OJ Scott
Oliver Scott Joined: October 18th 2009
Logged in: August 3rd 2010
Logged in: August 3rd 2010
Travel Blog Posts
Cairns
Well after a nice week in Sydney I flew up to Cairns in the very north of Australia. Being close to the equator, it's in the tropics, meaning dreadfully humid conditions; palm trees; tropical birds and sudden sun to torrential rain type weather. At this time of the year it's the monsoon season - my first day there I'd be sitting in lovely sunshine, next thing I knew it was chucking it down with rain, on and off all day. Cairns is also very prone to storms - you can't walk into a shop without hearing radio tips on how to survive a cyclone. It's incredibly humid here - from the second I got off the plane at the airport, I was already dripping with sweat. Cairns is also one of those places that's hot all ... read more
Blue Mountains
The day after I arrived in Sydney I went for a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains, a scenic area west of Sydney. The area was huge, requiring the use of a bus to get between the starting points of the walks. The Blue Mountains are most famous for the Three Sisters, a rock formation. The scenery was nice, but repetitive. Truth be told 2 hours on the train to get there was a long time for what it was - I've definitely seen better mountains in New Zealand! Still, I saw my first wild snake here - it was only small and it slithered away in fear, but an experience nonetheless! Lovely sunny day - absolutely scorching in fact. A day in bed recovering from sunstroke taught me that for this kind of exposure to the ... read more
Darling Harbour
Done with Kiwiland and ready to venture forth to Australia, I was quivering with excitement on the flight over to Sydney. When you are about to set foot in a country that youve only heard and read about, its a truly exhilirating experience! The youth hostel, slap bang in the city centre, is truly awesome! It has a cafe, TV room, cheap dinner meals and a bar where they play live music every other night. Every day they have a schedule of entertainment, so it can be tempting sometimes to just stay in the hostel! My only gripes are the useless keycards (come back from the bathroom in the middle of the night and find your card wont open your room door - then you have to go all the way down to reception in your ... read more
Well, I'm finally at the end of my trip round New Zealand, and what a truly incredible experience it's been. There truly are some amazing things to see on this side of the world - a country full of chilled, adventurous people; hair-raising activities and some beautiful landscapes. I'd recommend a visit to this country to anyone, whether it's to experience the city life and fancy hotels of Wellington; tramp through the incredible mountains of Fiordland; or to just chill and explore, this country has it all. It's a shame that Australia seems to snatch most of its visitors - New Zealand is BY FAR the most beautiful place on this side of the world. As for the Kiwi Experience, they say it's a definite love-hate relationship. You'll either cringe at the somewhat booze-oriented bustle of ... read more
Mountain ranges of the east coast
My last few days in New Zealand involved a 4-day return trip from Queenstown to Auckland (to fly out to Sydney) via Christchurch, Kaikoura, Wellington and Taupo. In these last few days (luckily enough) I experienced New Zealand's wettest weather. It rained coming out of Queenstown; it rained in Christchurch; in Kaikoura and all the way on the ferry to Wellington! So lucky to get that weather at the end of the trip! The Queenstown to Christchurch leg involved stopping at the famous Church of the Good Shepherd, views of Mt Cook and the Bronze Dog statue. It was cloudy that day so our views of Mt Cook weren't that great, but there were still some amazing mountains there. We then arrived in Christchurch, the largest city on the south island and supposedly of English nature. ... read more
Larnach Castle
After a truly wicked night out in Queenstown, 5 of us decided to rent a couple of cars and drive down to see the south coast (Dunedin, Invercargill and Te Anau) for a week. Me, James and Chris got a 10-year old Nissan Sunny (auto transmission) for an absolute bargain of $39 per day (which between the 3 of us came to just $13 each). Compare that to what you'd pay to go there with the Kiwi bus ($425 for 4 days) and there's no contest! It really was so nice to just get out there on the road and do entirely our own thing. No more 1-hour stops on the Kiwi bus at deserted roadside cafes! Dunedin is supposedly the most Scottish city outside Scotland (Dunedin is actually Gaelic for Edinburgh). However it certainly wasn't ... read more
The Remarkables (background)
They say that Queenstown is in many ways a victim of its own popularity - they may be right. This place is absolutely beautiful, but packed. Every shop has stuff to absolutely drool over - canyon swing trips; snowboarding equipment; Quicksilver fashionwear; Gore-Tex windproof jackets - anything at all to do with sports or the outdoors, this place has it in abundance. The bars are simply awesome as well. There's just nothing Queenstown doesn't have. Scenery? Go down to its lake, Lake Wakatipu, and you can see the incredible jagged skiing peaks, The Remarkables (which truly live up to their name). Just sitting by the lake you get to watch jetboats storm past, paragliders swoop in and people with deathwishes bungee jump off the AJ Hackett bridge. Take a cable car to the top of Bob's ... read more
Mt Christina
I left Queenstown (I'll blog that place later) early one morning for a 2-hour boat cruise on the Milford Sound.... read more
Lake Wanaka
9th November We pulled in today to the most beautiful place any of us had seen so far in NZ: Wanaka, a well-kept, relaxed town on the edge of a huge lake. On a clear day, the lake is a perfect blue, and it is surrounded by these amazing snow-capped mountains and huge rolling hills. At this point I had finally tired of the Kiwi bus and most of the people on it - with the amount of drinking and shagging going on every night the bus was turning into a Club 18-30 trip! Wanaka was the perfect place to get off the bus and chill for a few days. Wanaka has the perfect climate - it's apparently dry all year round, and because it is so exposed, it always gets loads of sun. It really ... read more
Mt Cook from the skydiving plane
Well I'm a good week or so behind writing this blog - I'm currently in Te Anau with no way to upload any photos so I'll add those later. I've skipped writing about a few places - after crossing the Cook Strait on a ferry between the two islands, we headed down the west coast of the South Island through what has been my favourite part of New Zealand so far: Franz Josef-Wanaka-Queenstown, just off the Fiordland National Park, which has some incredible scenery. We pulled into Franz Josef, a tiny resort for ice climbing and hiking on the Franz Josef glacier. It literally was tiny - the place consists of no more than about 5 buildings on one road - a lodge to book the activities, a bar, youth hostel, supermarket and a pool spa. ... read more
