garvey87
James Garvey Joined: November 10th 2009
Logged in: January 30th 2010
Logged in: January 30th 2010
Travel Blog Posts
Surfers Paradise
After 12 days in Sydney it was somewhat of a relief to get out of a big city and start our journey up to Cairns. Our first of many stops was Coffs Harbour which is about an 8 hour drive north of Sydney and would hopefully provide us with better weather. We opted to take the night bus to Coffs to save a some money on accommodation, this turned out to be a bad idea…not only did we not get a wink of sleep the driver also decided to put the film karate kid on at 1am! This at least entertained Ryan for a couple of hours but hearing “wax on…wax off” whilst your trying to sleep is not my idea of fun. We got into Coffs Harbour at 7am and crashed out for a few ... read more
Ho ho ho
We arrived in Sydney around 7am and the first thing that hit us was the already intense heat. Unfortunately, this would be one of the few occasions we would actually see the sun in our 10 or so days here... and this didnt annoy us at all. The first night in our hostel was a free cheese and wine night, by wine we mean a bag of goon made with milk, fish, eggs and nuts! Despite the unusual ingredients it doesnt taste so bad and after a few glasses your all set for a good night... and as we both found out, a very rough morning after! Before we knew it, christmas day was here so we woke up around 9am, and not at all excited went down for the finest christmas breakfast imaginable... Crunchy Nut ... read more
The Penguin Hunters
After our hectic and highly expensive week in Queenstown, it was time to take things easy for our last couple of days in NZ and get ready for our flight to Sydney on the 23rd December. The first stop on our way back to Christchurch was Dunedin where we stayed for a few nights. Dunedin was originally settled by the scots and for some strange reason, the city seems to be pretty proud of this. The main reason we were here however was to head off and explore the Otago Peninsular, which is just a short drive away from the city and is home to golden beaches and interesting wildlife. So we were told. We all rented a 9 seater people carrier and set off on what was the most miserbale day of weather we have ... read more
The 7pm Drinking Games...
Queenstown is both the adventure capital, and party capital of New Zealand, and is also home to officially the best burger in the world...the Fergburger. Because of this, we decided to stay for 7 nights, as we have a lot of time on our hands before we have to be in Christchurch for the 23rd dec. Unfortunately this blog is gonna be pretty dull for everyone else, but safe to say for us, Queenstown has been one of the best place we have visited so far! This is because our days have pretty much involved the following... Noon - waking up with a monstrous hangover 2pm - still lying in bed trying to get up 3pm - lazing in the hot tub or watching a movie 5pm - eating dinner 7pm - start playing drinking games ... read more
Party Bus
Nelson is apparently the sunshine capital of New Zealand. That is a lie. Apart from half a day when we could make use of the pool at the hostel, it pretty much pissed down the whole time and has done ever since! After stopping off for some wine tasting, we ambled off the bus and found our hostel around 5pm. A group of us decided to cook up a feast and all clubbed in to cook up some fajitas. Despite our German friend not knowing what to do with them, nor how much food to put in them (Ryan was particularly annoyed at the amount of poultry he was using), they were tasty and made a change from pasta and noodles. The hostel we stayed at also had a bus out the back to party on, ... read more
The Waterfall of Death
At the ungodly hour of 7am we were due to catch the magic bus to begin our tour around New Zealand, and thankfully, get away from auckland. The first stop was Roturua which is a geo-thermal town based south of auckland, which due to the volcanic activity, stinks to high heaven. Although not that far away, thanks to some exciting stops en route (the most thrilling being a shop that sells stones) we arrived in rotorua around 5pm, and without further-a-do, headed straight to the bar and the free bbq! After a less than succesfull game of wii olympics, which saw england truely embarrased by a couple of vikings, we played a few drinking games and headed out to sample roturuas famous nightlife. The next morning, nursing a rather sore hangover, we decided it would be ... read more
Hokianga
After a short 3 hour flight we landed in Auckland to find our hostel double booked, excellent news. We were the unfortunate ones and had to move for one night to a different hostel down the road which can only be described as… crap. The next day we were allowed back into our original hostel and to be honest, pretty much stayed there for next 2 days solid. Auckland as a city is pretty dull so we used the time to do some laundry and just for a change, play cwango. On Monday we decided to hire a car for a couple of days and drive north to check out the bay of islands. After successfully navigating new zealands main highway (which is more like a “b road” in the uk) we arrived in the town ... read more
School Kids Carrying Chairs For Us
The local bus dropped us off at 7pm and we had to walk down a pitch black lane for 10 minutes until we found the resort, the security guard welcomed us and feeling sorry that we had to walk in the dark, he gave us a bowl of kava and showed us to our room! The next day we booked ourselves on a fishing and island trip, about 10 of us crowded on to this small boat and went off in search of fish and hopefully sun. After about an hour of smashing along the waves and needing to see a specialist about our new back problems, we reached the island with 2 tunas in hand, and whilst the hosts cooked them, we went snorkelling and played a bit of football. After lunch we went to ... read more
Octopus Resort
BULA from Fiji! Bula is the Fijian word for hello, and given the friendly nature of the people hear we must have used this work at least 1000 times! After leaving San Francisco at 10pm on 10th November and flying for 11 hours, we landed in Fiji at 5am on the 12th November…The more we think about it the more confusing it gets but its basically something to do with the international date line and shit. Anyway our ferry left for the resort at 10 am and after a choppy and rather wet 90 minute ride we arrived at octopus. The island was amazing and we were sang on to the island by the local tribe. After a day in the sun we then had to attend a welcome ceremony and got our first taste of ... read more
A shit load of seals
We landed in san francisco late on friday evening and straight away got a good vibe from the place, it was totally different from new york, a lot more laid back and apart from the vast amounts of beggers, of which we encountered about 10 walking 3 blocks to our hostels, we found the place pretty sweet! We checked into our room, which thankfully was a lot bigger than new york, and got some much needed sleep. The next day we had a stroll around the city, walked through chinatown and up to pier 39 where san franciscos smelliest residents hang out...the sea lions! They drew quite a crowd and we stayed for about 20mins watching them fight for the best place in the sun. We then went over to Lombard Street which is the most ... read more
