http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/OrlaghandDave/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from OrlaghandDave en-us Tue, 21 May 2013 21:30:10 +0000 Tue, 21 May 2013 21:30:10 +0000 We arrived in Bangkok airport and quickly boarded our plane to Phuket. We were planning on staying in Phuket just for one night and catching the ferry from there to Koh Phi Phi which we heard was one of the nicest of the islands. The flight wasn39t too long just an hour or so and when we arrived in Phuket airport it was after 10pm. The public bus we were planning on taking to our hostel was http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Ko-Phi-Phi-Don/blog-737754.html We got the bus transfer at 1030 to the airport from the kiwi basecamp hostel where we had stayed. It was time to leave NZ which was sad but we were looking forward to the warmth of Oz. The flight from Christchurch to Sydney was 3 and a half hours. We got food on the plane and there was a movie but we just read our books for the flight. We arrived in Sydney in the afternoon and had 34 hours to kil http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/Cairns-City/blog-732873.html We landed in Bangkok after a 9 hour flight from Sydney. It was great to be visiting a new country. We got a taxi to our hotel Sivalai Place recommended by Steph and Stephen. We could afford to stay in a nice hotel because Thailand is so cheap It was pretty late at this stage so the night porter let us in and showed us to our room. We were on the 6th floor and had a great view of the city skyl http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-737752.html We got to Sydney the following morning and got a bus out to Bondi Beachwhere our hostel was. We checked in and left our bagswe were staying in a dorm the first 2 nights. We got loads of information from the guy a reception and decided to takea walk along a cliffside path to Bronte Beach. It was a cool day but really sunny so we sat outside a cafe and had a smoothy once we got to Bronte. The v http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/Bondi-Beach/blog-737751.html We got to Melbourne two mornings later at 8am. We were pretty tired after two nights on buses one from Byron Bay to Sydney and one from Sydney to Melbourne. When we we got off the bus at Southern Cross Station we were pretty hungry so we grabbed a cooked breakfast. It was pretty wet so we hung around a shopping centre for a while. Once the rain cleared we took a walk down one of the main stre http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-737748.html We arrived at Byron Springs Guesthose tired and warm after our comparatively short 3 hour bus journey from Brisbane. We couldn39t get any hostels in the town so we booked this guesthouse about 20 minutes outside it. We were really impressed with it it was really bright and luxurious and we had our own bathroom something we haven39t had in almost 2 months. We dropped our bags borrowed th http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Byron-Bay/blog-732877.html We boarded the bus at Hervey Bay around 9am to take us to Brisbane. It was a pleasant enough journey. We arrived in Brisbane bus station and went to the train terminal to take us to Hawthorn. When we got off it was about a half hour walk to our hostel Riverside. It was in a residential area and we arrived there about 3pm and met Mark the manager. Riverside was basically someones house. There w http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Brisbane/Bulimba/blog-732876.html This is our SECOND destination in Australia. Our first was Cairns and we are still writing up that blog We left Cairns and boarded a 26 hour bus to Hervey Bay pronounced Harvey Bay as Daves skydive instructor John informed us. It was a long journey but by now we were seasoned travellers so we didn39t mind it too much. We arrived in Hervey Bay at around 230pm the following day where http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Fraser-Island/blog-732874.html We arrived in Dunedin a town with predominantly Scottish heritage in the late afternoon. It is a typical seaside town. Our campsite was pretty with seabird murals on all of the buildings. We had intended on going out for a walk but we were starrting to come down off our paragliding high and as the adrenaline left our systems we became very sleepy So it was decided to cook in and watch a DV http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Dunedin/blog-732872.html The next morning we woke to a really loud siren. We had been hearing them throughout the alps on our trip and didn39t really know what they were for. We got breakfast and left Te Anau. On our way to Queenstown we stopped at a herd of cows we had to get some photos as we had seen so many huge herds on our travels. On the radio we heard that there had been a bus crash near Mossburn which was http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Queenstown/blog-732870.html The drive to Wanaka from Fox was a spectacular one. It took us a bit longer than expected because we stopped at a couple of lookout points to take in the views. There39s scenery and then there39s New Zealand scenery We arrived at the campsite which had good facilities and loads of space. It was pretty late so it was dark and we couldn39t see much of the lake so we showered and headed ou http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Fiordland-National-Park/Milford-Sound/blog-732869.html We arrived at Franz Josef Township that afternoon. The sun was out and the weather was reasonably warm. We checked into the Rainforest Resort motor park which had its own bar with meal deals. We parked Red Dwarf in amongst the foliage and went to suss the place out. We had read a leaflet in Greymouth about Franz Josef Glacier and had decided to do a glacier valley walk the following day with a g http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Franz-Josef/blog-732868.html The drive to Westport was equally spectacular in terms of scenery but as it gets dark about 530pm in New Zealand in the winter we didn39t see much of it. We arrived at our campsite that evening pretty tired after all our walking at Abel Tasman that day. As soon as we checked in we headed into the town to get some burgers for dinner. After dinner we watched a DVD in Red Dwarf and headed to b http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Greymouth/blog-732866.html We droveoff the ferry at Picton after a lovely crossing. The ferry sailed through Cook Strait which made for great views as the sun was going down. It was dark by the time we got to Picton so we found our holiday park and checked in before cooking dinner and chilling out before bed. We were planning on driving to Nelson the following day. Next morning we set off on our drive to nelson which is a http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Abel-Tasman-National-Park/blog-732865.html We were on our way to Wellington to visit our friend Peter who has been living in NZ for about 10 months and works at the Earthquake Commission. We were really looking forward to catching up with him. We stopped in a town on the way called Bulls before reaching Wellington about 4pm. We arrived in the motorpark Peter recommended to us. We were getting set up and settled in when we heard Hey str http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Wellington/Lower-Hutt/blog-732864.html We arrived in Ohakune that evening it was a friday just in time for the beginning of Mardi Gras to mark the beginning of ski season. Since we couldn39t get tickets to the IrelandAll Blacks game in Hamilton we decided to go skiing instead turns out it was the better choice. That evening we just relaxed at the campsite and saved our energy for the following day. We headed up to Mount Ruape http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Whakapapa/blog-732863.html You know you39re in Rotoru because the smell of rotten eggs hits you like a brick wall. It39s such a bad smell it makes your stomach sick. The smell is from the sulphur Rotorua is on a Caldera a supervolcano. But you put up with the smell because with a caldera comes great and amazing things to see such as geysers mud pools and hot springs. We parked Red Dwarf in a holiday park near the http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Rotorua/blog-730418.html So we made our way North from Auckland in Red Dwarf. It was dark by the time we arrived in Pahia so we just cooked some dinner and had a few games of cards. There was a big family from Australia staying at the campsite who had been to a wedding so the kitchen area was pretty busy and noisy They were a nice bunch though and even offered us some mince they had cooked think they looked at our bea http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Bay-of-Islands/Paihia/blog-728304.html We landed in Auckland 13 hours later at 430am local time. Because we had travelled over the international date line we lost a day. In the airport we grabbed a coffee and took a look at a map of Auckland so we could find our hostel. Before that we had to go through immigration where they ask you questions about why you39re in the country. When someone in uniform starts asking you questions http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/Auckland/Parnell/blog-728303.html ltgtltxmlgt ltoOfficeDocumentSettingsgt ltoRelyOnVMLgt ltoAllowPNGgt ltoOfficeDocumentSettingsgtltxmlgtltgt We boarded the bus in high spirits we were starting to get used to the altitude we heard great things about Cusco and we were getting closer to another event we have been looking forward to for so long the Lares trek to Machu Picchu. The bus http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Peru/Cusco/Lares-Trek/blog-720821.html