decided that we would begin our 3 day sprint back to Katherine the next morning. 3000km in 3 days. It was just going to be a relay of slog driving through places we had basically already seen.
In the morning we went to the famous hot springs and while they are not really hot (maybe 30 C or so) they are warm enough to have a pleasant swim in. A wallaby came down to the water edge while we were in them as well. We finished up there in the morning and headed on to Katherine Gorge. By this point we were in no mood to see yet another gorge. The boat ride is expensive so we opted to just walk for a view of the first gorge. Its funny how your targets on a trip are constantly shifting depending on what you have seen before. The massive amount of gorges had meant that we were reluctant to see any more. We saw another whip snake here though, which a park ranger identified for us. We spent a couple of hours here and then decided to push for Kununurra. At this point we were making good time and we realised that our ambitious plan could work although we were going to inevitably going to spend a lot of money on petrol. With petrol at on or around $2 a litre it was significantly more expensive here. The road across to Western Australia is much more windy and more fun to drive apparently. It also involves some changes of scenery. We had come from the desert of the middle into the jungle of the north and then back into the boab decked landscape of the west. The boab trees are super cool. I think the fact that they don't have forests but just pop up randomly all over the place makes them that little bit more special. At the camp site the woman told us the bungle bungles were cool but that with the creek crossings we were going to need a high clearance 4WD to make it through. I wasn't happy risking the car there. She also told us they had the mini bungle bungles in town so we decided to visit them in the morning. A 4WD tour to the bungle bungles is $300 for a day. Sick money. I think they list a lot of the 4WD tracks as 4WD when they aren't really, because they want people to take their expensive tours and not to risk their vehicles. I found out from the passport office that there were delays with the applications as well so I will try and call them again tonight to see if anything can be done.
In the morning we visited the mini bungle bungles which made for a pleasant hour or two. We then had a drive past the lake. I would say that Kununrra is a pleasant little town and its probably the only nice town that we saw from Melbourne to Darwin. We had to move fast and got to Halls Creek around lunchtime. There we grabbed some food and also went to visit China Wall which is a ice quartzite rock sticking out of the ground. Worth the diversion. We then did some mental relay driving to get all the way to Broome for the night. That's 1000km in a day including visiting some places. Again the Kimberley was much of a muchness but its probably the least boring of all of the drives. We decided to take a day off and just chill in Broome.
I am not sure Broome was the best place to take a day off the road. Its a bit ugly, there is fuck all to do there and I have no idea how it became a resort town. I pity the West Australians if that is the best they have. We wandered around 'china town' and then went to the famous cable beach, but couldn't be bothered to hang around until sunset. We went out in the evening and had a stroll around, but this town had the largest group of drunken aborigines and it was just becoming far too depressing now. Sometimes we saw some younger people who seemed integrated and you hope that's the future for them and not the drunken sitting around. I am not sure the money they are given by the government is really that beneficial to them. Anyway we were all underwhelmed by Broome but appreciated having the day off the road.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and set off for Karijini NP. We saw on the map that the entrance road was unsealed so we did not make it into the park as we didn't want to drive an unsealed road in the dark. Only the next morning did we find out that it is in fact sealed. The road between Broome and Port Hedland makes the fucking Stuart Highway look fantastic. Maybe Australians would be the only people to find the dull route 66 exciting.
We drove into Karijini and were super pumped because we had heard such great things about the park. It did not disappoint. First we went to Dales Gorge and did a little hike down to some waterfalls. It wasn't what we had seen online but it was very scenic. We spent the morning over there and then headed to the west of the park. We had a look out over jofre falls (which made me laugh as a game of thrones fan) and then we went for a walk down into knox gorge. This is why this place is so fantastic. Australians usually take safety way too seriously but here you are allowed to hang off rocks, scale little precipices and hike in somewhat unsafe terrain. Maybe the fact someone died by falling from the cliff in Kings Canyon today may change all that though. Here we had to balance over water while we traversed the rock place and followed the gorge to the end of the markers. You can take the easy option and swim or you can try to stay high and dry. We grabbed lunch and the best was now to come. We headed over to oxer lookout where you can see 4 gorges coming together. Then we went down into hancock gorge where you have to wade in ice cold water. Its so cold I thought I had frost bite after 2 minutes in it. Fuck it was cold. Reminded me of how fun it is to hike in Zion National Park. You have to do some hanging to make it round the rock walls and then some spider walking down to kermits pool. This is a lot of fun. Not sure you will gain too much from the $300 tour but if I had a crazy budget I would have been tempted. The gorge on the other side is even tougher where you have to wade almost up to your crotch in ice water and then lower yourself down slippery rocks on an iron bar. As there was no way I was going in that ice water I thought the last part was too much risk for the reward but this was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the highlights for all of us. Its a really beautiful place and a definite highlight of Australia. Get down there to see it. So much fun. We got out of the park and again drove through the dark to get to Nananurra roadhouse.
The next day we got to Exmouth by 10am to get to the furthest point of our mad drive. I forgot to mention that on the way to Karijini a road train let fly with a huge rock that cracked a chunk in the windscreen. Thank fuck we took insurance. We were now even more reluctant to take it on an unsealed road because we were uninsured there and if something happened we would be liable for a $2000 windscreen. When we got to Exmouth we found an awesome little bakery with great apple turnovers. We were also told that because of the huge wind all the boats had been cancelled. No diving, no snorkelling and no chance of taking the glass bottom boat out to see. This was disappointing as it had looked good and Varun was a little nervous about snorkelling in the sea as he hadn't been before. We took some snorkels from the visitor centre and headed to turquoise bay to go snorkelling on our own. How disappointing. Like a lot of things in Australia, the hype far exceeds the reality. The beach was beautiful and the water was only a little cold, but the snorkelling was shit and my mask was total bollocks. When you have dived in great places, you can't put up with this kind of bullshit snorkelling. I think I have to give up on snorkelling altogether as I am beginning to hate it as a useless sport. Maybe if we had seen the whale sharks ($400 when we paid $10 in the Philippines) or dived Navy Pier (too expensive for us this time) then it would have been good, but as it stands it was a waste of time going there to be honest. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun pissing around and decided that we would begin our 3 day sprint back to Katherine the next morning. 3000km in 3 days. It was just going to be a relay of slog driving through places we had basically already seen.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Australia Part 6 (Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, Hermannsburg and the West MacDonnells)
We had seen the first part of the road trip and we were making faster progress than we had expected so I was starting to think that we would be able to make really good time and visit a lot more places than we had been expecting to see. It was around now where I was starting to realise that there was a lot of nothingness in the Outback and you can cover some very long distances before you see anything interesting. I also had regrets about not visiting Karijini. Looking at the map we decided we could go there and opted to add Karijini and Ningaloo to the original plans. We drove onwards and stopped for a short walk to a salt lake and a look over Mt Connor on the way in. We were managing to see at least one cool thing everyday on this trip so far, so it was off setting the extreme driving and the fatigue was yet to kick in. We got to Uluru resort in time to head for the famous sunset. Its very nice and although I am not much of a sunset man, you can see the subtle shift in colour tone on the rock as the sun descended. It was a little surreal staring at the iconic Australian image. So many people had told us how disappointed they had been with Uluru etc that we had our expectations suitably low and I think that really helps to appreciate the magnificence of the place.
In the morning we headed down for sunrise. That was a mistake as it looks exactly the same as the sunset only in reverse. For someone who doesn't care that much for the sun it was a little boring watching it a second time. Then we drove to Kata Tjuta to do the Valley of the Winds walk as they recommend doing it in the morning. This was a really beautiful little hike. The tour groups only do the walk to the viewpoint, but I definitely think its worth doing the full circuit as we saw a Euro (weird name I know but not the money but a type of wallaby). We did the second walk as well, which is nice but not as special as the most famous one. Its very peaceful and you can see why the aborigines revered the place. Of course they revered anything that is of the slightest bit of interest. Makes sense. When you live in flat, boring nothingness then everything else looks spectacular. I actually think Kata Tjuta looks spectacular from a distance, nothing special from the viewpoint and quite pretty when you hike around it. Well worth doing all three to get the different perspectives. After that we went back and did the full 11km circuit hike around Uluru. Doing 22km would normally be nothing for us, but in the middle of the day in the Outback that can almost knock you flat. The water is just sucked right out of you. The walk goes through some special places and you really get a feel for the rock. The waterhole area is one of the most serenely beautiful places we saw on the trip. Everyone just fell silent there and just absorbed the atmosphere. I don't think you need to do the full loop though, although if you drive down you will have to as the back side is just a long shadeless walk along the road. Its the front end that is more interesting. The rock is more impressive when you walk around it as you see the cracks, cuts and slashes along the surface. These are not very visible from distance when it just looks like a giant, solid slab of rock. Surprisingly for us we saw people climbing up it. A lot of Australians but also a lot of foreigners. This surprised us as we figured everyone would know that this would offend the aborigines and therefore not do it. Apparently 38% of people still elect to climb it. They won't stop it until that number drops below 20%. So much for principles. Surely it is sacred or it is not. Saying something is sacred but that money takes precedence is not going to be a very persuasive argument to people that your culture stands for something. For the foreigners I don't see the point. What do you see up there. A higher view of fuck all across the plains? Oh well. There is an interesting book of apologies in the cultural centre where people have returned rocks they took from Uluru and apologised for taking them. There are too many stupid fucks out there. Really? Why the fuck are they stealing rocks from a sacred site. That triggers off another irony. Why are the Australians panning the aborigines for getting wasted every night and stumbling around like bums. Have they never seen their own cities at night. Tell me whats the difference except one is in the streets and the other is in the bars. We finished up with Uluru and drove out to one of the free campsites.
The next day we got to Kings Canyon where we were checked in by a robot. There is no way that guy was human. Weird. Maybe they are testing robots for customer service. This seems to be quite common in Australia. Oh well. We set off to do the Canyon Walk. At first it looks like it was going to be a boring gorge walk, but it actually morphs into one of the highlights of the trip. Certainly for the others. I think the circumnavigating walk is quite impressive, but its the beehive style domes at the end that caught me by surprise. They looked very much like a dilapidated version of the bungle bungles. Very beautiful. We also saw what were probably a couple of red kangaroos here. We decided that we wouldn't go to the bungle bungles now if it was difficult as we had seen something similar. Apparently all these rock formations had been part of a giant inland sea and that probably explains the colour and uniqueness. Its definitely a cool place, though I preferred Uluru, I think I was in the minority of just me. All of them were special. In the campsite in the evening we got to see our first dingo as well. Cool.
In the morning we took another unsealed road round to Hermannsburg. It had looked interesting and after camping for a few days already now, the idea of having some apple strudel had some serious appeal. We got there and toured the old mission for the aborigines. It is weird to see some old historical buildings and interesting to read the history of the place. The food was also really cheap and good for the outback. Well worth the deviation. We even saw a lot of aborigines in better conditions than Alice Springs. It had a more positive vibe until the petrol station guy told us he had to lock the petrol pumps in order to prevent petrol sniffing. Fuck sake. The depression continued. We pushed on from here and saw a lookout over some lush green vegetation before making it to the west of the West MacDonnells.
The mountain range is kind of similar and after a while you get to be a bit sick of gorges. There are a lot of gorges in the outback. It is definitely the most proliferous of sites. Some of them were really beautiful and some were not bad. They were all quite similar. I am glad that we decided just to spend the one day here and not two as we originally planned. This is where we knew we would be able to push it harder for the rest of the trip as we were beginning to get saturated with some things. We did see our first whip snake here, which is a little scary as you know all these little bastards can kill you here. We also saw our first redback spider after all our time here. Still haven't managed to see a huntsman though. In the final gorge, closest to Alice Springs we saw a black footed rock wallaby. Lots of the little guys. So unbelievably cute. It was a pleasant roll back into Alice Springs where Laura would leave us to fly back to Sydney. We spent another half day in the depressing shithole before we would have to leave in the morning. Here we met an old Australian guy who had been doing a lot of salvation army work with aborigines. He said a lot of old men in Queensland take alcohol out to aboriginal women in exchange for sex. Ah the joys of mankind. He also told lots of stories f his time in the British army and it was interesting to hear about Cyprus and Northern Ireland from someone who had actually been there. The first part of the trip had been pleasantly paced and we had enjoyed all of it. Now we were going to pick up the pace and go mental for the second half of the trip.
In the morning we headed down for sunrise. That was a mistake as it looks exactly the same as the sunset only in reverse. For someone who doesn't care that much for the sun it was a little boring watching it a second time. Then we drove to Kata Tjuta to do the Valley of the Winds walk as they recommend doing it in the morning. This was a really beautiful little hike. The tour groups only do the walk to the viewpoint, but I definitely think its worth doing the full circuit as we saw a Euro (weird name I know but not the money but a type of wallaby). We did the second walk as well, which is nice but not as special as the most famous one. Its very peaceful and you can see why the aborigines revered the place. Of course they revered anything that is of the slightest bit of interest. Makes sense. When you live in flat, boring nothingness then everything else looks spectacular. I actually think Kata Tjuta looks spectacular from a distance, nothing special from the viewpoint and quite pretty when you hike around it. Well worth doing all three to get the different perspectives. After that we went back and did the full 11km circuit hike around Uluru. Doing 22km would normally be nothing for us, but in the middle of the day in the Outback that can almost knock you flat. The water is just sucked right out of you. The walk goes through some special places and you really get a feel for the rock. The waterhole area is one of the most serenely beautiful places we saw on the trip. Everyone just fell silent there and just absorbed the atmosphere. I don't think you need to do the full loop though, although if you drive down you will have to as the back side is just a long shadeless walk along the road. Its the front end that is more interesting. The rock is more impressive when you walk around it as you see the cracks, cuts and slashes along the surface. These are not very visible from distance when it just looks like a giant, solid slab of rock. Surprisingly for us we saw people climbing up it. A lot of Australians but also a lot of foreigners. This surprised us as we figured everyone would know that this would offend the aborigines and therefore not do it. Apparently 38% of people still elect to climb it. They won't stop it until that number drops below 20%. So much for principles. Surely it is sacred or it is not. Saying something is sacred but that money takes precedence is not going to be a very persuasive argument to people that your culture stands for something. For the foreigners I don't see the point. What do you see up there. A higher view of fuck all across the plains? Oh well. There is an interesting book of apologies in the cultural centre where people have returned rocks they took from Uluru and apologised for taking them. There are too many stupid fucks out there. Really? Why the fuck are they stealing rocks from a sacred site. That triggers off another irony. Why are the Australians panning the aborigines for getting wasted every night and stumbling around like bums. Have they never seen their own cities at night. Tell me whats the difference except one is in the streets and the other is in the bars. We finished up with Uluru and drove out to one of the free campsites.
The next day we got to Kings Canyon where we were checked in by a robot. There is no way that guy was human. Weird. Maybe they are testing robots for customer service. This seems to be quite common in Australia. Oh well. We set off to do the Canyon Walk. At first it looks like it was going to be a boring gorge walk, but it actually morphs into one of the highlights of the trip. Certainly for the others. I think the circumnavigating walk is quite impressive, but its the beehive style domes at the end that caught me by surprise. They looked very much like a dilapidated version of the bungle bungles. Very beautiful. We also saw what were probably a couple of red kangaroos here. We decided that we wouldn't go to the bungle bungles now if it was difficult as we had seen something similar. Apparently all these rock formations had been part of a giant inland sea and that probably explains the colour and uniqueness. Its definitely a cool place, though I preferred Uluru, I think I was in the minority of just me. All of them were special. In the campsite in the evening we got to see our first dingo as well. Cool.
In the morning we took another unsealed road round to Hermannsburg. It had looked interesting and after camping for a few days already now, the idea of having some apple strudel had some serious appeal. We got there and toured the old mission for the aborigines. It is weird to see some old historical buildings and interesting to read the history of the place. The food was also really cheap and good for the outback. Well worth the deviation. We even saw a lot of aborigines in better conditions than Alice Springs. It had a more positive vibe until the petrol station guy told us he had to lock the petrol pumps in order to prevent petrol sniffing. Fuck sake. The depression continued. We pushed on from here and saw a lookout over some lush green vegetation before making it to the west of the West MacDonnells.
The mountain range is kind of similar and after a while you get to be a bit sick of gorges. There are a lot of gorges in the outback. It is definitely the most proliferous of sites. Some of them were really beautiful and some were not bad. They were all quite similar. I am glad that we decided just to spend the one day here and not two as we originally planned. This is where we knew we would be able to push it harder for the rest of the trip as we were beginning to get saturated with some things. We did see our first whip snake here, which is a little scary as you know all these little bastards can kill you here. We also saw our first redback spider after all our time here. Still haven't managed to see a huntsman though. In the final gorge, closest to Alice Springs we saw a black footed rock wallaby. Lots of the little guys. So unbelievably cute. It was a pleasant roll back into Alice Springs where Laura would leave us to fly back to Sydney. We spent another half day in the depressing shithole before we would have to leave in the morning. Here we met an old Australian guy who had been doing a lot of salvation army work with aborigines. He said a lot of old men in Queensland take alcohol out to aboriginal women in exchange for sex. Ah the joys of mankind. He also told lots of stories f his time in the British army and it was interesting to hear about Cyprus and Northern Ireland from someone who had actually been there. The first part of the trip had been pleasantly paced and we had enjoyed all of it. Now we were going to pick up the pace and go mental for the second half of the trip.
Australia Part 5 (Overland, Ghan, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy, Breakaways and Painted Desert)
Just got back from 3 weeks in the Outback with no real internet connections so this is the first time I am able to update the blog. Still waiting on the new passport and its looking likely that we may have to work in Perth while we wait for it as we arrive there on the 28th June and its less than 2 weeks to go now. Hopefully I am wrong. If not Cannelle may go ahead of me to Kuala Lumpur and sort out her own French passport so we don't have to waste loads of time in two places. This holiday is becoming a nightmare logistically. Need to follow my own rule of no more islands lol.
Anyway we spent a couple of days in Melbourne just chilling out and catching up with Larissa who I hadn't seen in ages. Was nice just to chill out doing not too much. We took the Overland train to Adelaide and so far all of the train rides are super boring. You get to see a lot of nothingness that is the outback which is nic, but if you are planning on road tripping around the outback at all then I don't think its necessary to take these journeys. Not for the prices they charge anyway. For foreigners though it remains a cheap way to get around the country and see all of the big cities. Most of the passengers were old Australians doing trips around. In fact there are almost no young Australians travelling around the country. Just old people and foreigners. We got into Adelaide and just caught up with my friend Michael. No time to do anything as we would be coming back here later on. We picked up the Ghan the next day to head to Alice Springs and passed through yet more boring scenery. The seats recline well though and you can sleep fine. The food is also reasonably priced so you don't really need to bring your own.
Then we arrived in Alice Springs. There really isn't much to do here. Its a pretty depressing city. I had been told about the drunken aboriginals hanging out, but nothing can quite prepare you for how thoroughly depressing it is. Cannelle even asked 'what did we do to these people?' Fuck me. I have never seen such abject hopelessness as this and I have travelled all over the place. We managed to buy all of the supplies that we would need on the road trip for around $100 and just chilled out for a couple of days. I played some football with guys at the hostel and just chatted with a bunch of random people. Eventually Saturday came and Laura and Varun joined us. I told them that there wasn't much to see and so we just did a food shop, picked up the car and set off down the Stuart Highway. While picking up the car they twisted our arm to get a full insurance which was lucky for us as you will see later. The guy was super road and when Varun was spelling his name he had to correct his spelling with 'No its an I. I for idiot'. He and Cannelle had trouble keeping a straight face after that one. We were off and running on our outback roadtrip. We visited Rainbow Valley on the way and took the car onto the first 4x4 track. It seems that most of the 4x4 tracks in Australia really don't require a proper 4x4 as we took our Mitsubishi Outlander onto most of them. Only the high clearance tracks would probably have been too much and we didn't want to risk the car on those tracks as we were uninsured for them. Rainbow Valley is very beautiful and we had the place to ourselves which would happen a lot on the outback trip. We didn't get too far from Alice Springs before we had to stop for the night. The famous roadhouse no longer has a dingo playing the keyboard, but it still serves decent camel burgers. Varun realised he had forgotten his tent and so we had to call Coober Pedy to check if they had one in stock for the next day. Luckily they did. We were woken up by an emu patrolling around our tent. I was hoping it was a portent of all the wildlife we were going to see on the trip.
The next day we got cracking early (a theme for the trip) and set off for Coober Pedy with relays of driving. On the way we stopped off to visit the Breakaways and the Castle north of Coober Pedy. This actually ended up being the highlight of the trip for 3 of us. Not so much for Laura as she had seen similar rock formations in Salta in Argentina, but at least I now knew why that region was so popular as I had missed it when I was down there. Won't be so spectacular for me now when I get down there. The Breakaways look a little like the painted desert and if you can't get down there then you should definitely get to this place. It looks like runs on an artists palette with the range of colours and the yellow and white castle is really nice. The dog fence is just a fence and the moon plain is a bit of a waste of time, but the others are definitely worth visiting. We made it into Coober Pedy and decided not to stay in the underground hostel (one of two regrets and the only one we could have changed). The city looks like an industrial wasteland and you can see why it was used for films like Pitch Black. Went to see the spaceship from the film set and climbed the central hill for a sunset over the plains. The sunsets in the outback are something else completely and every one is uniquely spectacular. I think when you are out here you get that sense of great emptiness. You can't really appreciate it in photos as I think half of the appeal of places comes from their emergence out of the complete nothingness. I mean you drive for 5 hours seeing absolutely fuck all and then all of a sudden you emerge from the nothingness and in front of you is something unique, spectacular and utterly isolated. Though Coober Pedy was not one of these places lol. We got chatting with some older travellers. The 4x4 and caravan community are very chatty around Australia. People say Kiwis are friendlier. I disagree. They are just comparing the South Island with Queensland. Thats not a fair comparison. If you compare the South Island with Tasmania or the Outback then you find its more or less the same.
In the morning we went up to see the big winch. I liked it while everyone else was underwhelmed. Oh well. Can't please everyone. We tried to visit an underground house but they were all closed so we ended up just seeing an underground church which was super cute. We left and drove up through the moon plain and were aiming to camp in the painted desert that night. The only problem was the rain. It was raining sporadically and we were driving on an unsealed road. We weren't insured for this. Damn it. We eventually got there and somehow even managed to spray sand into the boot of the car. we didn't clean it until the end of the holiday. The painted desert is beautiful but so much smaller than I imagined. Varun didn't tell us it was so small or we would have walked around for longer. Its a pleasant place to be and once again we had the place completely to ourselves. Special. We saw our first kangaroo like animal as well. We are not sure if we ever saw a red kangaroo or if they were all euros. I now think that this one was a euro and the ones at kings canyon were possibly red kangaroos. We decided not to camp there as we weren't sure about the weather and so we decided to drive on back to the Stuart Highway. Its a beautiful place though. We had completed our first few days. We also got feedback from Laura about Queensland. She had said it was nice but not spectacular, which seems to be most of Australia, especially given the prices. She most liked the barrier reef and fraser island. Oh well. No regrets as I think we will come back and do Eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Queensland on one giant diving and wildlife holiday in the future.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Australia Part 4 (Mt Field NP, Lyell Highway, Queenstown, Strahan and Cradle Mountain NP)
We chilled out in Hobart for the rest of the time we had there and then decided to head off for Strahan. It was going to be a long day and we had to set off early. We followed the road LP describes as stunning to get to Mt Field NP. It is not the impressive, but a pleasant drive. We did not have time to do all the things in the park so we just did the short walk to Russell Falls which is not bad, but nothing too special. Then we hopped in the car and shot up the Lyell Highway. Until Lake St Clair there is not a lot to see, but once we got there we stopped for lunch. Its not bad, but nothing too special. Its from here that the road becomes really stunning. It enters Franklin Rivers National Park and the drive is spectacular, passing through fields, forests and mountain valleys. All of the side walks are quite pretty but it is Donaghy's Lookout that you simply have to stop to. Seemingly everyone else skipped it, but it is a beautiful short hike. Its quite amazing that after just 20 minutes of walking you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. Amazingly peaceful. Its 20 minutes off the highway, but it feels like 20 hours away. Well worth the time. Eventually we rocked up in Queenstown and went up to the viewpoint. Wow. I had not been expecting that. You can see down into the mining pit. Its very beautiful although the wind is super strong up there. People had told us that it was a shithole, but I think its quite a cute little town. We were running out of time so we carried on to Strahan, which is a cute little waterfront town. We stayed in a B and B here and decided to go for a nice meal in the expensive restaurant in town. The oysters were great and the pudding was fantastic, but the rest of the food was somewhat disappointing. Shame as it cost us quite a bit.
In the morning we laid in and chilled out before setting off for Cradle Mountain. The road is the usual winding Tasmanian road and it is quite pretty along the way although there is nothing specific to see. We got to Cradle Mountain around 1.30pm and the woman at reception told us that we should hurry to get down to the mountain that night as the weather was likely to be shit for the next few days and we needed to be able to see the mountain. We dropped off the car and took the free shuttle down to the lake. I found it really beautiful there as we had a clear view and the trees were half orange with the autumn change of colour. Cannelle just thought that it was nice. We went for a little walk around dove lake but we had to get the last bus back which was a shame as it would have been nice to do some hiking. Tomorrow we would go back. If I had known how the weather would have been the next day I think I'd have gone hiking that evening. We saw a few wombats and wallabies in the evening but went to bed early.
The next morning we got up to go hiking but it was caining it down with rain. Shitty. We tried to wait it out for a bit and then just decided to hike anyway. I had wanted to do the Cradle Mountain summit hike but when we got there it was obvious that it was too foggy to do it. We opted to hike to cradle lake, which is probably stunning when you have a clear day. The hiking was still very pleasant even in the rain, so its probably really cool on a good day. We just did a short hour long walk and headed back to the cafe to wait until the end of the day. I really wanted to go looking for a platypus as I know they are almost impossible to see and I was disappointed with my semi view in Canberra. We decided to try down by Ronny Creek as it had been recommended. We didn't see any, but we did see loads of wombats and again a lot of wallabies. On the way back we saw a lot of pademelons around the lodge. In the evening we got chatting with some people in the campsite and they had seen a platypus in the lodge pond so we decided to try there in the morning.
We got up early and braved to rain to see the platypus. When we got there it was close to the bank so we went there quickly only to see it disappear when a loud middle aged group of Australians came and made so much fucking noise that they scared it off. We spent the next 40 minutes silently stalking the pond until we got some great close up shots of the platypus. At last I can say I have seen one and they are super cute in the water. We have seen almost all of the big ticket Australian animals in the wild now. Its nowhere near as difficult as people say it is. We hope to get some of the desert creatures in the outback and the only ones we will miss will be the tree kangaroo and cassowary in queensland as we are not heading over that way. Have to save it for another trip. We left and headed for Sheffield. We decided on the way that we didn't want to go to Mole Creek NP as it was just some caves and we would be pushed for time. Sheffield is a cute town and well worth a stop with all the murals there. The best ones are in the centre of town and its worth stopping by the mural park to see this year's competition. We spent and hour or two looking around. Afterwards we headed back to Launceston, only being a little worried when a piece of plastic hit the car tyre and then it swerved a bit. We though we may have a flat but it looked as though it was just wind. Eventually we got the car back to the airport and took the bus back to Launceston. We went to Burger got Soul which is really good if a little overpriced and then I called the passport people because I was beginning to get worried about why they hadn't received it yet. They told me that they had received it on the friday and so they at least had the paperwork. Lets hope it doesn't take too long. The next day we just headed to the airport and had an hours delay before taking the short flight back to Melbourne. Tasmania is a great place to visit. There is nothing world class, but there is nothing less than great either. Everything is super cute and there is so much to see and do that its definitely an amazing place to go for a two week holiday. Well worth the trip.
In the morning we laid in and chilled out before setting off for Cradle Mountain. The road is the usual winding Tasmanian road and it is quite pretty along the way although there is nothing specific to see. We got to Cradle Mountain around 1.30pm and the woman at reception told us that we should hurry to get down to the mountain that night as the weather was likely to be shit for the next few days and we needed to be able to see the mountain. We dropped off the car and took the free shuttle down to the lake. I found it really beautiful there as we had a clear view and the trees were half orange with the autumn change of colour. Cannelle just thought that it was nice. We went for a little walk around dove lake but we had to get the last bus back which was a shame as it would have been nice to do some hiking. Tomorrow we would go back. If I had known how the weather would have been the next day I think I'd have gone hiking that evening. We saw a few wombats and wallabies in the evening but went to bed early.
The next morning we got up to go hiking but it was caining it down with rain. Shitty. We tried to wait it out for a bit and then just decided to hike anyway. I had wanted to do the Cradle Mountain summit hike but when we got there it was obvious that it was too foggy to do it. We opted to hike to cradle lake, which is probably stunning when you have a clear day. The hiking was still very pleasant even in the rain, so its probably really cool on a good day. We just did a short hour long walk and headed back to the cafe to wait until the end of the day. I really wanted to go looking for a platypus as I know they are almost impossible to see and I was disappointed with my semi view in Canberra. We decided to try down by Ronny Creek as it had been recommended. We didn't see any, but we did see loads of wombats and again a lot of wallabies. On the way back we saw a lot of pademelons around the lodge. In the evening we got chatting with some people in the campsite and they had seen a platypus in the lodge pond so we decided to try there in the morning.
We got up early and braved to rain to see the platypus. When we got there it was close to the bank so we went there quickly only to see it disappear when a loud middle aged group of Australians came and made so much fucking noise that they scared it off. We spent the next 40 minutes silently stalking the pond until we got some great close up shots of the platypus. At last I can say I have seen one and they are super cute in the water. We have seen almost all of the big ticket Australian animals in the wild now. Its nowhere near as difficult as people say it is. We hope to get some of the desert creatures in the outback and the only ones we will miss will be the tree kangaroo and cassowary in queensland as we are not heading over that way. Have to save it for another trip. We left and headed for Sheffield. We decided on the way that we didn't want to go to Mole Creek NP as it was just some caves and we would be pushed for time. Sheffield is a cute town and well worth a stop with all the murals there. The best ones are in the centre of town and its worth stopping by the mural park to see this year's competition. We spent and hour or two looking around. Afterwards we headed back to Launceston, only being a little worried when a piece of plastic hit the car tyre and then it swerved a bit. We though we may have a flat but it looked as though it was just wind. Eventually we got the car back to the airport and took the bus back to Launceston. We went to Burger got Soul which is really good if a little overpriced and then I called the passport people because I was beginning to get worried about why they hadn't received it yet. They told me that they had received it on the friday and so they at least had the paperwork. Lets hope it doesn't take too long. The next day we just headed to the airport and had an hours delay before taking the short flight back to Melbourne. Tasmania is a great place to visit. There is nothing world class, but there is nothing less than great either. Everything is super cute and there is so much to see and do that its definitely an amazing place to go for a two week holiday. Well worth the trip.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Australia Part 3 (Launceston, Bay of Fires, Freycinet NP, Port Arthur and Hobart)
We arrived in Launceston and got the bus into the city. Everyone so far has been super nice to us in Tasmania. Like the South island of New Zealand. We checked into the beautiful hostel that's in a listed building. Only problem is it has no heating for the winter. We had a wander around the town. Its a very pretty little town and we went down to the gorge for a walk. Saw some pademelons and a wallaby down there, as well as some peacocks while we had devon tea. It reminds me a lot of England here. I guess the landscape is similar even if the wildlife isn't. We had to resend the forms for the tax and did that from office works. That sorted out mine, but Cannelle still had to photocopy all of the pages from her passport and get them signed by a police officer before posting them to the medicare offices to get her medicare exemption back. It never ends lol.
We took care of that in the morning and went to pick up the car. The woman told us that a lot of accidents happen in Tasmania, most cars come back damaged and people often drive without car insurance in Tasmania. Now I have no idea if this is true or not, but I know there is a lot of wildlife on the roads here (we have seen a lot of roadkill) and we were obviously still spooked by our experience of scratching up the car in Victoria. By this point they had given us our $200 deposit back but we were worried that we could knacker this car and it would cost us $4000 in excess. We bit the bullet and paid $150 each to reduce the excess to $440. At least that would be a mild inconvenience and not a holiday crippler that the $4000 would be. This will probably be the last car we hire except one for a day in Broken Hill, maybe one for a day in Adelaide (both of which we may insure) and one from Kalgoorlie to Perth. Its also the reason why we probably won't do the west coast as it will start to burn us too much in the end. Not sure we really needed it so far, but we are only half way so far so its maybe too early to judge and it definitely gives us peace of mind.
We set off at lunchtime from Launceston to head to the north east and all of the roads are windy round here with a wide variety of traffic signs. I am sure that drivers from the mainland will never have seen half of these signs there as the roads are just straight and dull. It takes a while to get anywhere and Tasmania drivers are a little crazy, so perhaps the insurance was a good idea. We decided to divert to the North and that was a bad idea as we ended up crawling along a gravel road where we only saw 4x4s. We quickly decided it wasn't a good idea for us to continue up that way as we had already bashed up one rental car. We got back on the main road and headed down to St Helens. From there you can divert into the Bay of Fires. Cannelle was starting to think that it was a lot of driving and she wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it. When we pulled up alongside these almost Philippine white beaches with their tropical (albeit cold) turquoise water and fiery orange lichen covered boulders we realised it was worth it. What a beautiful place. We spent an hour round there and then drove over to the Gardens which are even more beautiful. Its a stunning stretch of coastline and was the first time I had seen crashing turquoise coloured waves. Great start to the east coast. We wanted to blitz it to have more time for the parks in the west and as I am sitting in Hobart at the moment, we are still thinking about what exactly we will do for the second half.
The next day we drove down the coast (diverting pointlessly to St Marys as LP recommends, though we did see a poteroo and wallaby on the road) to Freycinet NP. The weather was a little overcast which was a shame, but you can still see the beautiful pink and orange granite mountains from Coles Bay. In the summer this must be a beautiful place. I think the beaches at Bay of Fires are more beautiful, but the setting here is maybe superior. We did the hike over to Wineglass Bay. It is a truly marvelous view from the top of the summit and the beach was totally deserted when we got down there and could just chill out. We considered a longer walk but the rain was coming in by this point. We enjoyed it for a bit and got back to the car to continue onwards to Port Arthur. It was going to be touch and go if we made it and there were some roadworks as well. We encountered some shitheads on the road who were abusing and swearing at us because we followed the speed limit. You get dickheads everywhere. I was just worried they may come and smash the car up at night as it was obvious where we were headed. The sunset on the Tasman Peninsula was really beautiful and we rocked into the campsite late, where we watched The Voice Australia and saw all the pademelons on the grounds. There are loads around Port Arthur.
In the morning we headed to the Port Arthur historical site. The price is now $35 but its worth it. We got our playing cards to find our historical convict in the basement. Its a nice touch and the museum is informative. We got an hour long guided tour, which we were very lucky to have an interesting tour guide for and they went off script as well. It also included a 20 minute boat trip around the harbour which was nice, though I expect them to be adding that as a separate cost soon. Going all New Zealand on us. The grounds themselves are very beautiful and it does contrast with the convict history there. Its hard to get a handle on what happened there and there is a full spectrum of opinions amongst the tour guides themselves. It guarantees you a unique perspective for your tour. We spent about 4 hours looking around the site before deciding to visit the rest of the peninsula on the way to Hobart. The remarkable cave is well worth the trip, but all the other side trips around Eaglehawk Nest are not worth it really. The peninsula itself is nice enough on its own. We swung by Richmond on the way back and the bridge is nice, but after Port Arthur it doesn't seem quite so colonial. Probably not worth going out of your way for but you may as well visit if if passing. We finally arrived in Hobart and decided that we would do some day trips to the south and west.
The hostel offered a free trip up to Mt Wellington so we took them up on it as we figured it would save us some petrol. We were driven up and the views from the top are really something. You can see out over most of the Tasman Peninsula and the islands south of Hobart. You can even see some of the mountains in Southwest National Park. Everyone walked down, but we didn't think we would have time as we needed to cram so much in. The driver told us to do a 4 hour walk on the Tarn shelf in Mt Field National Park, so we decided to abandon plans to go to the south as it looks very similar. We are concerned about stretching ourselves too thin. After Mt Wellington we went to Salamanca Place and Battery Point to see the historical parts of the city. Its less historical than I expected, but its very cute in its own way. It may be the cutest Australian city we have been to so far. It doesn't take too long to walk around. We got some expensive fish and chips at the docks and they were really disappointing. What we had had in New Zealand had been much cheaper and far better quality. After this disappointment we took the car out to MONA which is horrifically signposted as I guess they want most people to take the ferry. The museum is in a beautiful location and the Derwent river is pretty on the drive North as well. The museum is odd and like most modern art galleries mostly filled with shit. There are some interesting pieces here though and its definitely worth a look. Probably more innovative and interesting than any other art galleries we have been to in Australia. Finally in the evening we headed to Bonorong Wildlife Centre to take the night feeding tour. We paid $179 each for this but it was worth every penny. If you are an animal lover then this is a must. Just the fact that your entrance fee goes towards supporting the work they do there for rescuing and rehabilitating injured animals is enough in itself. We started off feeding the kangaroos. Cannelle was super intimidated by the bigger kangaroos, but they loved the food. We even got to witness two adult males fighting later on in the evening. We went to the wombats first and stayed with Lucy who is a wimpy wombat because she loves human contact and hasn't learnt to be aggressive enough to be released into the wild yet. They do a lot of rehabilitation of injured wildlife on the roads of Tasmania. We did not want to touch many of the animals if it had the risk of distressing them and once he realised that feeding the Tasmanian devils by tug of war was done mostly for tourists we just gave them their food. We were here to learn what they work on and to see the animals, not to touch them. Though the wombats are super cute. We fed, learnt about and observed a wide variety of animals. Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, Koalas, Frogmouths, Potoroos, Bettongs, an albino possum, quolls and the super cute sugar gliders. We learnt a raft of information on these animals in our 2.5 hour tour and it is clear that the carers really know their stuff and our carer could easily answer any question that we put to him. It was a super informative evening, a wonderful experience and a highlight of our trip. If you love wildlife then this is an absolute must. Just do it. Don't worry about the price. You will feel like it was totally worth it and be happy you invested your money in a centre and a project that is definitely worthwhile. After we drove back very slowly in order not to hit anything on the roads.
Today we had planned to do the Tarn walk, but then saw it was a gravel road and Cannelle was feeling tired. In order not to push it too much we decided to take a break and just chill out in Hobart, watch game of thrones and I could catch up on the blog. Tomorrow we will visit the easily accessible parts of Mt Field NP on the way west to Strahan. Should be able to stop at various points along the Franklin river on the way. Looking forward to the west even if most of our time will be in Cradle Mountain NP as its the most accessible. Loving Tasmania so far. Well worth the trip.
We took care of that in the morning and went to pick up the car. The woman told us that a lot of accidents happen in Tasmania, most cars come back damaged and people often drive without car insurance in Tasmania. Now I have no idea if this is true or not, but I know there is a lot of wildlife on the roads here (we have seen a lot of roadkill) and we were obviously still spooked by our experience of scratching up the car in Victoria. By this point they had given us our $200 deposit back but we were worried that we could knacker this car and it would cost us $4000 in excess. We bit the bullet and paid $150 each to reduce the excess to $440. At least that would be a mild inconvenience and not a holiday crippler that the $4000 would be. This will probably be the last car we hire except one for a day in Broken Hill, maybe one for a day in Adelaide (both of which we may insure) and one from Kalgoorlie to Perth. Its also the reason why we probably won't do the west coast as it will start to burn us too much in the end. Not sure we really needed it so far, but we are only half way so far so its maybe too early to judge and it definitely gives us peace of mind.
We set off at lunchtime from Launceston to head to the north east and all of the roads are windy round here with a wide variety of traffic signs. I am sure that drivers from the mainland will never have seen half of these signs there as the roads are just straight and dull. It takes a while to get anywhere and Tasmania drivers are a little crazy, so perhaps the insurance was a good idea. We decided to divert to the North and that was a bad idea as we ended up crawling along a gravel road where we only saw 4x4s. We quickly decided it wasn't a good idea for us to continue up that way as we had already bashed up one rental car. We got back on the main road and headed down to St Helens. From there you can divert into the Bay of Fires. Cannelle was starting to think that it was a lot of driving and she wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it. When we pulled up alongside these almost Philippine white beaches with their tropical (albeit cold) turquoise water and fiery orange lichen covered boulders we realised it was worth it. What a beautiful place. We spent an hour round there and then drove over to the Gardens which are even more beautiful. Its a stunning stretch of coastline and was the first time I had seen crashing turquoise coloured waves. Great start to the east coast. We wanted to blitz it to have more time for the parks in the west and as I am sitting in Hobart at the moment, we are still thinking about what exactly we will do for the second half.
The next day we drove down the coast (diverting pointlessly to St Marys as LP recommends, though we did see a poteroo and wallaby on the road) to Freycinet NP. The weather was a little overcast which was a shame, but you can still see the beautiful pink and orange granite mountains from Coles Bay. In the summer this must be a beautiful place. I think the beaches at Bay of Fires are more beautiful, but the setting here is maybe superior. We did the hike over to Wineglass Bay. It is a truly marvelous view from the top of the summit and the beach was totally deserted when we got down there and could just chill out. We considered a longer walk but the rain was coming in by this point. We enjoyed it for a bit and got back to the car to continue onwards to Port Arthur. It was going to be touch and go if we made it and there were some roadworks as well. We encountered some shitheads on the road who were abusing and swearing at us because we followed the speed limit. You get dickheads everywhere. I was just worried they may come and smash the car up at night as it was obvious where we were headed. The sunset on the Tasman Peninsula was really beautiful and we rocked into the campsite late, where we watched The Voice Australia and saw all the pademelons on the grounds. There are loads around Port Arthur.
In the morning we headed to the Port Arthur historical site. The price is now $35 but its worth it. We got our playing cards to find our historical convict in the basement. Its a nice touch and the museum is informative. We got an hour long guided tour, which we were very lucky to have an interesting tour guide for and they went off script as well. It also included a 20 minute boat trip around the harbour which was nice, though I expect them to be adding that as a separate cost soon. Going all New Zealand on us. The grounds themselves are very beautiful and it does contrast with the convict history there. Its hard to get a handle on what happened there and there is a full spectrum of opinions amongst the tour guides themselves. It guarantees you a unique perspective for your tour. We spent about 4 hours looking around the site before deciding to visit the rest of the peninsula on the way to Hobart. The remarkable cave is well worth the trip, but all the other side trips around Eaglehawk Nest are not worth it really. The peninsula itself is nice enough on its own. We swung by Richmond on the way back and the bridge is nice, but after Port Arthur it doesn't seem quite so colonial. Probably not worth going out of your way for but you may as well visit if if passing. We finally arrived in Hobart and decided that we would do some day trips to the south and west.
The hostel offered a free trip up to Mt Wellington so we took them up on it as we figured it would save us some petrol. We were driven up and the views from the top are really something. You can see out over most of the Tasman Peninsula and the islands south of Hobart. You can even see some of the mountains in Southwest National Park. Everyone walked down, but we didn't think we would have time as we needed to cram so much in. The driver told us to do a 4 hour walk on the Tarn shelf in Mt Field National Park, so we decided to abandon plans to go to the south as it looks very similar. We are concerned about stretching ourselves too thin. After Mt Wellington we went to Salamanca Place and Battery Point to see the historical parts of the city. Its less historical than I expected, but its very cute in its own way. It may be the cutest Australian city we have been to so far. It doesn't take too long to walk around. We got some expensive fish and chips at the docks and they were really disappointing. What we had had in New Zealand had been much cheaper and far better quality. After this disappointment we took the car out to MONA which is horrifically signposted as I guess they want most people to take the ferry. The museum is in a beautiful location and the Derwent river is pretty on the drive North as well. The museum is odd and like most modern art galleries mostly filled with shit. There are some interesting pieces here though and its definitely worth a look. Probably more innovative and interesting than any other art galleries we have been to in Australia. Finally in the evening we headed to Bonorong Wildlife Centre to take the night feeding tour. We paid $179 each for this but it was worth every penny. If you are an animal lover then this is a must. Just the fact that your entrance fee goes towards supporting the work they do there for rescuing and rehabilitating injured animals is enough in itself. We started off feeding the kangaroos. Cannelle was super intimidated by the bigger kangaroos, but they loved the food. We even got to witness two adult males fighting later on in the evening. We went to the wombats first and stayed with Lucy who is a wimpy wombat because she loves human contact and hasn't learnt to be aggressive enough to be released into the wild yet. They do a lot of rehabilitation of injured wildlife on the roads of Tasmania. We did not want to touch many of the animals if it had the risk of distressing them and once he realised that feeding the Tasmanian devils by tug of war was done mostly for tourists we just gave them their food. We were here to learn what they work on and to see the animals, not to touch them. Though the wombats are super cute. We fed, learnt about and observed a wide variety of animals. Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, Koalas, Frogmouths, Potoroos, Bettongs, an albino possum, quolls and the super cute sugar gliders. We learnt a raft of information on these animals in our 2.5 hour tour and it is clear that the carers really know their stuff and our carer could easily answer any question that we put to him. It was a super informative evening, a wonderful experience and a highlight of our trip. If you love wildlife then this is an absolute must. Just do it. Don't worry about the price. You will feel like it was totally worth it and be happy you invested your money in a centre and a project that is definitely worthwhile. After we drove back very slowly in order not to hit anything on the roads.
Today we had planned to do the Tarn walk, but then saw it was a gravel road and Cannelle was feeling tired. In order not to push it too much we decided to take a break and just chill out in Hobart, watch game of thrones and I could catch up on the blog. Tomorrow we will visit the easily accessible parts of Mt Field NP on the way west to Strahan. Should be able to stop at various points along the Franklin river on the way. Looking forward to the west even if most of our time will be in Cradle Mountain NP as its the most accessible. Loving Tasmania so far. Well worth the trip.
Australia Part 2: (Great Ocean Road and Grampians National Park)
Now I wasn't that excited for the Great Ocean Road, but it is an Australian institution and we were near Melbourne so it would be silly not to do it. We did the ride down to Geelong, with nothing to see and then got to Torquay. We went to see the famous Bells Beach, which was underwhelming but we expected crashing waves. Apparently its temperamental so maybe we caught it on the wrong day. We then drove on down to the lighthouse where we turned off early and Cannelle scratched up the underside of the car doing a u-turn. Shit. Was a bang and a scratch. We had a look underneath and the paint seemed scratched off and there was a lot of mud underneath where it had removed the mudguard. Way to ruin a trip. Shit. We had taken the minimum insurance and now we had dinged up the car. Apparently a new bumper could run up to $2000 and we had an excess of $3300. Shitty. We drove on and saw the koalas that were sleeping as usual. Some idiots have obviously been feeding the birds for photos as they were quite aggressive in coming for my ice cream. On the way into Apollo Bay we saw a car pull over. We stopped to have a look. A koala had apparently fallen out of a tree and was trying to escape the side of the road. He couldn't make it over. I suggested picking him up and the other driver lifted him over the barrier. The koala was waving his arms and screaming "noooooooo". It was quite funny, but he seemed fine enough when he was on the otther side and walked off. We got to Apollo Bay and tried to clean up the underside of the car as best we could. Not sure what was going to happen when we got it back. The first day on the Great Ocean Road had been very underwhelming. I didn't see why it was so famous. We were hoping for more on the second day.
On the second day we drove on through Cape Otway National Park and into Port Campbell National Park. It was still less impressive than the New Zealand west coast drive, which was also disappointing apart from Punakaiki. Even the twelve apostles are not that impressive. Yes they are nice and I am happy I have seen them, but I am not sure they are worth the drive out here if you are not coming this way. London Bridge, The Arch and the Grotto were all better in my opinion. At last we had found something worth seeing on the Great Ocean Road. I really think it is overblown and the Australians can't seem to see what all the fuss is about either. When we told the rental company we were going to wilsons prom, GOR and Grampians they were only interested in the first and third ones. I think we should just chat to Aussies as they tend to dismiss the overhyped tourist places. Most of them think Queensland is overrated as well. Well the Great Ocean Road certainly won't be a highlight of this trip or even of this 6 day roadtrip. Its nice. Its pleasant. Its not that special. We pushed on up to the Grampians and the mountains at the southern end of the park are really beautiful. What a start. We drove North up to Halls Gap and had a good feeling for the park.
We would stay two days at Halls Gap to visit the Grampians. Its a really nice natonal park. We stayed at Tims Place which is a really nice place and the owner is a nice guy. He was learning French so we chatted together for a while and he told us what to do to make the most of our time there. We did the pinnacles walk via the grand canyon that took us just over 2 hours (rather than four). The first part to Cleopatras Pool is not bad and quite pretty, but the highlight is definitely the walk up through grand canyon and silent street. Really beautiful rock formations and reminded me a little of Slovensky Raj in Slovakia. The view from the top is nice as well, but the climb was more unique. We thought it would be Blue Mountains light and although it is similar, it is also different. More jagged and on a smaller scale than the blue mountains. Lacks the epic feel. After that we drove across the tourist pass to see the lookouts (they are nice) and past the damaged areas from the forest fires. The waterfall looks stunning, but you can't visit it anymore because of the fires. Shame. You can't even stop along the side of the road (I don't know why) and I think we should have done it anyway. Just be aware that the waterfall access is closed. Not sure when they will open it up again. Finally we went to the aboriginal museum, which is informative and well worth stopping in.
On the drive back we decided to visit Ballarat to break up the journey. Its a nice mining town with some cool architecture but its also bitterly cold. We also had to print off our flight tickets and print and sign documents for the taxman as we hadn't done them on the road trip. It would turn out these forms had some errors and we would have to print off new ones in Launceston and do the process all over again. Neverending lol. We were now shitting ourselves about dropping off the damaged car. We ended up dropping off the car early at 2.30pm and looked nonchalant as we dropped off the bags and left him to do the inspection. We had also had a stone flip up and chip the windshield on the way to Ballarat so that was further damage we had to worry about. Luckily the old guy who rented it to us wasn't there and just his moron assistant. He said nothing and gave us our receipt. Great. We escaped out as quickly as we could, but we weren't sure if they could still take the money later, so we spent the afternoon futilely looking for a way to transfer all of Cannelle's money to my account so they wouldn't be able to take it. We were still stressed, but failed miserably in every effort. Cannelle then got a missed call and we were sure it was them so we panicked even more. Eventually she listened to it and it turned out not to be them. We resolved not to stress anymore and just relax a bit. We would wait and see what happened with the $200 deposit. Maybe they would just take that when they found out. We figured the longer it went on the less time they would have for recourse as they wouldn't be able to prove it was us that did the damage. Oh well. We went out in Melbourne and the next day we caught a plane to Tasmania. I was really excited for this part of the trip and we had hired a car with a different company just in case. The flight was really short as it was only 49 minutes in the air. You are up for a bit and then next minute you are coming in to land again. Tasmania at last.
On the second day we drove on through Cape Otway National Park and into Port Campbell National Park. It was still less impressive than the New Zealand west coast drive, which was also disappointing apart from Punakaiki. Even the twelve apostles are not that impressive. Yes they are nice and I am happy I have seen them, but I am not sure they are worth the drive out here if you are not coming this way. London Bridge, The Arch and the Grotto were all better in my opinion. At last we had found something worth seeing on the Great Ocean Road. I really think it is overblown and the Australians can't seem to see what all the fuss is about either. When we told the rental company we were going to wilsons prom, GOR and Grampians they were only interested in the first and third ones. I think we should just chat to Aussies as they tend to dismiss the overhyped tourist places. Most of them think Queensland is overrated as well. Well the Great Ocean Road certainly won't be a highlight of this trip or even of this 6 day roadtrip. Its nice. Its pleasant. Its not that special. We pushed on up to the Grampians and the mountains at the southern end of the park are really beautiful. What a start. We drove North up to Halls Gap and had a good feeling for the park.
We would stay two days at Halls Gap to visit the Grampians. Its a really nice natonal park. We stayed at Tims Place which is a really nice place and the owner is a nice guy. He was learning French so we chatted together for a while and he told us what to do to make the most of our time there. We did the pinnacles walk via the grand canyon that took us just over 2 hours (rather than four). The first part to Cleopatras Pool is not bad and quite pretty, but the highlight is definitely the walk up through grand canyon and silent street. Really beautiful rock formations and reminded me a little of Slovensky Raj in Slovakia. The view from the top is nice as well, but the climb was more unique. We thought it would be Blue Mountains light and although it is similar, it is also different. More jagged and on a smaller scale than the blue mountains. Lacks the epic feel. After that we drove across the tourist pass to see the lookouts (they are nice) and past the damaged areas from the forest fires. The waterfall looks stunning, but you can't visit it anymore because of the fires. Shame. You can't even stop along the side of the road (I don't know why) and I think we should have done it anyway. Just be aware that the waterfall access is closed. Not sure when they will open it up again. Finally we went to the aboriginal museum, which is informative and well worth stopping in.
On the drive back we decided to visit Ballarat to break up the journey. Its a nice mining town with some cool architecture but its also bitterly cold. We also had to print off our flight tickets and print and sign documents for the taxman as we hadn't done them on the road trip. It would turn out these forms had some errors and we would have to print off new ones in Launceston and do the process all over again. Neverending lol. We were now shitting ourselves about dropping off the damaged car. We ended up dropping off the car early at 2.30pm and looked nonchalant as we dropped off the bags and left him to do the inspection. We had also had a stone flip up and chip the windshield on the way to Ballarat so that was further damage we had to worry about. Luckily the old guy who rented it to us wasn't there and just his moron assistant. He said nothing and gave us our receipt. Great. We escaped out as quickly as we could, but we weren't sure if they could still take the money later, so we spent the afternoon futilely looking for a way to transfer all of Cannelle's money to my account so they wouldn't be able to take it. We were still stressed, but failed miserably in every effort. Cannelle then got a missed call and we were sure it was them so we panicked even more. Eventually she listened to it and it turned out not to be them. We resolved not to stress anymore and just relax a bit. We would wait and see what happened with the $200 deposit. Maybe they would just take that when they found out. We figured the longer it went on the less time they would have for recourse as they wouldn't be able to prove it was us that did the damage. Oh well. We went out in Melbourne and the next day we caught a plane to Tasmania. I was really excited for this part of the trip and we had hired a car with a different company just in case. The flight was really short as it was only 49 minutes in the air. You are up for a bit and then next minute you are coming in to land again. Tasmania at last.
Australia Part 1 (Melbourne and Wilsons Promontory) Brief Sydney highlights
Well I finally cleared immigration and we were back in Australia. Time to travel the country. I was excited to be in Melbourne as we had originally planned to spend 6 months here and 6 months in Sydney before we decided to end our Australian experience after 7 months. Yet first we had a lot of shit to do. I had locked my bank account when in New Zealand and couldn't unlock it because you need to know the exact amount you used on a transaction. This would be hard because we were in New Zealand. My last transaction was to withdraw money in New Zealand dollars. Without my online banking, which I couldn't access, how the hell was I supposed to know how much that works out in Australian dollars. Even the woman on the phone was sympathetic. So I went to NAB in St Kilda and unlocked it. Following that I had to go and post my application for a new passport to the UK as I would need it in time for when we got to Perth in order to leave. Only this has not arrived in the UK yet 2 weeks later and I am getting a little stressed about it. Will have to call them tonight to try and chase this up as I could be trapped here if it doesn't get processed. More hassle to deal with. Cannelle had to go and scan her French driving license as we needed someone to do a translation in order to rent a car in Australia. Oh the joys. The never ending admin trail of travelling. We also had to speak to the French embassy about getting a new passport, which they couldn't do there and it was not even certain if they would be able to do one. Useless morons. Will see later on. Finally we had to go and see the tax office about getting our tax back, where a rude cocksucker of a man told us that even if we counted as residents according to the tax offices own system he thinks no backpackers are ever tax residents and effectively that we could go and fuck ourselves. Pleasant. He also said that the tax office wa starting to crack down on foreigners getting their tax back. This prompted us to look around for some agents who would get it back for us and so far we have been told that one tax claim was filed for for me for $2850 and for Cannelle for $3500. Lets hope we get this tax as it should come in 8-10 weeks. If I don't get my passport in time we may work in Perth for a bit as will have one month left on the visa and it will be a new tax year. We have been back and forth about Australia and what to do here as well. We decided early on that we would skip Queensland. Most Aussies seem to have a low opinion of it and it seems to be just about beaches and parties. The only areas that really interested us were the Whitsundays (which Babou had said were average and just beaches), the rainforests around Cairns (expensive to get to) and the Barrier Reef (which people had told us you need to use a 5 day liveaboard to get to the interesting parts). We wouldn't be able to get to Mungo either (too far) and probably couldn't afford the West coast. Would still leave us seeing most of the rest of the country. Should be good and enough.
Anyway back to Melbourne. We had high expectations coming to Melbourne. After all it was considered the great rival to Sydney. We have spent 4 nights there and alongside the admin shit we got to take a good look around. Its a lot less pretty than Sydney and doesn't seem to have much more nightlife to compensate, but I think this side of the World is sorely lacking in nightlife. It probably has a better arts scene though. The river running through the middle gives it an undeniably more European feel. St Kilda seems funky and the blue penguins (which we went to see twice) are super cute and we finally got to see them after missing them everywhere in New Zealand. The downtown has some pretty architecture along the river and around the university there are some funky buildings. The cafe street culture is seriously overplayed and bears a very limited resemblance to Europe, while the graffitti walls are similar to ones we had down in St Peters. I would even go so far to say that there doesn't seem to be a big difference between Melbourne and Sydney. Both much of a muchness. Sydney is prettier, has better weather and beaches, while Melbourne probably has a better cultural life. I would pick Sydney as I think its more Australian. Also Melbourne is full of pretentious people. We were there for a few days and especially around Fitzroy we met a lot of downright rude and pretentious people. From people blocking doorways, being super arrogant in claiming tables or bollocking their 8 year old kid for losing a race and making them watch it with running commentary as to why they are useless. Everyone seems super up their arse about cafes, food, coffee etc. We never experienced this once in Sydney in 7 months. I would say Sydney has a lot of superficial people (especially in the Northern and Eastern suburbs) but the pretentious people definitely live in Melbourne. We went to the art gallery and other than that we just wandered around. We are heading back there when we finish in Tasmania to spend a couple of days before heading upwards towards Alice Springs.
With Cannelle now happy to drive we picked up a car from the Eastern suburbs and drove it off to Wilsons Promontory. Its an easy enough 220km drive and gave Cannelle time to get used to driving again. I had been excited to come here for the wombats and the rest of the wildlife. Its definitely a ruggedly beautiful park. Just on the drive in we saw emus and kangaroos. People who say you can't see Australian wildlife in the wild have obviously never looked hard enough. The first night in the campsite we saw loads of wombats. They are so cute. We had come for them and there were so many and they were obviously used to people as they weren't bothered by us. We also saw some possums and a fox. We even saw the shadow of a possum creep past when we were in our tent. It was a bit cold camping there.
In the morning we did the climb up the near mountain which affords great views over the park. There are beautiful little beaches, some impressive sand dunes and lots of short walks around the park. In the morning while walking back from the beach we saw our first wallaby. It bounced right past us and then stayed for a while. I think wallabies are cuter than kangaroos. They are really beautiful with the slight reddish colour. We saw more emus, kangaroos and a wombat in the wild. It is a beautiful coastal park. They have a lot of great parks in Australia. Its a great place and absolutely essential if you want to see Australian wildlife and combine it with some great scenery. We saw wombats galore in the evening again and thoroughly enjoyed the time before driving back towards Melbourne the next day to cross it for the Great Ocean Road.
I promised a brief highlight of Sydney. We had a nice time there for 7 months. While the city lacks in culture and nightlife, the beaches of Manly, Bondi and Coogee are really nice. The Manly-Spit Junction and Bondi-Coogee walks are both great. Newtown, Glebe and Marrickville are probably the coolest neighbourhoods to hang out in. The coastal walk of Royal National Park is stunning. The landscape diversity is truly impressive and we saw and echidna there as well. The Blue Mountains are also really nice. Not as nice as Royal National Park but still worth a visit.
Anyway back to Melbourne. We had high expectations coming to Melbourne. After all it was considered the great rival to Sydney. We have spent 4 nights there and alongside the admin shit we got to take a good look around. Its a lot less pretty than Sydney and doesn't seem to have much more nightlife to compensate, but I think this side of the World is sorely lacking in nightlife. It probably has a better arts scene though. The river running through the middle gives it an undeniably more European feel. St Kilda seems funky and the blue penguins (which we went to see twice) are super cute and we finally got to see them after missing them everywhere in New Zealand. The downtown has some pretty architecture along the river and around the university there are some funky buildings. The cafe street culture is seriously overplayed and bears a very limited resemblance to Europe, while the graffitti walls are similar to ones we had down in St Peters. I would even go so far to say that there doesn't seem to be a big difference between Melbourne and Sydney. Both much of a muchness. Sydney is prettier, has better weather and beaches, while Melbourne probably has a better cultural life. I would pick Sydney as I think its more Australian. Also Melbourne is full of pretentious people. We were there for a few days and especially around Fitzroy we met a lot of downright rude and pretentious people. From people blocking doorways, being super arrogant in claiming tables or bollocking their 8 year old kid for losing a race and making them watch it with running commentary as to why they are useless. Everyone seems super up their arse about cafes, food, coffee etc. We never experienced this once in Sydney in 7 months. I would say Sydney has a lot of superficial people (especially in the Northern and Eastern suburbs) but the pretentious people definitely live in Melbourne. We went to the art gallery and other than that we just wandered around. We are heading back there when we finish in Tasmania to spend a couple of days before heading upwards towards Alice Springs.
With Cannelle now happy to drive we picked up a car from the Eastern suburbs and drove it off to Wilsons Promontory. Its an easy enough 220km drive and gave Cannelle time to get used to driving again. I had been excited to come here for the wombats and the rest of the wildlife. Its definitely a ruggedly beautiful park. Just on the drive in we saw emus and kangaroos. People who say you can't see Australian wildlife in the wild have obviously never looked hard enough. The first night in the campsite we saw loads of wombats. They are so cute. We had come for them and there were so many and they were obviously used to people as they weren't bothered by us. We also saw some possums and a fox. We even saw the shadow of a possum creep past when we were in our tent. It was a bit cold camping there.
In the morning we did the climb up the near mountain which affords great views over the park. There are beautiful little beaches, some impressive sand dunes and lots of short walks around the park. In the morning while walking back from the beach we saw our first wallaby. It bounced right past us and then stayed for a while. I think wallabies are cuter than kangaroos. They are really beautiful with the slight reddish colour. We saw more emus, kangaroos and a wombat in the wild. It is a beautiful coastal park. They have a lot of great parks in Australia. Its a great place and absolutely essential if you want to see Australian wildlife and combine it with some great scenery. We saw wombats galore in the evening again and thoroughly enjoyed the time before driving back towards Melbourne the next day to cross it for the Great Ocean Road.
I promised a brief highlight of Sydney. We had a nice time there for 7 months. While the city lacks in culture and nightlife, the beaches of Manly, Bondi and Coogee are really nice. The Manly-Spit Junction and Bondi-Coogee walks are both great. Newtown, Glebe and Marrickville are probably the coolest neighbourhoods to hang out in. The coastal walk of Royal National Park is stunning. The landscape diversity is truly impressive and we saw and echidna there as well. The Blue Mountains are also really nice. Not as nice as Royal National Park but still worth a visit.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
New Zealand Part 8 (Auckland)
This will be a bit of a weird review as it can be partially about Auckland and partially about the passport problems. As most people won't be too interested in the passport problems I will give a summary of Auckland and what we did there even if its intrinsically linked.
Our first port of call was the airport where I was told by the supervisor that he wouldn't let me fly with my green faced passport. He said others might let me, but he wouldn't. Unless I could get a letter from the Australian consulate saying it was ok. Next stop UK consulate. Bear in mind they had just moved the passport making abilities from the Wellington consulate in January so that everyone has to send them to the UK. Dammit. UK consulate said they thought it would be ok to travel but they understood my problems and that I could do an emergency passport to go to Australia if I wanted one. I had to check if they accept them. Off to the Australian consulate. Only some armed guards intercepted us and sent us to a visa place instead. They said that (after 24 hours) that I should be fine to enter but they couldn't write me a letter. Well that was as good as useless. Though the confirmed Australia will accept an emergency passport but I needed 5 working days to link up my working holiday visa. I didn't have that so I had to e-mail Tasmania who never got back to me on time. So I was sweating on if I could get into Oz. I also wanted to post my passport to the Darwin consulate but they didn't exist anymore so I would have to send it to a friend and would now need to go to Perth. To do that we needed a train. The Australian trains said you can't take a train pass without a foreign passport. Eventually they confirmed the emergency passport was fine. Thank God. Ok now I would have to justify not being able to pick up my passport and I needed a countersignatory. I didn't have anyone in Melbourne so Cisco would have to act as my countersignatory and sign the paperwork in Auckland to post it in Melbourne. I was stressed all the way up to the flight but ended up getting to Australia without any problems. Both New Zealand and Australia customs wondered why I got a new one when they can see my face. Ask Virgin Australia. Long story short, it seems you can fly with a partial green face but that its at the airlines discretion and you would be taking a risk. I am in Oz now and have posted the application. One week later and it still hasn't reached Liverpool. Fuck sake. The stress just continues. Still have my passport warning from the UK government as well about losing and damaging too many but this one was not my fault.
So now I had to sort out the emergency passport and this meant we were tied down to Auckland. Nothing was exciting me too much about the rest of New Zealand and Joe kept saying everything was underwhelming so we decided to stay put. Auckland is kind of like a mini Sydney with shitter weather. We kind of just bummed around and enjoyed being in an urban setting. We went to the Easter weekend fair, which was ok and did the coast to coast walk. That's really nice, especially Eden Park which is probably better than One Tree Hill. Its definitely something to do if you are in town. We went to the media centre and watched Once Were Warriors as well. Its a cool place to watch Kiwi films for free. The weather was still toilet. We went to see the Lego Movie, which was weird and funny in parts. That damn song is addictive. The sushi in this city is really good and I like the pick and mix options. We went to some couchsurfing drinks and met an English couple and a German girl called Alex. We hung out with them in cafes and went for drinks while in the city. We also caught up with Joe when he came through and also with Laura (who we had missed in Wanaka and was in town). I don't actually know what we did with 2 weeks there. Not much seemingly. Lastly we caught up with Cisco, who I hadn't seen for ages and he signed the paperwork for us while taking us to a great vegetarian Indian restaurant in the summer. Cannelle also took a driving lesson and realised it was not too bad. More on car problems next time. We have scratched up the car and hoping that they won't notice tomorrow and charge us any damages on the rental car. Yet more stress and given our bad luck recently I don't hold out much hope. We were beginning to figure that some force of fate was trying to prevent us from taking our flight to Oz. This was reinforced when we got to the airport. What are the words you don't want to hear when you are afraid of flying. "There is going to be a 20 minute delay because one of the engineers has found a fault with the plane". What the fuck? A fault with the plane? Even if that is true why would you say it. Lie dammit. I spent the next 4 hours of flying time wondering what the fault was. Maybe it was aerodynamics as we had a lot of turbulence and the landing was downright weird as if it was undercooked and then revving the engine to get over the line. Needless to say we were happy to touch down in Melbourne and the first day would involve a lot of bollocks that we needed to take care of. Onwards to Oz. Its a shame the last 3 weeks in New Zealand had been fairly average because we had really liked the first 5 weeks. Tom was definitely right. The South Island is much better than the North Island. Only really need to see Tongariro and Rotorua in the North.
Our first port of call was the airport where I was told by the supervisor that he wouldn't let me fly with my green faced passport. He said others might let me, but he wouldn't. Unless I could get a letter from the Australian consulate saying it was ok. Next stop UK consulate. Bear in mind they had just moved the passport making abilities from the Wellington consulate in January so that everyone has to send them to the UK. Dammit. UK consulate said they thought it would be ok to travel but they understood my problems and that I could do an emergency passport to go to Australia if I wanted one. I had to check if they accept them. Off to the Australian consulate. Only some armed guards intercepted us and sent us to a visa place instead. They said that (after 24 hours) that I should be fine to enter but they couldn't write me a letter. Well that was as good as useless. Though the confirmed Australia will accept an emergency passport but I needed 5 working days to link up my working holiday visa. I didn't have that so I had to e-mail Tasmania who never got back to me on time. So I was sweating on if I could get into Oz. I also wanted to post my passport to the Darwin consulate but they didn't exist anymore so I would have to send it to a friend and would now need to go to Perth. To do that we needed a train. The Australian trains said you can't take a train pass without a foreign passport. Eventually they confirmed the emergency passport was fine. Thank God. Ok now I would have to justify not being able to pick up my passport and I needed a countersignatory. I didn't have anyone in Melbourne so Cisco would have to act as my countersignatory and sign the paperwork in Auckland to post it in Melbourne. I was stressed all the way up to the flight but ended up getting to Australia without any problems. Both New Zealand and Australia customs wondered why I got a new one when they can see my face. Ask Virgin Australia. Long story short, it seems you can fly with a partial green face but that its at the airlines discretion and you would be taking a risk. I am in Oz now and have posted the application. One week later and it still hasn't reached Liverpool. Fuck sake. The stress just continues. Still have my passport warning from the UK government as well about losing and damaging too many but this one was not my fault.
So now I had to sort out the emergency passport and this meant we were tied down to Auckland. Nothing was exciting me too much about the rest of New Zealand and Joe kept saying everything was underwhelming so we decided to stay put. Auckland is kind of like a mini Sydney with shitter weather. We kind of just bummed around and enjoyed being in an urban setting. We went to the Easter weekend fair, which was ok and did the coast to coast walk. That's really nice, especially Eden Park which is probably better than One Tree Hill. Its definitely something to do if you are in town. We went to the media centre and watched Once Were Warriors as well. Its a cool place to watch Kiwi films for free. The weather was still toilet. We went to see the Lego Movie, which was weird and funny in parts. That damn song is addictive. The sushi in this city is really good and I like the pick and mix options. We went to some couchsurfing drinks and met an English couple and a German girl called Alex. We hung out with them in cafes and went for drinks while in the city. We also caught up with Joe when he came through and also with Laura (who we had missed in Wanaka and was in town). I don't actually know what we did with 2 weeks there. Not much seemingly. Lastly we caught up with Cisco, who I hadn't seen for ages and he signed the paperwork for us while taking us to a great vegetarian Indian restaurant in the summer. Cannelle also took a driving lesson and realised it was not too bad. More on car problems next time. We have scratched up the car and hoping that they won't notice tomorrow and charge us any damages on the rental car. Yet more stress and given our bad luck recently I don't hold out much hope. We were beginning to figure that some force of fate was trying to prevent us from taking our flight to Oz. This was reinforced when we got to the airport. What are the words you don't want to hear when you are afraid of flying. "There is going to be a 20 minute delay because one of the engineers has found a fault with the plane". What the fuck? A fault with the plane? Even if that is true why would you say it. Lie dammit. I spent the next 4 hours of flying time wondering what the fault was. Maybe it was aerodynamics as we had a lot of turbulence and the landing was downright weird as if it was undercooked and then revving the engine to get over the line. Needless to say we were happy to touch down in Melbourne and the first day would involve a lot of bollocks that we needed to take care of. Onwards to Oz. Its a shame the last 3 weeks in New Zealand had been fairly average because we had really liked the first 5 weeks. Tom was definitely right. The South Island is much better than the North Island. Only really need to see Tongariro and Rotorua in the North.
New Zealand Part 7 (Rotorua, Taupo and Tongariro Alpine Crossing)
Too much time and too many disasters since I last wrote. At least that keeps it entertaining lol. This was where our previous good luck started to turn to shit. The bad weather continued to dog us on the North island and I think it rained virtually every day we were there for 3 weeks. Oh well. More on that later. We arrived in Rotorua and booked in for 3 nights as we still had a lot of time on our hands. We wanted to go cycling in the redwoods and to visit stuff, but as it was still caining down we decided to just visit the thermal parks in the city and the small Maori village they have there. Both of these are free and really nice. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon and an enjoyable start to the place. The guy in the hostel wanted to upgrade us to a 4 bed dorm, but that we pay the difference. We said no it was ok and then he charged us for it anyway. I had to correct him and in the end Cannelle ended up in the four bed dorm. It was obvious they had made a fuck up and now wanted us to pay for the difference. Nice try. Oh well. Other than that the hostel was nice. Everything in Rotorua is very expensive so you kind of have to pick what to do. Everyone had told us that Hobbiton was a total waste of money, but only Cannelle had wanted to go in the first place. The rafting looked cool, but expensive given the bad weather. Kind of wish I had done that now. The only good weather was for the sunday so we decided to go and see Wai-O-Tapu that day and just chill on the saturday.
The hostel was a little bit of a party hostel and every morning you could find a used condom in the bathroom so somebody was having fun lol. Saturday came and we were bored so we decided to take what is now an ill fated walk to the Redwoods forest. For some unknown reason I brought my passport along with me and Cannelle had the camera but without a case. You can guess what happened next. Yep. We got hammered by a storm on our way to the Redwoods and had to abandon the walk halfway. Didn't even see them. When we got back the camera lens was jammed and it just whirred, said error and died. Shit. Then I looked at my passport. Just a little water damage, but some green ink had leaked and now one quarter of my face was green. Shit. Oh well maybe it will be gone by the morning. The priority at the time was the camera. We went out and bought a new one for about $250. Hopefully its an upgrade. We would test it the next day.
In the morning I had a look at my passport and my face was still green. After a bit of research it looked like this may be a problem for travelling. Hmm. Ok we would do the Tongariro as we were close and then go and see the airline in Auckland to check as we may need to get cracking on a new passport in the worst case scenario. Damn it. Not a passport problem again. They haunt me everywhere. We went to Wai-O-Tapu and what a beautiful place it is. Its well worth the money. Beautiful colours and just a stunning place. One of my students had been to 5 of them and said this was the best. Its really cool. Probably easily the highlight of the North island for us. You have the little terraces, the champagne pool and such an amazing range of colours that people mostly thought we had been editing our photos on photoshop. That is even with the shitty camera we had. We really didn't like the new camera and seemed to be paying money for an inferior new camera. That was depressing so we went back to the shop and swapped it for a $300 sony camera. That's what we have now and it was a great decision as for just $50 extra we got a significant upgrade on our old camera. Had a much better zoom, is equal on colours and can shoot in lowlight, which were the two weaknesses of our old camera. I was starting to panic a little regarding the passport now, but we were off to Taupo the next day. Have to wait and see.
We got to Taupo, which is not very impressive. Its just a large lake. I have no idea why it is so famous except for the fact that its a lake and its big. We booked transport for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the next day as we had wanted to do the full Northern Circuit, but there was no point with this crappy weather. Then we walked to Huka Falls, which is really beautiful and well worth the walk. The water colour is really pretty and the new camera got a good workout. We then walked all the way to a hot springs and decided not to go in as it was too expensive. Having walked back to town we went to bed early as we had to get up at 5.30am for the Tongariro Crossing.
We got up at 5am and went out to wait for the bus. We were with a German guy and a girl from Hong Kong. 5.30am came and went. Oh well we will be picked up after. 5.45am. Ok its a little late. 6am. Ok now I am worried. I went and called the girl working. Where was the bus? She came back sheepishly 5 minutes later and said
"I'm really sorry, I forgot to phone it through". What? "Can the bus come back?" "No". What?
She offered us a free night of accommodation but that was no good as we all had to leave the next day and I had the passport to sort out. Then we had a little conversation like this.
"Well can't you find someone to drive us to the start?"
"Erm, no I can't drive"
"Then whose truck is that out the front?"
"The owners"
"Well can't you phone him to see if he can drive us?"
"I would prefer to pay for a taxi to get you there"
"Ok well you will have to as its not good enough otherwise"
Apparently I forced her to book the taxi and Cannelle reckoned that noone else would have pushed it for her to sort us out with a ride. The taxi cost $300 one way to the start of the route. It was definitely the most expensive taxi ride that I have ever taken. I think she paid with her own money as well but I am not sure. When we got in the taxi, the taxi driver asked if we knew how much it was going to cost. I said yeah $300 but its not our money. He said that he was super lucky. Yeah. One hours work for $300. Nice work if you can get it. Anyway we got the taxi ride out there and we only started the trek about 30 minutes after everyone else and we would catch and overtake almost all of them on the trail. Now I had been super pumped for this walk as it looked stunning and I had really high expectations for it along with the Routeburn. The Routeburn did not disappoint. How would this walk be?
Well we never really found out. We had a mist with us for the whole walk. That meant we never had more than 50-100m visibility although this moved with us. Until we hit the top. Then it dropped to 20-50m and we could barely see anything. You could see the volcanic landscape and it looked nice, but to see how bad it was I can tell you that we couldn't even see Mt Doom. This is a mountain that sticks up 500m above us, just off the route and we couldn't see it. We couldn't see the red crater very well either. We saw some of the turquoise lakes and they are stunning. At least we got something. The wind and rain whipping us around the top was unpleasant and I began to suffer from mild hypothermia. This was not pleasant at all. Everyone was moving super fast. We walked alongside the blue lake and couldn't even see it was blue. The mist was down as a wall. Shitty. It was the German guys first hiking experience, but I told him not to worry as this was the worst hike for conditions that I had ever done. We wouldn't have done it that day if it wasn't for the fact that the weather forecast for the next two weeks was equally shitty and we had the pressing issue of the passport to deal with. We got to the final shelter and holed up for 2 hours to avoid the rain, though we couldn't avoid the cold. It was freezing. Horrendous. We had to hole up there as we were far too early for the buses. When we finished we shot down to the carpark and had done the whole crossing in around 4 hours. Shit weather gives you wings. The bus driver told us we didn't have to pay because the hostel had fucked up. At least that was a bonus. We had paid just the deposit of $5 for a taxi ride and a bus back to Taupo. Made up a bit for the shitty conditions, but what a shame. We didn't see much, the weather was awful, I froze to death and I would still say it was worth it. Now imagine how good the walk would be if you had great weather. So many people said it was the highlight for them. I would imagine its an awesome walk and maybe one day I will get the chance to do it again. Go and do it. Just wait for good weather as it takes away about 80% of the appeal. Now it was time to head to Auckland and see what would happen with my green face. Cannelle thought it would be fine to fly. I was not so sure, but hopeful. We had thought about leaving for Australia early as New Zealand was boring us on the North island but of course it was Easter and the flights were astronomically expensive. At least I had read that I could maybe get an emergency passport to get to Australia and apply for a new one there. This was not certain but at least if the airline said no, we wouldn't be stuck there. Lets see.
The hostel was a little bit of a party hostel and every morning you could find a used condom in the bathroom so somebody was having fun lol. Saturday came and we were bored so we decided to take what is now an ill fated walk to the Redwoods forest. For some unknown reason I brought my passport along with me and Cannelle had the camera but without a case. You can guess what happened next. Yep. We got hammered by a storm on our way to the Redwoods and had to abandon the walk halfway. Didn't even see them. When we got back the camera lens was jammed and it just whirred, said error and died. Shit. Then I looked at my passport. Just a little water damage, but some green ink had leaked and now one quarter of my face was green. Shit. Oh well maybe it will be gone by the morning. The priority at the time was the camera. We went out and bought a new one for about $250. Hopefully its an upgrade. We would test it the next day.
In the morning I had a look at my passport and my face was still green. After a bit of research it looked like this may be a problem for travelling. Hmm. Ok we would do the Tongariro as we were close and then go and see the airline in Auckland to check as we may need to get cracking on a new passport in the worst case scenario. Damn it. Not a passport problem again. They haunt me everywhere. We went to Wai-O-Tapu and what a beautiful place it is. Its well worth the money. Beautiful colours and just a stunning place. One of my students had been to 5 of them and said this was the best. Its really cool. Probably easily the highlight of the North island for us. You have the little terraces, the champagne pool and such an amazing range of colours that people mostly thought we had been editing our photos on photoshop. That is even with the shitty camera we had. We really didn't like the new camera and seemed to be paying money for an inferior new camera. That was depressing so we went back to the shop and swapped it for a $300 sony camera. That's what we have now and it was a great decision as for just $50 extra we got a significant upgrade on our old camera. Had a much better zoom, is equal on colours and can shoot in lowlight, which were the two weaknesses of our old camera. I was starting to panic a little regarding the passport now, but we were off to Taupo the next day. Have to wait and see.
We got to Taupo, which is not very impressive. Its just a large lake. I have no idea why it is so famous except for the fact that its a lake and its big. We booked transport for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the next day as we had wanted to do the full Northern Circuit, but there was no point with this crappy weather. Then we walked to Huka Falls, which is really beautiful and well worth the walk. The water colour is really pretty and the new camera got a good workout. We then walked all the way to a hot springs and decided not to go in as it was too expensive. Having walked back to town we went to bed early as we had to get up at 5.30am for the Tongariro Crossing.
We got up at 5am and went out to wait for the bus. We were with a German guy and a girl from Hong Kong. 5.30am came and went. Oh well we will be picked up after. 5.45am. Ok its a little late. 6am. Ok now I am worried. I went and called the girl working. Where was the bus? She came back sheepishly 5 minutes later and said
"I'm really sorry, I forgot to phone it through". What? "Can the bus come back?" "No". What?
She offered us a free night of accommodation but that was no good as we all had to leave the next day and I had the passport to sort out. Then we had a little conversation like this.
"Well can't you find someone to drive us to the start?"
"Erm, no I can't drive"
"Then whose truck is that out the front?"
"The owners"
"Well can't you phone him to see if he can drive us?"
"I would prefer to pay for a taxi to get you there"
"Ok well you will have to as its not good enough otherwise"
Apparently I forced her to book the taxi and Cannelle reckoned that noone else would have pushed it for her to sort us out with a ride. The taxi cost $300 one way to the start of the route. It was definitely the most expensive taxi ride that I have ever taken. I think she paid with her own money as well but I am not sure. When we got in the taxi, the taxi driver asked if we knew how much it was going to cost. I said yeah $300 but its not our money. He said that he was super lucky. Yeah. One hours work for $300. Nice work if you can get it. Anyway we got the taxi ride out there and we only started the trek about 30 minutes after everyone else and we would catch and overtake almost all of them on the trail. Now I had been super pumped for this walk as it looked stunning and I had really high expectations for it along with the Routeburn. The Routeburn did not disappoint. How would this walk be?
Well we never really found out. We had a mist with us for the whole walk. That meant we never had more than 50-100m visibility although this moved with us. Until we hit the top. Then it dropped to 20-50m and we could barely see anything. You could see the volcanic landscape and it looked nice, but to see how bad it was I can tell you that we couldn't even see Mt Doom. This is a mountain that sticks up 500m above us, just off the route and we couldn't see it. We couldn't see the red crater very well either. We saw some of the turquoise lakes and they are stunning. At least we got something. The wind and rain whipping us around the top was unpleasant and I began to suffer from mild hypothermia. This was not pleasant at all. Everyone was moving super fast. We walked alongside the blue lake and couldn't even see it was blue. The mist was down as a wall. Shitty. It was the German guys first hiking experience, but I told him not to worry as this was the worst hike for conditions that I had ever done. We wouldn't have done it that day if it wasn't for the fact that the weather forecast for the next two weeks was equally shitty and we had the pressing issue of the passport to deal with. We got to the final shelter and holed up for 2 hours to avoid the rain, though we couldn't avoid the cold. It was freezing. Horrendous. We had to hole up there as we were far too early for the buses. When we finished we shot down to the carpark and had done the whole crossing in around 4 hours. Shit weather gives you wings. The bus driver told us we didn't have to pay because the hostel had fucked up. At least that was a bonus. We had paid just the deposit of $5 for a taxi ride and a bus back to Taupo. Made up a bit for the shitty conditions, but what a shame. We didn't see much, the weather was awful, I froze to death and I would still say it was worth it. Now imagine how good the walk would be if you had great weather. So many people said it was the highlight for them. I would imagine its an awesome walk and maybe one day I will get the chance to do it again. Go and do it. Just wait for good weather as it takes away about 80% of the appeal. Now it was time to head to Auckland and see what would happen with my green face. Cannelle thought it would be fine to fly. I was not so sure, but hopeful. We had thought about leaving for Australia early as New Zealand was boring us on the North island but of course it was Easter and the flights were astronomically expensive. At least I had read that I could maybe get an emergency passport to get to Australia and apply for a new one there. This was not certain but at least if the airline said no, we wouldn't be stuck there. Lets see.
New Zealand Part 6 (Interislander, Wellington and Napier)
In the morning we took the bus to Picton to take the interislander. We
had been told that the crossing was extremely rough, but we got lucky
and sea like glass for our voyage. It probably helps that the 2pm
crossing is the biggest boat they have and dwarfs the others so it
doesn't suffer from rocking too much. The trip through the Marlborough
Sounds was nice, but nothing spectacular. I am very glad we didn't stay
in Picton as there is no need. When we got close to the open sea we
went below deck as the wind was whipping through the top deck. That was
a real big mistake. Halfway across the crossing the captain said orcas
were off the port side (Very helpful. Is port right or left. I had
no idea). Anyway when we ran up the stairs they had already
disappeared. Fuck sake. One of the two animals I most wanted to see
and we had missed them for an ice cream. That ice cream is right up
there with the damn hot chocolate that caused me to miss the explosion
of Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone. Damn it. Orcas. Damn it.
After an uneventful journey we rocked up in Wellington. Ooh. Traffic.
A real city. The walk in from the port doesn't fill you with awe as
its shitty out there, but the downtown is nice. That night we went to
see Captain America:Winter Soldier which is a solid blockbuster.
In the morning we met up with my friend Andy after a brief stint in Te Papa. Was the first time I had seen him since just before this blog started way back with my US trip. Full circle. He had been living in Wellington for nearly 6 years now. Time flies. He took us around the port area which is really cute at the weekend. It looks a little forlorn and dead in the week when the rain comes. Wellington really is two different cities depending on the weather. We climbed the hill to see the town and the views up there are really nice. He then walked us through Cuba Street, down to Parliament and a loop back down the harbour. Was cool to catch up and really enjoyed the walking tour of the highlights of the city. In the evening we went to see The Raid 2, which is a good film, even if its not as tight and thrilling as the first one. We were enjoying being able to kick back. We bumped into the English girl from Queenstown and she was there to work. In our room there was an Argentinean guy and he was working in sales there. Still seems like a shitty deal if you are on a working holiday visa here.
In the morning the weather was shitty so we went back to Te Papa to finish it off. Its a truly remarkable museum. Well worth a visit. Went on the earthquake simulator, saw the giant squid, played a few of the games (lifting rocks, sailing boats, seeing what animals to take when you colonise a new planet etc). Its a cool interactive museum and can suck up your time. We spent a total of around 5 hours in there. The only downside was having to do a stupid exit survey for a robotic woman at the end. Seriously she had no human emotions whatsoever. Then we walked over to Parliament and Andy sent us a text to invite us over for dinner to his place. We took the ridiculously expensive local bus ($5 one way) to his place and had a look around. Its a nice place. They were cooking us spaghetti bolognaise when Andy said he had forgotten one small ingredient. We asked him what it was and he said the pasta. Small ingredient indeed lol. He ran down the hill to get some and we had dinner. Was really nice. We met his wife Marpesa and chatted about everything and nothing. Was a really nice evening. Has been good to catch up with friends on this trip.
The next day it was still shitty so we went to the Museum of the City and Sea. Its not bad, but its nowhere near as interesting as Te Papa. We did nothing with the rest of the day and just chilled in the hostel. In the evening was when we got chatting with Varun about the outback roadtrip and organised the whole thing. Its all now sorted and fixed.
The next day was our last day and we went to meet Andy for a hot chocolate and scone near his work. Following that we went to see Nymphomaniac at the cinema. Its a really complex and interesting film. The story is interesting, but the real time conversation is cheesy and thinks it is cleverer than it is. Its a real mixed back of a film and definitely worth seeing. I don't see how it can be seen as controversial though. Its quite funny and some parts are really good, while others are quite trite. In the evening we just chilled again. Its going to be a long time of shitty weather.
After 5 days of chilling in Wellington we finally set off to take the bus to Napier. We had heard it was art deco and Gaudi esque. Well its art deco. The bus ride was really long and we bumped into the German guy who had been in our hostel in Christchurch. There was a fuck up in Palmerston North and one bus drove off without passengers, so we had to chase it to Bulls to drop off passengers. We ended up being 1.5 hours late but it didn't matter as there is not much to see in Napier. Its nice. Nothing more. Some of the architecture is cute, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. We did the walk up the cliff and were rewarded with a nice view out over the port. Was insightful to watch the ships being loaded and unloaded. We only had half a day and it proved sufficient for what we needed to do. North island was not blowing me away so far, though now it was onwards to Rotorua where I am sitting and it seems more interesting here, even if the rain is continuing to hammer down.
In the morning we met up with my friend Andy after a brief stint in Te Papa. Was the first time I had seen him since just before this blog started way back with my US trip. Full circle. He had been living in Wellington for nearly 6 years now. Time flies. He took us around the port area which is really cute at the weekend. It looks a little forlorn and dead in the week when the rain comes. Wellington really is two different cities depending on the weather. We climbed the hill to see the town and the views up there are really nice. He then walked us through Cuba Street, down to Parliament and a loop back down the harbour. Was cool to catch up and really enjoyed the walking tour of the highlights of the city. In the evening we went to see The Raid 2, which is a good film, even if its not as tight and thrilling as the first one. We were enjoying being able to kick back. We bumped into the English girl from Queenstown and she was there to work. In our room there was an Argentinean guy and he was working in sales there. Still seems like a shitty deal if you are on a working holiday visa here.
In the morning the weather was shitty so we went back to Te Papa to finish it off. Its a truly remarkable museum. Well worth a visit. Went on the earthquake simulator, saw the giant squid, played a few of the games (lifting rocks, sailing boats, seeing what animals to take when you colonise a new planet etc). Its a cool interactive museum and can suck up your time. We spent a total of around 5 hours in there. The only downside was having to do a stupid exit survey for a robotic woman at the end. Seriously she had no human emotions whatsoever. Then we walked over to Parliament and Andy sent us a text to invite us over for dinner to his place. We took the ridiculously expensive local bus ($5 one way) to his place and had a look around. Its a nice place. They were cooking us spaghetti bolognaise when Andy said he had forgotten one small ingredient. We asked him what it was and he said the pasta. Small ingredient indeed lol. He ran down the hill to get some and we had dinner. Was really nice. We met his wife Marpesa and chatted about everything and nothing. Was a really nice evening. Has been good to catch up with friends on this trip.
The next day it was still shitty so we went to the Museum of the City and Sea. Its not bad, but its nowhere near as interesting as Te Papa. We did nothing with the rest of the day and just chilled in the hostel. In the evening was when we got chatting with Varun about the outback roadtrip and organised the whole thing. Its all now sorted and fixed.
The next day was our last day and we went to meet Andy for a hot chocolate and scone near his work. Following that we went to see Nymphomaniac at the cinema. Its a really complex and interesting film. The story is interesting, but the real time conversation is cheesy and thinks it is cleverer than it is. Its a real mixed back of a film and definitely worth seeing. I don't see how it can be seen as controversial though. Its quite funny and some parts are really good, while others are quite trite. In the evening we just chilled again. Its going to be a long time of shitty weather.
After 5 days of chilling in Wellington we finally set off to take the bus to Napier. We had heard it was art deco and Gaudi esque. Well its art deco. The bus ride was really long and we bumped into the German guy who had been in our hostel in Christchurch. There was a fuck up in Palmerston North and one bus drove off without passengers, so we had to chase it to Bulls to drop off passengers. We ended up being 1.5 hours late but it didn't matter as there is not much to see in Napier. Its nice. Nothing more. Some of the architecture is cute, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. We did the walk up the cliff and were rewarded with a nice view out over the port. Was insightful to watch the ships being loaded and unloaded. We only had half a day and it proved sufficient for what we needed to do. North island was not blowing me away so far, though now it was onwards to Rotorua where I am sitting and it seems more interesting here, even if the rain is continuing to hammer down.
New Zealand Part 5 (Nelson, Nelson Lakes National Park, Motueka, Abel Tasman National Park and Kaikoura)
Cannelle has said that I forget to mention the little small things that
make the trip funny on this blog. Maybe. Resolved to keep a small
diary again as I have been writing this from my memory as I have been
travelling and so sometimes I forget the small things. After all its
the small things in life that apparently make it worth living. Been
looking at that with regards to Australia. Just planned out a 3 week
road trip round the outback, Kimberley, NT and South Australia. Should
be fucking awesome. Queensland on the other hand looks overrated and
just having seen the photos from Cannelle's sister from the Whitsundays
it looks nice but maybe not even on par with the Philippines and when I
am not a beach man why the hell would I head up there for the price it
is going to cost us. Talk about burning through money. Anyway I
digress.
Tom picked us up from the bus station in Nelson and took us for a drive and tour of Nelson. Looks like a pleasant city and apparently it has the sunniest weather in NZ, which given the fact that we are now in the middle of seemingly 2 weeks of non stop rain, it is very much appreciated in hindsight. We got lucky in the South Island for weather. We didn't get that extension on the North island. We went back to his place which is really impressive. His dad built it himself and its a really nice house. There we did some catching up, Tom cooked us a Chilean mixed grill style dish and we poured over maps of the Amazon as he was just about to head off on his latest Amazon trip. We kicked back with some beers and reminisced about the old times.
The next morning we set off for Nelson Lakes NP which was cool as I had wanted to go there. It was only an hours drive and then we set off to walk around the lake. We ended up taking the longer route that turned it into a good 30km round hike. Nice warm up for Abel Tasman. They have a lot of fresh water eels in the lake and it was cool to see them. The lake is a nice alpine lake and very pleasant. Not unmissable, but good for a nice day or two of hiking. We didn't meet many people on the loop and the end part down the valley was our first real off track hiking with just the orange markers to point us in the right direction. If you feel like getting out into some peaceful wilderness then I would recommend it. By the end Tom was a little knackered and Cannelle was feeling tired. The last 4km on the road we managed to grab a ride from an Israeli couple whose bed we climbed on to lie down while they drove us to a fish and chip shop. They had said they loved China (which made Cannelle feel good) and had said that Abel Tasman was nice, but after you've been to the Philippines then beaches elsewhere aren't very good. Its how I feel and a major reason why I can't be arsed to go to Queensland. How do you top the Philippines? You probably can't. We grabbed the car and drove back home and Tom was tired so he made me take the wheel while he drove. Weird as I haven't steered a car for ages. I still prefer a scooter. When we got back we watched Captain Phillips. It had no subtitles for the Somalis but neither did the version in the fish and chip shop in Kaikoura so maybe its not supposed to. It was good to catch up with Tom and a nice two days as he showed us the bike tracks he had built in his back garden and the cycling video he had been editing over the previous couple of months. His Spanish and Portuguese are really good now and I was a little jealous. I really need to improve mine and work on it.
In the morning he gave us one final spin around town and we got our shopping for the Abel Tasman hike. We took the bus to Motueka and walked ages to our hostel. Nice place. Not much to do here. We went out for some food and then chilled in the hostel. In the evening I went for a night time walk to find a pie and eating the pie while walking under the stars I realised that I was really, truly happy. Lucky life I have.
In the morning we grabbed our bus to the park entrance and took the aquataxi up to Totaranui. I had wanted to see split apple rock after the hike and head to separation point on the first day, but the aquataxi ride killed two birds with one stone. It stopped close to split apple rock to get some photos and then visited Tonga Island on the way north to see the seals. Oh well. Easier than I imagined. The aquataxi ride is cool, because you get to see the park from the water before hiking back. We thought this might ruin the experience but it really doesn't as its very different from the land. We were dropped in Totaranui around 1pm and the tidal crossing at Awaroa wasn't possible until at least 3pm so we were left to kick our heels as it was only 5.5km. We had decided against doing the rest of the northern part and an Austrian girl later told us that its the same but more rugged. The first day's walking was really boring apart from the rust coloured sand which was unique. We were apprehensive about the rest. When we got to Awaroa it was just after 3pm and we attempted the crossing. We got halfway before realising we were going to have to remove our boots and wade which came to around our knee. Apparently its impossible to get across without wading as it is still a river inside a tidal estuary. This was fun and we left our socks on so as not to get cut up on all the shells. Took us a good 20-30 minutes to get across. Once across we went on a hike to find the restaurant about 2km away but its very overpriced, was disappointing and let to an argument. The walk round there is quite nice though and leads past sand dunes, houses and crosses a couple of rivers. We got chatting with an American and an Austrian girl in the evening. There was a big group of Kiwis who monopolised the hut and were quite annoying. The ranger told us that this hut is completely cut off and landlocked during high tide. He told us that some people had even tried to cross it at 10pm at night having not read the notices. At high tide its 3m deep in the middle and they were freezing and wading in the middle of the tidal waters. Idiots. Some people never learn no matter what is written.
The next morning we set off early to make sure we would have no problems with the tide. We kept trying to anticipate where Daniel had taken the photo that is hanging on his lounge wall. Its very beautiful and we didn't want to miss it. Not long out of the camp we came cross the ranger and a friend of his behind a quad bike. Curious. They seemed a little embarrassed to see us. When I walked closer I could see a dead deer next to them. They had shot it because it was on national park land. They apologised to me, but I said not to worry as I would be a hypocrite given how much I like venison. They asked for some help lifting it, which was weird as I held the antlers and helped lift it onto the quad. Weird start. The first half of the day saw us walk to Bark Bay. Its a nice walk but we weren't blown away by much. Its around Bark Bay that it becomes very beautiful. We had also got lucky because the weather the day before had been cloudy and the day after was as well. This day was glorious however and it was the day where we would do the most beautiful part of the walk. The part from Bark Bay over to Anchorage is the prettiest part of the walk. We got the viewpoint we had been waiting for when we got close to Torrent Bay. We saw some little spiders and a lot of birds, including the wood pigeon. The tidal path was closed at Torrent Bay so we did the long 5km detour to get round to Anchorage. I took the side trip to Cleopatra's Pool (not worth it) and we eventually made it onto the beautiful beach of Anchorage. 27km of walking and it was a really nice part of the park. Cannelle loved it. I thought it was really nice. I would say that if you are pushed for time then you should just do the Awaroa to Anchorage part as the rest of the walk is pretty boring or average. That way you would see the best of the park. In the evening there was a very fat guy in our room and he snored so loudly that everyone else left the ranger hut to sleep outside. It wasn't that bad. In fact the German guy who left due to the snoring was snoring so much worse the night before. When we woke up it was just Cannelle and I, as the other two had left early. My sleeping bag was killing me. Being thermal it was far too hot for where we were.
In the morning we were up early and did the last 12km out of the park to Marahau. The fact that this took us just over 2 hours will show you how boring the last part of the walk was. Might as well take a water taxi out if you have the money. We were out early and got some hot food at last in the extortionate cafe next to the entrance. Then we got a ride back to Motueka and did nothing as we just finished off the hiking. One more great walk to go. Everyone had told us that Abel Tasman was the best. I disagree. Its a nice walk. Its on a par with the Kepler. The Routeburn is miles ahead of the other two from the two we have done.
In the morning we had to grab an early bus to Nelson (waiting for an hour) and another bus to Blenheim (2 hour wait). Blenheim looks like an ultra boring place. How on earth the Israelis can work there I don't know. I am still really happy that we took our working holiday visa in Australia and not New Zealand. Eventually we got to Kaikoura and the weather was a bit shitty with tons of mist. We decided to go and get some fish and chips from the apparently second best in NZ (more on that later) and then just chilled out in the hot tub of our hostel. We had decided after a lot of back and forth not to do a whale watching tour and just go to see the seals.
The next day we went to town for lunch and nothing was open so we went to the fish and chip shop next door to the other one. His was better and he told us that the other fish and chip shop had come second ina survey done by the kiwi explorer bus. Far be it for me to disparage reviews conducted by 18 year old morons from my country, but the fact that this survey only includes one fish and chip shop per town (hardly fair) and only the ones the bus visits, I think its hard to take it seriously. If you are in Kaikoura skip the surly bullshit from this self proclaimed great fish and chip shop and go next door for a nice chat with the owner of the other shop. We chatted with him for a couple of hours about the ridiculous monopolies on crayfish and whale watching in the town. He said how he wanted to open a burger bar and we ended up talking about making a crayfish sandwich for $15. I think its a winner and if you go to Kaikoura and see a shop selling $15 crayfish sandwiches then let me know, say hey to the owner and know we helped inspire it. He even told us about an Italian fishing ship that had strapped a jet engine onto itself to escape pirates. Interesting guy. After that we walked to the seal colony, but you can't really see any seals as they are too far out. Shame really. We saw a few basking close by and got surprised when one almost came out of a bush right next to us. Shit. Made me jump. It was still grey and misty. I am no sure it is worth visiting if you don't plan on seeing the whales but we had a nice couple of days there. Onwards to the north island.
Tom picked us up from the bus station in Nelson and took us for a drive and tour of Nelson. Looks like a pleasant city and apparently it has the sunniest weather in NZ, which given the fact that we are now in the middle of seemingly 2 weeks of non stop rain, it is very much appreciated in hindsight. We got lucky in the South Island for weather. We didn't get that extension on the North island. We went back to his place which is really impressive. His dad built it himself and its a really nice house. There we did some catching up, Tom cooked us a Chilean mixed grill style dish and we poured over maps of the Amazon as he was just about to head off on his latest Amazon trip. We kicked back with some beers and reminisced about the old times.
The next morning we set off for Nelson Lakes NP which was cool as I had wanted to go there. It was only an hours drive and then we set off to walk around the lake. We ended up taking the longer route that turned it into a good 30km round hike. Nice warm up for Abel Tasman. They have a lot of fresh water eels in the lake and it was cool to see them. The lake is a nice alpine lake and very pleasant. Not unmissable, but good for a nice day or two of hiking. We didn't meet many people on the loop and the end part down the valley was our first real off track hiking with just the orange markers to point us in the right direction. If you feel like getting out into some peaceful wilderness then I would recommend it. By the end Tom was a little knackered and Cannelle was feeling tired. The last 4km on the road we managed to grab a ride from an Israeli couple whose bed we climbed on to lie down while they drove us to a fish and chip shop. They had said they loved China (which made Cannelle feel good) and had said that Abel Tasman was nice, but after you've been to the Philippines then beaches elsewhere aren't very good. Its how I feel and a major reason why I can't be arsed to go to Queensland. How do you top the Philippines? You probably can't. We grabbed the car and drove back home and Tom was tired so he made me take the wheel while he drove. Weird as I haven't steered a car for ages. I still prefer a scooter. When we got back we watched Captain Phillips. It had no subtitles for the Somalis but neither did the version in the fish and chip shop in Kaikoura so maybe its not supposed to. It was good to catch up with Tom and a nice two days as he showed us the bike tracks he had built in his back garden and the cycling video he had been editing over the previous couple of months. His Spanish and Portuguese are really good now and I was a little jealous. I really need to improve mine and work on it.
In the morning he gave us one final spin around town and we got our shopping for the Abel Tasman hike. We took the bus to Motueka and walked ages to our hostel. Nice place. Not much to do here. We went out for some food and then chilled in the hostel. In the evening I went for a night time walk to find a pie and eating the pie while walking under the stars I realised that I was really, truly happy. Lucky life I have.
In the morning we grabbed our bus to the park entrance and took the aquataxi up to Totaranui. I had wanted to see split apple rock after the hike and head to separation point on the first day, but the aquataxi ride killed two birds with one stone. It stopped close to split apple rock to get some photos and then visited Tonga Island on the way north to see the seals. Oh well. Easier than I imagined. The aquataxi ride is cool, because you get to see the park from the water before hiking back. We thought this might ruin the experience but it really doesn't as its very different from the land. We were dropped in Totaranui around 1pm and the tidal crossing at Awaroa wasn't possible until at least 3pm so we were left to kick our heels as it was only 5.5km. We had decided against doing the rest of the northern part and an Austrian girl later told us that its the same but more rugged. The first day's walking was really boring apart from the rust coloured sand which was unique. We were apprehensive about the rest. When we got to Awaroa it was just after 3pm and we attempted the crossing. We got halfway before realising we were going to have to remove our boots and wade which came to around our knee. Apparently its impossible to get across without wading as it is still a river inside a tidal estuary. This was fun and we left our socks on so as not to get cut up on all the shells. Took us a good 20-30 minutes to get across. Once across we went on a hike to find the restaurant about 2km away but its very overpriced, was disappointing and let to an argument. The walk round there is quite nice though and leads past sand dunes, houses and crosses a couple of rivers. We got chatting with an American and an Austrian girl in the evening. There was a big group of Kiwis who monopolised the hut and were quite annoying. The ranger told us that this hut is completely cut off and landlocked during high tide. He told us that some people had even tried to cross it at 10pm at night having not read the notices. At high tide its 3m deep in the middle and they were freezing and wading in the middle of the tidal waters. Idiots. Some people never learn no matter what is written.
The next morning we set off early to make sure we would have no problems with the tide. We kept trying to anticipate where Daniel had taken the photo that is hanging on his lounge wall. Its very beautiful and we didn't want to miss it. Not long out of the camp we came cross the ranger and a friend of his behind a quad bike. Curious. They seemed a little embarrassed to see us. When I walked closer I could see a dead deer next to them. They had shot it because it was on national park land. They apologised to me, but I said not to worry as I would be a hypocrite given how much I like venison. They asked for some help lifting it, which was weird as I held the antlers and helped lift it onto the quad. Weird start. The first half of the day saw us walk to Bark Bay. Its a nice walk but we weren't blown away by much. Its around Bark Bay that it becomes very beautiful. We had also got lucky because the weather the day before had been cloudy and the day after was as well. This day was glorious however and it was the day where we would do the most beautiful part of the walk. The part from Bark Bay over to Anchorage is the prettiest part of the walk. We got the viewpoint we had been waiting for when we got close to Torrent Bay. We saw some little spiders and a lot of birds, including the wood pigeon. The tidal path was closed at Torrent Bay so we did the long 5km detour to get round to Anchorage. I took the side trip to Cleopatra's Pool (not worth it) and we eventually made it onto the beautiful beach of Anchorage. 27km of walking and it was a really nice part of the park. Cannelle loved it. I thought it was really nice. I would say that if you are pushed for time then you should just do the Awaroa to Anchorage part as the rest of the walk is pretty boring or average. That way you would see the best of the park. In the evening there was a very fat guy in our room and he snored so loudly that everyone else left the ranger hut to sleep outside. It wasn't that bad. In fact the German guy who left due to the snoring was snoring so much worse the night before. When we woke up it was just Cannelle and I, as the other two had left early. My sleeping bag was killing me. Being thermal it was far too hot for where we were.
In the morning we were up early and did the last 12km out of the park to Marahau. The fact that this took us just over 2 hours will show you how boring the last part of the walk was. Might as well take a water taxi out if you have the money. We were out early and got some hot food at last in the extortionate cafe next to the entrance. Then we got a ride back to Motueka and did nothing as we just finished off the hiking. One more great walk to go. Everyone had told us that Abel Tasman was the best. I disagree. Its a nice walk. Its on a par with the Kepler. The Routeburn is miles ahead of the other two from the two we have done.
In the morning we had to grab an early bus to Nelson (waiting for an hour) and another bus to Blenheim (2 hour wait). Blenheim looks like an ultra boring place. How on earth the Israelis can work there I don't know. I am still really happy that we took our working holiday visa in Australia and not New Zealand. Eventually we got to Kaikoura and the weather was a bit shitty with tons of mist. We decided to go and get some fish and chips from the apparently second best in NZ (more on that later) and then just chilled out in the hot tub of our hostel. We had decided after a lot of back and forth not to do a whale watching tour and just go to see the seals.
The next day we went to town for lunch and nothing was open so we went to the fish and chip shop next door to the other one. His was better and he told us that the other fish and chip shop had come second ina survey done by the kiwi explorer bus. Far be it for me to disparage reviews conducted by 18 year old morons from my country, but the fact that this survey only includes one fish and chip shop per town (hardly fair) and only the ones the bus visits, I think its hard to take it seriously. If you are in Kaikoura skip the surly bullshit from this self proclaimed great fish and chip shop and go next door for a nice chat with the owner of the other shop. We chatted with him for a couple of hours about the ridiculous monopolies on crayfish and whale watching in the town. He said how he wanted to open a burger bar and we ended up talking about making a crayfish sandwich for $15. I think its a winner and if you go to Kaikoura and see a shop selling $15 crayfish sandwiches then let me know, say hey to the owner and know we helped inspire it. He even told us about an Italian fishing ship that had strapped a jet engine onto itself to escape pirates. Interesting guy. After that we walked to the seal colony, but you can't really see any seals as they are too far out. Shame really. We saw a few basking close by and got surprised when one almost came out of a bush right next to us. Shit. Made me jump. It was still grey and misty. I am no sure it is worth visiting if you don't plan on seeing the whales but we had a nice couple of days there. Onwards to the north island.
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