Sydney

Welcome to Sydney! The real capital of Australia- not the official one. By the way, Cork is NOT the real capital of Ireland, so don't even think about it.

Sydney is a very attractive city with loads to do and good public transport. It has good museums and plenty of targets for the 'snap happy' with sophisticated cameras. If you are looking for fine dining and aesthetically pleasing areas of Sydney though, don't stay near Kings Cross, as we found out after booking accommodation down the road. The wildlife centre is full of boxing kangaroos and hungry crocodiles though. 

As John as mentioned there is plenty to do and see in Sydney. First thing that we had to do was to arrange a visa for Vietnam. At home, we did a few last minute checks, and realised a bit late that we need a visa before we arrive in Vietnam, as they are only available on the border if you are flying. There is no Vietnamese embassy in Dublin – the closest is London, and they had a ten day processing time, as well as posting the passport over and back. We had about a week left before we were flying off, but our passports were with the Chinese embassy, and we didn’t have the time, even if we paid extra for them to process it faster.  Cue a google search of embassies that we might encounter while we were away, and the best we could come up with was the embassy in Bangkok. Then I realised there was a consulate, offering the same services in Sydney. So first thing Tuesday morning we headed out there. It was remarkably easy to find, and very easy to deal with. This being our second encounter with any embassy, I have to say it is by far the best we have dealt with. (The Chinese embassy in Dublin is in a conservatory at the back of a house, and gives a very disorganised impression). We were seen almost immediately, and were told to come back in two days. (and that was normal processing time – not a rushed one).

That afternoon we headed to Circular Quay to see the famous bridge and opera house. Sydney is a popular destination for cruise ships, and for the first time in about 60 years the Queen Mary 2, and the Queen Elizabeth were docked at the same time. There seemed to be a lot of fuss about this, and there were boats offering trips out to see the ships up close. (bear in mind that they were docked, and hence very close to the shore anyways). They were quite impressive ships, but I really didn’t get what all the fuss was over.  We also went to Darling Harbour that day. This is a very pretty area of Sydney, where the aquarium and Aussie Wildlife centre were located. These were both quite good, the wildlife centre more so though. They had a massive crocodile – over 5m in length, and a really good butterfly area.  I made a discovery at circular quay – while I don’t like chocolate ice-cream, I definitely love white chocolate ice-cream. I have no idea why I have never seen this for sale before, because it is lovely stuff!

On Tuesday evening we heard about the devastating earthquake in Christchurch. Having been there only a week or so earlier I found it quite shocking, especially seeing pictures of places that I recognised.  We count ourselves very lucky that it didn’t happen while we were there, and my thoughts are with the families of those who died, and even more so with the families and friends of all the missing people.

On Wednesday we visited the museum, and the cathedral.  We also visited the Botanic Gardens (of course!), and went up the sky tower. The botanic gardens were quite good. They are right on the edge of the harbour, so give a great view. We got to see the Queen Mary 2 leave too, which was quite interesting. You can see from the picture below how big it is. The botanic gardens had a lot of wildlife. There were loads of bats sleeping in the trees, and a few Cockatoos around as well. 

Thursday we went around a few places. We bought a day pass for the public transport, and got as much use as possible out of this. First we headed out to Bondi Beach. Having heard some mixed reports about Bondi, I wasn’t expecting much. So I was quite impressed. It is a lovely beach, and we got there at a quiet enough time. It was crowded enough, so I can see how people wouldn’t like it at busy times. I got in the water for a few minutes. The waves are really strong, so there isn’t much swimming done here – more standing in the water, and trying to keep your balance when a wave crashes into you.  We had to go and pick up our passports then. (It was really only a case of walk in, hand in receipt, and they were handed to us. So easy!). We then got the ferry out to Manly, another suburb of Sydney. It’s a nice place, with different beaches and walks available, and a very good atmosphere. We timed the return ferry to get Sydney Harbour at sunset, and got some lovely pictures. We spent the evening around the harbour area, and took a train over the bridge, just for the sake of it, and then walked back again, just for the sake of it! It was enjoyable, though it was only when I was on it that I realised how high it actually is. (and that’s without doing the climb that you can opt to do, which brings you up over the arches.

Yesterday  we went outside the city to the Blue Mountains. I’m sure you can see from the photos how they got their name. Not really much to say about here – except that it is a beautiful area, and we went on a bush walk. As they say, a picture paints 1000 words!

We are now en route to Ayers Rock. After having spent a few weeks in Australia, I am surprised it took until today to have an encounter with an undesirable. (in this instance a cockroach in our bedroom).  

The troll doesn't seem to understand what a restraining order is. He/she is still following us everywhere.

Lego Rocky-ish versus a kangaroo. Winner= kangaroo!

 Croc:"I spy with my little eye something beginning with D- dinner, yum, yum"

John:"I think he likes us????"

 We got to meet the kangaroo from Tekken. 

 And found a way to exercise the restraining order on the troll. 

 It's a lot smaller than it looks!

TWSS 

 Can you figure out how they got the ship under the bridge?

Kieth Barry can't take any credit for it.

 Should have bought better curtains if you want to sleep during the day.

Bats at the Sydney botanic gardens.

The blue mountains

The three sisters at the blue mountains. 

Another catch up!

So after Rotorua we headed up to the Bay of Islands. This is in the far north of New Zealand, and is quite a nice place to see. There isn't a huge amount to do there, so we spent a fair amount of time walking around. We did a longish walk through some forest, and came across a mangrove forest. These are inter-tidal forests that become submerged twice a day. The trees have roots that grow up to enable the tree to breathe - a bit like a snorkel. We spent a couple of nights here, and then our tour finished up in Auckland. Auckland is the biggest city in New Zealand, but not the capital. As cities go it is fairly average. We went up the sky tower, to get a good view of the city, and for $2 extra we were able to come up again later that evening. 

The following day we decided to do a harbour tour. This gave us more nice views of the city, which we were enjoying, and then the captain said that he was going to take us off course as he had been informed that there was a pod of orca near by. When we were in Kaikoura we were offered a whale watching tour for almost NZ$200. In the Bay of Islands we were offered a tour for around NZ$60, plus an extra charge if you saw dolphins. We paid $32 for the harbour tour, and got to see the killer whales quite close up. Needless to say we were very happy with this. There were quite a few of them, and we got to see them jumping and all. Pity I didn't manage to get a decent picture! However there is a picture of one of their fins below. 

Sunset over Auckland. 

Auckland by night

Hard to tell, but this is actually a killer whale or orca. 

Bay of Islands moonrise. 

Mangrove forest. 

Horuru Falls. 

Mé fein and Gollum. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the statue is fairly bad - it looks a bit more hacked out of stone, rather than sculpted.
This town is the closest town to the farm where the filming location for Hobbiton, and they are really milking that claim to fame. 

I was quite sad to leave New Zealand as I really enjoyed it, and found it so very beautiful. I also enjoyed doing the topdeck tour - we got to see a lot of the country in a short space of time, and it was nice to be part of a group. We arrived in Sydney two days ago, and in hind sight, we are lucky we left NZ when we did. The news of the earthquake in Christchurch, and especially all the pictures of the damage have quite shocked me. We stayed very near to some of the buildings that were badly damaged, and I feel so lucky to have escaped. While we were driving into Christchurch the bus driver was giving us some safety instructions of what to in case of a quake. Thank God we didn't have to use them. My thoughts are with the families of those who have passed on, and those who are still searching. 

It's a long one!!!

Hmmmm....... I think I did a post for this and didn't save it, because there seems to be a chunk missing. So I must apologise for the long gap - we haven't actually have had time or internet for a few days.
So after Fox Glacier we went back to Christchurch for a night. We didn't have much time there - we arrived late enough on Saturday, and left early on Sunday (we have had many early starts on our tour, and a lot of time on the bus too.) Some of our group were finishing up that night, so we all went out for dinner and a few drinks.
On Sunday we went to Kaikoura - one of the best places in New Zealand to see marine life. The sea here is teeming with dolphins, whales and seals. We didn't go on any of the excursions, so all we saw were the seals and a few dolphins off in the distance.

We spent that night in Nelson. I had arranged with some of the girls on the tour to go wine tasting, and John went quad biking. I however had a change of heart at the last minute, and decided to go for a wee sky dive instead. (16500 feet - nearly 5km!). John didn't know this until I returned, and instead of coming back tipsy like he expected, I arrived back in the sky dive bus! It wasn't as scary as I expected, nor did I get the adreneline rush I expected, but I did enjoy it, and I got some really good views of the area. The freefall part lasted approx 75 sec, but it feels more like being pushed up by heavy wind than falling. 

(Ironically valentine's day was the first day that we have spent that amount of time of time apart - I managed to get John a present in Christchurch without him noticing that I had left the hotel. My propensity to start chatting to people and get distracted serves me well at times!)

After Neslon we moved to the North Island. This was by 3 hour ferry, which was longer than I expected as I thought the two Islands were closer than that. The tour group are quite fond of a game called Mafia, which passed the time well. We stayed in Wellington that night. We visited the Te Papa museum, which was very impressive, especially when you consider that its a free museum. It is very varied - from photography exhibitions, to natural history, to geography and everything in between. Wellington is very picturesque, and also at less than 250K of a population, quite a small place for a capital city. 

From there we went to Rotorua. We stayed here two nights, but in two different places. The first night we stayed in a Marae - a Maori community. This was a very enjoyable insight into their way of life. We were welcomed into the Marae by one of the elders, and we all had to do a tongi (touching of noses and forheads), and we were looked after for the night by Jen and Sean. Had to laugh though when we found out that Sean's full name is Sean Murray, and his dad comes from Cork! He is a tattoo artist and knows a lot about the meanings behind the Maori symbols. This was in all a very interesting night, and one of the highlights of our trip. (Sorry about the lack of photos, while it is no problem to post pictures of the outside of the meeting house, we were asked not to post photos of the inside. We can however show the photos to friends and family when we get home)

Still in the same area, we went to Whakarewareware Thermal Village. This was a more touristy look at the Maori lifestyle, which was very interesting, especially the cultural show. The village is on a volcanic hotspot, so they have loads of hot springs, and a few geysers. They use the hotsprings for cooking and bathing.  Our hotel room had a hot tub too outside which was lovely.  I also finally got John to do something a bit adventurous, and we went white water rafting. We did a grade 5 river, which is as good as it gets. It was good fun, even if we did manage to scare the instructor. I'm fairly certain he made a mistake, because we all did the wrong thing at the same time. (Namely paddling like crazy towards the waterfall, instead of crouching down in the boat). For someone who rafts this river twice a day, it's a rare experience to be shaking afterwards. But we had fun! (We must have been oblivious to the danger!!) We also managed to get our raft vertical in the water, without flipping it. 

Some pictures of that here:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=298552&id=532283005&l=4e7fd8fdd3

Lake at Marae

The topdeck tour

One of the hot pools - I know it's hard to tell with the steam, but the water is amazingly clear.  The water reaches temperatures of 150 degrees C.

The guy jumped when he felt John's arm - thought it was a spider!

Still a few days behind, but will do my best to catch up soon!

Queenstown

Hi everyone! Not much time to blog, so this is going to be short and sweet. We spent the last few days in Queenstown - the adventure sport capital of the world, and it was pretty amazing. It was smaller than we expected, but very beautiful, just like the rest of the country. Our first day there we arrived late in the day so we just relaxed for the day, and wandered around the town. 
The second day we had a lovely lie in and then went up the Gondola to the top of the mountain. This gave us some really good views of the town (city?) and the surrounding areas. We also tried luging - sort of like go carting except you use gravity to move you, because its all downhill. It was good, but I think John got a lot more out of it than I did. We had a night out on the town that night - a bit of a Queenstown pub crawl, which included the very cool Ice Bar. (We were given ugg boots and coats, and even the glasses were made of ice!)The third day I did a canyon swing. For those of you not in the know, this is basically a bungy jump, but instead of bouncing at the end you swing! It still has the same stepping over the edge thing and I was petrified. I wouldn't even stand at the edge of the platform.


http://www.facebook.com/v/10150100105273006

The above is a link to the video, which is also on my facebook account.

The next day we went to Fox Glacier. We spent the afternoon hiking up through the rainforest alongside the glacier, and then we went down onto the glacier, which was a pretty unique experience. That evening we went for a walk in the rainforest, in the dark, with no torches, so as not to ruin our night vision. We went in search of glow worms, which John of course had to point are not actually worms at all. Didn't matter, since all we could see was there glowing ends, which are very pretty. (In case you didn't know glow worms can't poo, so what you see is their waste burning off!). We spent yesterday evening in Christchurch, where we went out for dinner and a few drinks, and today we are in Kaikoura, to see some Marine life. There are loads of dolphins, seals and whales in the area.