We found the missing memory card with photos of our trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. Yay! it turns out they were in one of our bags. D'oh! This part of our trip seems like SO long ago. It actually rained back then, there were plants and trees and lots of people. Not like the Outback. We are still behind an entry and have a lot of cool photos to post of our Outback adventure, so we'll keep this short. The highlight of the Great Ocean Road turned out to be Mt. Gambier, a random town on the route that we stopped [View Full Entry]

---

---

We're in Alice Springs, the largest town in the Outback. We've been camping for the last few days and haven't had a chance to update the blog, so we have LOTS of photos! Here are a few showing our trip from Adelaide (a city in South Australia where we launched our Outback trip) through our visit to Uluru Rock (formerly known as Ayer's Rock). Looks like we've lost (hopefully temporarily) our 2.0 gig memory card with our first 2,000 photos from our trip, so we'll have to post the missing photos later (we have some great kangaroo pics from Mt. Gambier [View Full Entry]

---

---

We're still in Melbourne but planning to set out tomorrow for the Outback. We were planning to rent a campervan, but have had difficult booking one (seems they are not available until next week), so we are renting a car and will probably buy a tent and camp part of the time. We had a rough adjustment to Melbourne, mainly because our hostel was outside of the city center and it took a while to understand the tram system. (We realized it's actually very easy to get around, and they even have free trams that circle the city). Also, the YHA [View Full Entry]

---

---

We were having so much fun in Sydney that we extended the trip 3 extra days, and moved to a hostel in the King's Cross neighborhood (where we did eventually see some haggard trannies, as well as a syringe exchange truck and a lot of scrubby junkies. Not too different than the East Village in 1996). Sydney Central Hostel was a lot smaller than the Maze hostel, but it was much improved (and cheaper). They even provided towels and a b&w TV in the room. Luxury! When the long-term Irish backpackers were watching really bad movies (e.g. American Pie 5) on [View Full Entry]

---

---

We've been in Sydney, Australia for 6 days and decided to extend our visit for 3 more. We're having a great time-- the city is like New York, but clean and more laid back. There are tons of restuarants and pubs and (most importantly) free activites. And the weather is a big improvement over Auckland-- it's about 62 degrees and sunny most of the time. We've been staying in Chinatown, which is very central and has a lot of cheap Japanese pastry shops. The Maze hostel itself isn't very nice, but we didn't have much choice. We decided at the spur [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a cold wet few days in Auckland, we were anxious to head to the "winterless north" where we were hoping to get some warmer weather. We drove about 3 hours north of Auckland to Whangerei, the largest town in the area (though still pretty tiny). The scenery on the way was very cool, with super green lush rolling hills. Whangerei is usually just a stopover for most people on the way to the Bay of Islands, but when we got there we ended up at a really nice and cheap hostel so we decided to make it our base for [View Full Entry]

---

---

We drove to Christchurch-- the largest city in the South Island and known for its traditional English design-- under cloudy skies, and the rain persisted for our entire stay. Fortunately, it was a big enough city that we found (free or low cost) things to do in the rain. We checked out the Canterbury museum (free- aka "suggested donation"), bought suspiciously cheap pre-made sandwiches at the local "Pac n Save" supermarket (we now realize a "15% chicken" label is not a good sign, nor is "made on Pac n Save premises"), and even splurged by eating dinner at a Korean restaurant. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Right after we wrote our last blog entry while it rained, the weather cleared up a bit so we made our way up to the Franz Josef glacier. We got a late start, leaving for the hike around 4PM, and the sun sets at 5PM (since it is winter here), so we ended up being pretty rushed. There was a deceptively easy walking trail that ended abruptly before a mile long river bed covered in uneven boulders, which stood between us and the face of the glacier. We made it relatively close to the glacier before being forced back by dusk [View Full Entry]

---

---

We just got to Franz Josef glacier and it's pouring outside. We've splurged on a private room at the YHA lodge so we don't have to sleep in the van. We have a lot to catch up on since we haven't had fast Internet access... this will be a long entry! After Jake's bungy jump in Taupo (see the video we uploaded today), we drove to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. The architecture of the waterfront area is impressive-- they built a wooden bridge/sculpture that looks like a cross between a futuristic shantytown and a boat. Not wanting to spend [View Full Entry]

---

---

We left Hamilton on Tuesday... sad to leave our friends Kate and Grant (and their generous hospitality!). Kate's parents invited us to dinner on our last night-- we felt really at home. By hanging out with real 'kiwis', we learned a lot about NZ-- that dinner is called "tea", the Tony Veitch scandal is the biggest news story and that every TV ad is a PSA for alcoholism, spousal abuse or cold medicine. Interesting! Also, it appears that must-see-tv in New Zealand is the annual Young Farmers Competition, which is like Jeopardy with animal husbandry questions thrown in. (Also we must [View Full Entry]

---

---