Fluid Plans....

Unfortunately it hasn't worked out to borrow my friend's car like I'd hoped. That means I'm on buses during my time here. No bid problem, but the car would have been nice.

I arrived in Taupo today. It seems like a great town but I only came here for one reason- to do the Tongariro Crossing. This is a day long hike that is supposed to be STUNNING. But I got here and was told that the weather is too bad and that the walk is closed today and tomorrow. I had planned on doing it tomorrow and then moving on to Rotorua the next day.

So now I'm in a bit of a fix. Do I stay and see if it clears up by Thursday? Or do I cut my loses and move on? I'm gonna wait and see what they say tomorrow. If it's still closed on Thursday then I think I'm gonna leave it and head on to Rotorua. I'll be pretty gutted if that happens. Soooooo many people have mentioned this walk to me. It would be a bummer to miss it.

Mmmm....

Arrived In NZ...

After a long sleepless night in Sydney Airport and a battle with public transport, I finally made it to my first destination in New Zealand- Hamilton. I've been staying with Pip, a friend from back in my uni days.

Hamilton is a quiet town that's not really a major tourist destination. That said, I did go see their tourist hot-spots: The Mormon Temple (!) and the Hamilton Gardens. It might sound a bit naff, but I've had fun catching up with Pip and hanging out with her housemates. Yesterday we went surfing in the afternoon after church, then went to see a symphony in the park. It was great!

Tomorrow I'm hoping to travel over to Gisborne where I might be able to pick up a car from a friend that I'll be abel to use for the rest of my trip. I just have to make sure it's roadworthy! I'm really excited about the prospect of having the freedom to drive anywhere and everywhere without having to rely on tour buses and public transport. I have a long to-do list and having a car will make it so much easier to tick everything off.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Last Day In Sydney...

For my last day in Sydney we went to the beach at 5am for the sunrise. Check out the pics tab for pictures of Sydney and our trip to the beach.

Sydney At Night...

Relocation Relocation Relocation...

Yesterday I set off on the 1,000 kilometre drive from Brisbane to Sydney. I was sorry to be leaving the Gold Coast but excited about the journey ahead.

To be honest, there wasn’t much to see for the first 500km. I thrashed out the drive to Coff’s Harbour (the half way point) in about 5 hours. I got there in time to have a brief look around the harbour and see a nice sunset, then it was time to hunt for a place to sleep. I had heard that the police don’t take kindly to people camping at the side of the road but had no intentions of paying for a campsite. So I drove around for a while looking for a secluded back street. Eventually I found the perfect spot and was bedding down for the night when I had a sudden realisation…. Inside the campervan was like an oven! Seriously, after climbing into the back I was sweating! And I’m not just talking about a few little beads; I mean I had sweat running down my back like I’d just been working out! It was horrible. I just sat on my bead wondering how on earth I was gonna get any sleep. I tried opening the door and that helped a bit, but it was no time before the mozzys arrived. I sprayed myself with military grade bug-spray but that made my skin burn so only made the situation worse! I turned on the A/C for a while but was worried about the battery dying. Ugh…

In the end I just decided to sweat it out! (pun fully intended!) In the morning I had to settle for a wash in the sink of a disabled public toilet before getting back on the road.

I’m not making this drive sound too appealing, am I? :o) Thankfully the radio was playing a string of classic ‘driving’ tunes in preparation for the arrival of the Top Gear boys. So I whacked up the volume and chugged my way on down the road. 

Making Plans...

I've spent the past few days planning my time in New Zealand. Thankfully I've been staying with four Kiwi guys and they are full of advice of what to see and what not to see. I've made a rough itinerary that maps out a journey around both islands.

It's cool how little things that fall into place. I've had a number of bed offers (that's not dirty) and even on guy who's said I can use his car for the whole four weeks I'm there! This is great 'cos it means I can be completely independent and go where I want when I want without being dependent on public transport. And if I can manage to sleep in the car (a Peugeot 306!?!) then I can save heaps on hostel costs. I might try it for a couple nights and then decide otherwise. :o)

This Friday I leave for Sydney- I'm moving a campervan from Brisbane to Sydney. The trip should take about 11 hours but I have the van for three days so I should be able to stop off and see some sights. The great part is that usually a van costs about AU$90 a day to hire, but because I'm relocating it for them it only costs me AU$1 per day! Bargain! It's gonna be a long drive but I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I get some nice pics that I'll be able to upload when I get to Syd! 

P.S.

I should add that on our fishing trip (see below) we did catch some fish! I wasn't a complete failure and did reel in some small Skip Jack Tuna.

I thought you should see this pic as well. 

On the way back to dock the boys decided to have some fun in the waves. We spent ages trying to get this shot! We did some jumps in our boat too but unfortunately the guys in the other boat didn't have a camera. Let's just say that for someone who has spent relatively little time on the water, I was PEEING MYSELF!

Fishing On The Gold Coast....

On Friday night we took a short boat trip out to Twinnie- a friend's larger boat that would be our bed for the night. Thanks to the clowns in the boat next door having an all night party, we didn't get to sleep until 1am. That wouldn't have mattered too much except our alarms were set for 4:30am.

We left Twinnie just before sunrise and headed out to see on two smaller speedboats. It was amazing to get views of the city from the water as the sun rose.

We put out our lines and within five minutes one of the guys on our boat (Dave) had a bite. He was working hard to reel it in and he called to me to get the net so I could scoop the fish into the boat when the time came. As he got the fish closer to the boat he could see that it was a Spanish Mackerel. (This meant nothing to me but apparently he's been wanting to catch one for ages!) It was really exciting as this huge fish (probably the leg of my arm) was trashing about next to the boat. The only problem arose when it came time for me to help. I guess I panicked a bit because rather than scoop up the fish into the boat I whacked it in the head with the net, knocking it off the line and losing it!

It was right on the side of the boat and then an instant later it was gone! Ouch. Let's just say, Dave was not too impressed. Man did I feel like an idiot. The picture below is Dave before the dreaded incident, obviously looking a bit more calm as the sun rose on the horizon. 

Finally....

I've found a cafe with a decent internet connection! This means I can finally update you and upload some of my recent pics.

I'm still in the Gold Coast and have been enjoying some of the sights in the area. The city is mainly centered around the beach and shopping, so I've been travelling inland each day to go hiking or see some of the sights that are a bit more out of the way. As I said in an earlier post, I hiked a mountain called Mount Warning. I've now upload pics and you can see them in the pics page or on my Picassa site (see earlier post for address.) Have been back in that area I've taken some pics that show Mount Warning in its setting- if you look at my pics, it's the big pointy one.

Yesterday I went to Purling Brook Falls- a nice 4km walk down to the bottom of a 100m waterfall. The path actually goes in behind the falling water at its base. You might be able to see it in one of the pictures. I wasn't able to get any pics in there cos I was getting soaked, but it was good fun.

I then when to a rock feature called the Natural Bridge- this is another waterfall, but this on lunges down through a hole in the rock forming a natural bridge (funny enough). While down in the cave at the bottom of the falls I saw a sign talking about glowworms. Since I had no schedule I decided to wait around till night time to see if it was worth seeing. I sat in my car for an hour or two reading Dan Brown's latest trash waiting for darkness.
I knew it was time to head back down to the cave when three buses of Japanese tourists turn up with their cameras ready! Thankfully this glowworm experience was much more than my previous one down in Victoria- there were glowworms everywhere. Unfortunately it was took dark to take pics of the whole cave, but I managed to get a few close ups using some long exposures. Check 'em out.

(The red lights are from the Japanese folks taking pictures with their flash. Looks kinds cool though, like another galaxy or something.)

Sorry...

I know my posts are sporadic. Sorry there hasn't been any update for a while. It's just been pretty quiet recently. I'm having a good time hanging out in the Gold Coast (spent all day Sunday at a pool party at a $3million mansion) but there hasn't been much to blog about.

I'm beginning to make plans to move on to Sydney and hope to be there by this time next week. Hopefully there I'll be able to find a internet connection that can cope with all the photos I want to upload.

Hope you're well! 

Byron Bay...

I've had a fun few days in Byron Bay. Had my first ever surf lesson yesterday and got B.U.R.N.T. in the sun. Today I got up at 5:30 to go see the sun rise out at the lighthouse. Unfortunately this was made a lot more difficult by the latest addition to my hostel dorm. The two Brazilian lads I've been sharing with have been cool but yesterday a Welsh guy arrived. Now I've got nothing against the Welsh, but this guy has put ALL of them in my bad books. He arrived back from a night out at midnight- reasonable enough. But from 12 until 5 he proceeded to go through a series of coughing/snoring/shouting fits that I'm sure woke up half the neighbourhood! I'm serious! If somebody wanted to compile a list of comical sleeping noises they could learn a lot from this guy. At one point things were pretty quiet and I thought we might actually get to sleep when all of a sudden he EXPLODED into such a coughing fit that I thought he was gonna die (I was half hoping he would so I could get some precious zzzz!)


In the end I didn't even need my alarm at 5:30 thanks to our Welsh friend. I'd been awake the whole time.


Thankfully the sunrise was sweeeeet so that made up for the rubbish night somewhat and to be able to follow that up with a 7am surf (attempt) was a treat.