Hello from Australia!

Greetings from Oz!!

After our little flight snafu, we arrived safe and sound into Brisbane.  Kelly was nice enough to meet us downtown and offer us the lay of the land.  Our first day in the city was a bit of an organizing day, with us trying to arrange for our Indian Visas.  We were able to get in some sights of the city, walking the 30 minute waterfront path from Kelly and Mike's apartment to downtown.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, so we headed down South to the beach town of Byron Bay.  This is a little surfer town, which has become a popular spot for backpackers.  It's a bit less commercialized than the neighboring beach towns, and had a great vibe throughout the town.  There was a beautiful beach, which we lounged around all day.  At sunset, we headed uphill to the Byron Bay lighthouse, offering us some nice views of the coast line.

Most Easterly Point on mainland Australia!

Sunday was another fun filled adventure--this time, exploring the wildlife this country has to offer.  We took a trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary just outside of Brisbane, and had a WONDERFUL day!!  They have about 130 koalas throughout the park, as well as a kangaroo petting area, dingos, tasmanian devils, platypus and so much more!  

Feeding time!!

Look very closely at this pic and you'll see the joey resting in her mother's pouch.  I figure we can never complain about being pregnant again after seeing this!

The kangaroo petting area is just a field full of kangaroos and people petting and feeding them.  It's similar to the deer pen at Marine Land.  Kangaroos may be exotic to us, but in Australia they are everywhere!

Us with our koala "Max"!!  All the koalas here have names, and the koala keepers have to know each of them personally!

a wombat

 Here is a video of a wallaby hopping away from us.  

 This is one of the koala areas.  It was great fun just to watch them moving about in their eucalyptus tree homes!

Monday we took the day in the city of Brisbane itself.  We walked through the downtown core, made our way through the beautiful botanical gardens and took a ride on the City Cat ferry--a water taxi that goes up and down the entire Brisbane river, offering a great route for commuting, or a nice way to sight see from the water!

Now we are off, heading up the Sunshine Coast.  We've got a 4x4 trip booked on the world's largest sand island and a sailing trip in the Whitsundays--should be a nice way to spend the Christmas season!  

Lake Tekapo Pics

Hello from Australia!!  We will do our first Australia post soon, but wanted to finish off with the NZ pics first.  Its looking like wireless will be easier to find in this country (cross your fingers!!) so hopefully we should be able to post pictures a bit easier than before.

Enjoy!!

This is a lake outside of Lake Tekapo, that offers great views of Mount Cook, the highest peak in NZ.  Mount Cook is right behind Steve and I--the one all covered in snow!

Our Magic Bus!

Mount Cook

Lake Tekapo.  Apparently this Church is the most photographed site in all of NZ...

Beautiful Lake Tekapo.  There were these really pretty flowers, lupins, everywhere around the lake.  

Last NZ post

Well, for those of you astute to our travel details, you would know that we shouldn’t be writing our last NZ post today, we should already be writing our first Aussie post.  But, alas, we have met our first travel snafu—our plane had some “engineering issue” and was delayed from 4pm yesterday afternoon to 730am this morning!!  Things worked out pretty good though—we got put up in a very nice suite, had a delicious airport dinner (really, it was good!) and managed to sneak in one last pint of black beer!!!  We are now sitting in the airport, waiting to take off—wish us luck!!

Since we’ve left Queenstown, we’ve been travelling on our Magic Bus daily.  We left Queenstown to head to Dunedin, which is a quaint University town down in the South East of the country.   This town is the world record holder for the steepest street—which of course we got to climb!!  The bus stops for everyone at Baldwin Street to say we made the summit.   And to make things interesting, the bus driver offered a prize to the first one up.  Well, the tramping has paid off—Steve won!!!  The views were great from the top (pics to follow—as always!!) and we had a great start to the morning with our run up the hill.

From Dunedin it was off to Lake Tekapo.  This is a very tiny resort town, which is known for it’s star gazing.  They are actually trying to make the sky above Lake Tekapo a world heritage sight because apparently the sky is so clear that this is the best star gazing in the Southern hemisphere.  I say apparently, because even though we had a wonderfully clear, warm day, the clouds floated in around 9pm and didn’t leave until after we did L!  Our afternoon was wonderful though—we had a nice walk around the crystal blue lake.  The water has a phenomenon where the mountain run off creates these little particles that perfectly reflect the sun, leaving this amazing turquoise colour.  It was quite a pleasant afternoon exploring this town and their beautiful lake.

From Lake Tekapo, we headed up to Christchurch, better known recently for the massive earthquake in February 2011 that shook the town core.  They are working very hard, but still haven’t fully recovered.  The tragedy of this earthquake, was that the worst hit spot was the Central Business District, not simply the outlying areas.  181 lives were lost and many many people are still displaced.  The town is designated into different zones, with the red zone being inhabitable and the buildings deemed unsafe.  If you were unlucky enough to be living in the red zone, you are still homeless—essentially all the hotels are filled in this city and we have been told numerous families are doubling up in safe houses. 

We had the wonderful opportunity to stay with a kiwi family in Christchurch.  Brock is part kiwi and still has relatives living here.  Exciting part is that they own a winery!  We were welcomed into their family with open arms and had a lovely evening exploring and learning about Christchurch with Shirley.  She treated us to by far the most delicious meal we have had in New Zealand yet, and allowed us to explore the winery and learn a bit about how the winery industry in NZ works.  To cap off the evening, she took us to a local Christmas light show.  This DEFINITELY rivals anything you have seen in Canada—this man has choreographed over 6 songs to the lights, and they play nightly.  In addition to the lights, he also has numerous displays of other Christmas ornaments, blow-up decorations and dancing santas!  It was a little different to 1) see lights without snow and 2) seeing people walking around in flip-flops (or jandals, as they are known in this country!!) but we agreed with Shirley that this was better than any light show we’ve seen before.

We are off to Australia--hopefully we get a Brisbane weekend with Mike and Kelly!!  Post pictures soon!

Te Anau Post & Pictures

The town of Te Anau is a 2 hour drive from Queenstown.  The road from Queenstown to Te Anau curves along the Remarkables mountain range (only range in the world besides Rockies that point due north, said the bus driver) .

Te Anau is small town of 5000 people, and the main jumping off point for the Fiordland National Park. The area east of Te Anau is fiords and many different great walks such as the Keplar, Routeburn, and Milford and Doubtful sound tours are accessed by crossing lake Te Anau to reach the trail heads.

A view of the Te Anau waterfront.

A Kea. Having a nap before he is ready to tear apart some trampers unlucky backpacks.

Lake Te Anau with Fiordland National Park in the background. 

It is another beautiful town, situated on Lake Te Anau, and is quiet similar to Wanaka. These towns have all setup great walking paths and beaches along the water front as the communities are very outdoors oriented. The maintenance of the beaches and walkways also make great spots for tourists, as there are always many backpacker vans and cars parked at these spots with people enjoying the beach or laid out on the grass. Many people have their towels and laundry spread out across their campers to dry, which looks funny as these travelers are using every bit of space they have to travel.

 When we had first decided to travel New Zealand we considered renting a camper van rather than buying a ticket on the Magic Bus. We were really not sure how well the camper van setup would work logistically travelling through the country. We have now realized that every 5^th vehicle on the road is a car people are sleeping in, mid-sized camper van or full sized camper trailers. All of the different rental companies have their logo on the vehicles which makes it very clear which are the rentals and from which company.

We spent a day here before and after the kayak trip in Doubtful Sound. We soon realized that we have been in this country too long as we have started to overlap with people we have met from other areas and trips in New Zealand. One guy stayed in the same hut as us on the Tongariro Northern circuit, was one of eight people that were on our kayak trip. He was very helpful providing us with information for travel in India and Nepal as he has been travelling the world for two years.  Many of the people we have talked to about travelling are all travelling between 3 months and 3 years around the world. It is great talking to other people as they have insight as to what to expect from different places as well as the easiest way to complete a trip we want to do with the least amount of hassle.

As a side note he said he had previously worked for Comedy Central and got to know many of the TV personalities. I asked him if he knew Dave Chappelle, but he said Dave had left just before he started there, which I found disappointing.

On our second day in Te Anau we had the opportunity to visit a wildlife conservation park that is run by the Department of Conservation.  We saw keas (these really large birds, which are known for stealing your gear while camping!!) alpine parrots and wekas (another New Zealand bird, but these you see on beaches and in the forest—they are becoming quite tamed, so that they will try and sneak on tour buses to steal food!; there is a picture of Steve posted with a weka on a beach in Abel Tasman).   It was really nice to see the work they are doing to protect and help these birds, ensuring that future generations can enjoy them as much as we have.  As we walked back through the forest to our hostel, you hear lots and lots of rustling in the forest—the thing with New Zealand is, you always know that it’s a bird in the forest, because they don’t have the same small animals, like chipmunks or squirrels, like we do.

Doubtful Sound Kayaking Pictures

View of Doubtful sound from the pass between the sound and Lake Manipouri

Our guide helping to get the kayaks ready for the trip at Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound

The group paddling along in the cove. The group was 8 people, two per kayak and two guides. 

One of the many impressive waterfalls in Doubtful Sound

Picture time during the lunch break on day one. 

Teamwork!

Doubtful Sound Kayaking

Departing from Te Anau at 6am, we were picked up by the two Kiwi guides, Matt and Luke. These guys were university students who guide throughout the summertime (its now the start of the summer break here in NZ) and had lots of great insight into the area and other things New Zealand.

We had chosen to go to Doubtful Sound to kayak for an overnight trip as opposed to the major draw of Milford Sound. Milford Sound is the main tourist attraction because many tour operators do the bus and boat tour at Milford as the road goes all the way to Milford sound. The trip from Queenstown is a 12 hour round trip with 10 hours on the bus and 2 hours on the boat. The trip is supposed to be great, but we decided we would get more out of the Doubtful Sound trip, and chose to do the kayaking instead.

The route to DS is a car ride to Manapouri, an hour boat ride across Lake Manapouri, twenty minute bus ride over the pass to Deep Cove at the start of DS. It makes sense why less people travel to DS and go to Milford instead as it is a much more accessible route.  At the point where we loaded up the kayaks and entered to water at Deep Cove, the Department of Conservation has an educational site which is for school groups which is similar to the many different educational centers at the different parks were visited. It was encouraging to see that the NZ people really integrate the school children with the amazing outdoor opportunities in this country.

We were fortunate to have great weather and calm water when we paddled as the area receives over 200 days of rain a year. We had great warm calm sunny weather both days.

This trip we completed with guides as opposed to the previous multi day hikes we had completed alone. The benefit of having the guides was they provided the tents, cooking equipment and had camp set up for us when we arrived.  The guides also knew where the wildlife was located and accessible waterfalls to hike. There was even a campsite setup for us to stay and cook that was operated by the tour company.  

These guides were students at Otago University which is located in Dunedin. Some of the fun events that would take part at the school included the Under 500 annual car rally. The rally was people would bring in cars from all over the country that were worth under $500 dollars and decorate them with wrapping from beer advertisements, All Black colours and symbols or any other theme they decided to use for their car. They said it was a big party and hundreds of cars would be part of the car parade and a great event.

The guides told us  what some of the best youtube videos that Kiwi’s were watching, the chocolate and other types of annual races that Dunedin students would hold at Baldwin street, the steepest street in the world that we visit in Dunedin, and possum hunting as children.  Possums are a big pest in New Zealand as they are hated by everyone here.  The possum was introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800’s for the fur trade, they have no natural predators in New Zealand and the population has exploded to tens of millions of possums.  The guide was telling us that when they were children, what his parents would tell him is either you go to bed or you go possum hunting. We though he was joking, but they did in fact hunt possum. He said one person had a stick and a second person was responsible to shake the tree to make the possum fall out. When the possum fell, the stick person was responsible to club to possum. The possum fur would be sold as there is still a big market for possum fur. Some great insight to the life of a kiwi!

 The fiords of Doubtful Sound were very impressive and we were happy that we made to extra effort to take the kayak trip.  The sand fly’s were swarming at certain places when we were inland that make it comparable to black fly season in Canada, but it was part of the adventure in Fiordland National Park. 

Queenstown Pics

Panoramic view of Queenstown from up on Queenstown Hill

AJ Hackett Bungy, just outside of Queenstown.  The home of the original bungy in the world.

Queenstown harbour at Sunset.

Waterfront Queenstown

Abel Tasman Pictures

Marahua, the start of our five days of tramping in the Abel Tasman National Park (tide is out)

Anchorage Bay, the site of our first nights hut

Second Morning crossing the estuary at low tide--the boats literally just end up on the sand!

Shoes are off, because even though the tide is out there are still many pools we had to cross to make it through the 1.5km estuary

This is a low-tide crossing we had to do on day 3.  Yes, we did get here at low tide, but even then it was a pretty deep stream!

Third nights hut at low tide--we arrived just as the tide was coming up, and we almost didn't make it to the hut.  Literally the water comes right up to the grass when the tide is in.

Mr. Crab!!

Group of school children crossing the estuary we crossed on the fourth day of hiking

Ang crossing the estuary on the morning of the fourth day.

Fourth day of hiking

If you look closely, you'll see lots of people walking along the beach with their packs; there were lots of groups of school children on school trips when we were hiking, and this is one of the groups walking just in front of us.  This is one of the many beaches that we hiked along throughout our tramp.

Steve and a weka (NZ bird!)

AquaPackers--our floating hostel that we stayed in on the fifth night in Abel Tasman.

Steve in the bunk cabin--quite close quarters, but a really fun time!

Abel Tasman Video

Here is a little video of a crab friend we saw on our hike.  There were tons of these guys throughout the estuaries at low tide--fun to watch them scurry and hide under rocks!

Nelson Pics

The street our hostel was on

The waterfront walk to the beach

Kite surfers; there was a large channel of water that remained even when the  tide had gone out, so you were in  the ocean, but quite safe to learn without worrying about getting swept away!

Beach on Rabbit Island, a park just outside of town where we had a picnic lunch during our wine tasting

Wellington Pictures

Steve and Ang in windy Wellington (living up to it's name, looking at the hair!); View of the city behind us

Waterfront walking path--you can literally walk for hours

Funny story for these last two pictures--they are pics of the  downtown courtyard, but the "Occupy Wellington" people have taken over the area.  It is quite a nice place, but has a bit of a different feel these days.  One of the guys we meet said that if we were looking for a free place to stay in Wellington, we could stay in camp!!  They let you bunk into their tents, have food, and go dumpster diving every evening for new treats....WONDERFUL!!!  (Needless to say, we booked other accommodation!)