http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/clarabelle/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from clarabelle en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:47:13 +0000 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:47:13 +0000 I'm sitting here in my room in LA after finishing packing my bags for the last time.It's hard to believe that in just a few hours I'll be on my way home. There are days when it feels like I've hardly been away any time at all but I know that after 5 12 months on the road it's time to come home. Before I start getting all reflective here's a quick rundown on the few days I've had here in LA. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/Hollywood/blog-414310.html Here are some photos from Australia which I should have posted long before now http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/blog-412379.html My first experience in the USA was the border crossing at Blaine WA. After giving digital images of all my fingerprints and having my photo taken it felt like all that was missing was the board with the numbers on it and being quizzed they let me in and then charged me 6 for the pleasure. When they were scanning my luggage they thought I had some gingerbread men in my bag I couldnrsquo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/blog-413398.html Well I suppose it is a bare bear bum but Irsquoll get to that in a bit and then it should all make senseLeaving Vancouver behind I headed up to Whistler around 2 hours away on the bus. Itrsquos a lovely drive once you get out of the city and you get on to the lsquoSea to Sky highwayrsquo. Whistler is a nice own itrsquos a lot bigger than I expected with a permanent population http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Whistler/blog-413392.html So as I mentioned in my last posting I arrived here in Vancouver before I left NZ. Although the flight was only 12 hours it was a long 12 hours stuck in the middle seat. After clearing customs and immigration I headed for the taxi rank as my accommodation is outwith the zone for the shuttle buses. As the driver was putting my luggage into the boot or I should say the lsquotrunkrsquo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/blog-413230.html Kia OraApologies if you get this one twice there were server problems when I posted this and I don't think the emails went out. So here I am back in New Zealand. I donrsquot think itrsquoll surprise anyone when I say that I quite like it here Arriving in Christchurch I didnrsquot really have much of a definite plan all I knew was that I was probably going to hire some form of t http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Methven/blog-413225.html My van I donrsquot have a name for this one other than lsquothe boxrsquo look at the pictures yoursquoll see why Irsquove not had any flash of inspiration about names wasnrsquot ready for me this morning when I went to pick it up so the company gave me a shot of this huge 4WD Nissan Patrol which is their bush camping vehicle with a tent and all sorts of things stored on the roo http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Western-Australia/Perth/blog-402476.html The Indian Pacific Adelaide to PerthThis leg of the trip saw the train leaving Adelaide around 6pm on Sunday night and pulling into East Perth station at 9am on Tuesday morning. Yes 2 nights on the train it was a long journeyThere were no CWA ladies on the train to keep us amused this time I was sitting next to Martin from Holland who has just finished his mechanical engineering degree an http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Western-Australia/Kalgoorlie/blog-402475.html Suzy Swift and I hit the road this morning leaving Adelaide and heading for a small coastal town called Robe. Quite an uneventful drive just getting used to the car and the roads as this was my first time driving in Australia. Itrsquos pretty easy going some long straight stretches of road and the occasional windy bit. I made a couple of stops along the way one at a small town called Kin http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Great-Ocean-Road/blog-402473.html After my journey on the train I arrived in Adelaide. I spent my time visiting the museum of South Australia where they have quite a good section on different south pacific nations as well as quite a lot on Aboriginal culture. I also spent some time at the South Australia Art Gallery Irsquom not much of an art buff if it doesnrsquot catch my eye straight away then I tend to just keep wa http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/South-Australia/Adelaide/blog-402472.html Sydney to AdelaideI boarded the Indian Pacific train to travel from Sydney to Adelaide. This section of the journey takes 24 hours with a stop at broken Hill for an hour or so to take on more passengers and enough time for a quick tour around the town.The train was a lot busier than I expected it to be. The reason for this I learned was that there was a CWA conference in Broken Hill. The CWA http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/blog-402471.html Before I startI just wanted to say thank you to everyone whorsquos sent me messages over the last few weeks either checking Irsquom OK or telling me that theyrsquove been missing my updates or that theyrsquore looking forward to more So here it is and donrsquot forget you asked for it well some did and therersquos quite a lot of it split into a few entries but this gets us http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/blog-402470.html Itrsquos been 6 weeks or so but it feels like itrsquos been forever since I last wrote a blog entry I might be a bit rusty so please bear with me Here is a quick summary of what Irsquove been doing during my own midseason break. Hopefully Irsquoll get up to date with everything else soon after this one.When I left off all those weeks ago I had been in Darwin for a few days and wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-397638.html Monday 30 MarchI had a super early start this morning to get to Auckland airport in time for my 7am flight to Sydney.Quantas staff at Sydney were taking industrial action and since Quantas own half of Sydney airport and run pretty much everything there when they strike everything shuts down. While I was waiting for my shuttle bus to leave the driver was saying that they had blockaded the road http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Northern-Territory/Darwin/City-of-Darwin/blog-387899.html So in my excitement to put up the blog about the skydive I managed to miss out a few days and now Irsquom so far behind itrsquos unreal. I'm currently sitting in Sydney airport departures lounge waiting for my flight to Darwin so thought this would be the ideal time to at least write up the blog and catch up again so sorry this could be another long one. I am most definitely my father http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/blog-387868.html Saturday 14 MarchHuge excitement today Perfect blue skies barely a cloud there and boiling hot. I think I wrote in my blog from Queenstown that I'd never felt the urge to jump off a bridge attached to a piece of elastic well what I didn't mention was that I've long fancied dropping out of a plane with a parachute and a man attached to me too so today I did my first ever tandem skydive.I http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Wanaka/blog-381560.html Friday 27 FebruaryLeaving Aoraki Mt Cook National Park behind me this morning I headed south then east aiming eventually for Dunedin probably getting there tomorrow. My first stop was at Twizel as I needed fuel. As I pulled off the highway into Twizel I was feeling hungry and came across ldquoThe Mustererrsquos Hutrdquo now there I thought is a place where you are bound to get a good http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Otago/blog-380652.html OK so I havenrsquot updated this in a week so lots to catch up on I would get comfy and grab a coffee this could be a long one After coming up with my title I now have that one line from that song in my head very annoyingI have only added the bare minimum of photos on this blog I can only updload 21 at a time to the server and I'm on a really slow internet connection here so it's http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Mount-Cook-National-Park/blog-378089.html Thursday 19 FebruaryLeaving Kaikoura and the whales behind I set off for Hanmer Springs a little detour inland on my journey down to Christchurch. Here there are natural thermal pools which the Maori people had been using therapeutically for generations then along came the Europeans and discovered them and their uses There are nice forests and rivers in the area too so it makes a natural http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Arthur-s-Pass-National-Park/blog-375480.html Tuesday 17 FebruaryI made it to the ferry terminal with no falling out with the GPS it was only a 10 minute journey All checked in and boarded onto the ferry with no mishaps. I wasn't sure what to expect all I could think about was the car ferry I saw when I was in Kefalonia a few years ago and all the cars and lorries just had to drive over a couple of planks of wood to board the ferry. http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Kaikoura/blog-374689.html