Ben King and Rachel Hill
Welcome all friends and family to a journal of our many adventures in 2007! We hope you enjoy keeping track of us... first stop Bangkok!Ben and Rach
Travel Blog Posts
August 26th 2007
Our last 5 days in Auckland we're pretty uneventful, we seemed to spend most of our time taking advantage of the free internet on offer at our hostel and counting downt the days until it was time to head for Fiji. After speaking to a few fellow travellers the general advice that we were given was to spend as little time as possible on the mainland and head out to some of Fiji's 333 Islands as soon as possible. We were also advised to sort some accommodation before we left as many of the resorts are often fully booked. We eventually decided to spend 3 nights on 1 Island and 7 nights on another. It worked out to be a lot more expensive than we had budgeted for but we were assured that it was the ... read more
The City of Sails and a road trip with Ian!
Published: August 14th 2007Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Parnell
August 14th 2007
Leaving Rotorua and the beautiful smell of rotten eggs, we made the short journey up to Auckland - "The City of Sails". It was a bit of a shock to the system to be back in the hustle and bustle of city life so with 16 days left before flying to Fiji we decided to rent ourselves a car and head to the Bay of Islands, Cape Reinga and the Coromandel Peninsula. With one day to spare before picking up the car we took advantage of a free Auckland day trip to see some of the sights. Our first stop on the sightseeing tour was the Auckland Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Naturally the Kiwi's, with their love for extreme sports, decided to invent a way of throwing yourself off of the ... read more
July 28th 2007
After spending a few days in Kaikoura chilling out in the hot tub and sauna we jumped on the bus heading to Picton and the Interislander ferry to Wellington and the North Island. We arrived in New Zealand's capital after a fairly smooth journey across the Cook Strait, supposedly one of the worlds roughest crossings. We were met at the ferry terminal by Hubbard, a good friend of Ben's uncle Jerry, who had kindly offered to put us up for our stay in Wellington. He gave us a quick tour of the city whilst it was still light and it didn't take long before we were hit by the famous Wellington wind! It was difficult to get a decent photo of the city as the whole time we were there it seemed to be covered by ... read more
July 13th 2007
Luckily for our bank balance we managed to drag ourselves away from Queenstown. After our very heavy session celebrating our bungy jump and only having 2 hours sleep we boarded the bottom bus to explore the wildlife and scenery of the far south of the south island. Our first stop was on the east coast at Dunedin, a small town with a Scottish feel to it, famous for having the world's steepest street - Baldwin Street. The city layout was based on the same plans as Edinburgh and even the name 'Dunedin' means Edinburgh in Celtic. Tired and hungover from the previous night's antics we arrived in Dunedin and Ben went straight back to bed! Although feeling rough I decided to go exploring and visited the local Albatross Sanctuary before it started to pour with rain. ... read more
July 5th 2007
We arrived in Queenstown knowing that there were plenty of activities for adrenalin lovers... Ben signed himself up for the Thrillogy - three bungy jumps in and around Queenstown. The first being the Kawarau Bridge, the original home of the bungy at 47 metres. Ben took this in his stride as a little warm up for the second jump at the Ledge. 400 metres above Queenstown, the Ledge overlooks some amazing views of the town below and the mountains and lakes surrounding it. Ben decided to get adventurous... after contemplating a handstand and a flip off the edge he opted to jump off backwards into the night sky. After watching a dvd about the secrets of the bungy Rachel finally convinced herself to make the big jump and signed up with Ben to do the Nevis, ... read more
June 30th 2007
Sorry it's been so long since we've updated you on our travels but we've been far too busy! We have now made it to Queenstown in New Zealand's south island. Last time we updated you we were due to leave the wind and rain of Sydney and head back down to Melbourne. After a train journey out into the Sydney suburbs we were introduced to another campervan for the 3 day drive back down the coast. This time we were given the luxury model which was brand new with only 24km on the clock! Apart from some map reading arguments and the shock of the cold weather, we arrived back in Melbourne for a relaxing few days before boarding the plane for the short hop across to New Zealand! We were warned on more than one ... read more
June 11th 2007
The long awaited good nights sleep that we were both looking forward to was going to have to wait one more night... after dropping off Sheila we checked into a hostel close to Chinatown in the centre of Sydney. We dumped our backpacks and collapsed onto our new bed only to discover that it was about an inch thick and landed with a thump onto the bed springs beneath! We put up with the bed for one night and managed to swap rooms to next door, it had a decent mattress but we were soon to discover that the room had leaky walls!.. it turned out that we had arrived in Sydney just before the worst storms they have seen for 30 years. There was so much rain that it started seeping through our ceiling and ... read more
14 days to Sydney........... Part 2!
Published: June 6th 2007Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Katoomba
June 6th 2007
Next stop on the Pacific Highway was Coffs Harbour and the Big Banana. A random tourist attraction all about bananas. We chose not to take the tour of the plantation and learn the history, instead we discovered a toboggan run which looked much more fun. It wasn't quite the same as the rides at Dreamworld but it kept us amused for a while. There didn't seem to be much else to see or do in Coffs so the next morning we hit the highway again and drove further south to Port Macquaire, another coastal town just off the Pacific Highway. Again the town was pretty small with not much to do so a quick stroll around the town and one night in a random campsite was more than enough. Another day on the road and ... read more
14 days to Sydney........ Part 1!
Published: May 29th 2007Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Byron Bay
May 29th 2007
Before leaving Brisbane behind us in a trail of dust we met up with Uncle Pete for a few drinks and then a few more! He was in Brisbane on "business" if you can call going to watch the Rugby business! A short train and bus ride from the city centre, our home for the next two weeks was sitting waiting to be collected and given a new name. All suggestions were carefully considered so thank you Becca, Quinn, Malc and Gatesy, but to compliment our old friend Bruce the van was christened Shiela! After a stressful hour in the office sorting out paperwork and dealing with the formalities we were let loose on the road to sydney, the Gold Coast Highway. Naturally it took us a while to familiarise ourselves with our new toy ... read more
May 21st 2007
Next on our list of things every backpacker should do while travelling down the east coast was a trip to Fraser Island - the worlds largest sand island! When we booked the trip all we knew was that it was a self drive trip and we would be sharing a 4x4 with 9 other random people also looking to complete their list of things to do. We left Airlie Beach and boarded a bus which was to be our home for the 14 hour ride to Rainbow Beach. Not the best night of our lives, theres only so many positions you can get into on a bus seat and none of them are comfortable for your neck, back, legs, arms, face, ears, ribs, toes......... i'm sure we've all been there at some point, just wanted ... read more
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