http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/gemandmatt/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from gemandmatt en-us Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:49:20 +0000 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:49:20 +0000 We made good use of family contacts and managed to bag a couple of train tickets up to Chicago where we had a day to look around the city before hopping on our long bus journey to Toronto.We went on the city bus tour and saw lots of interesting stuff the Wrigley's building planetarium the heaviest building in America possibly just Chicago i forget now the navy pier and its imitation London http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Ontario/Toronto/blog-430825.html We arrived after a fairly normal flight looking forward to meeting a big chunk of the Hart family and a brave Auntie Sandra and Cousin Kate were there to collect us despite the early hour It was great to finally see them and Auntie Sandra still has a Brummie 'twang' mixed in with her American which was cool. after a quick bite to eat i headed for a nap while Matt and Kate had a gossip. Kate and http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Indiana/Indianapolis/blog-426327.html Everybody goes to.. HollywoodAfter an overnight bus journey that took about 2 hours less than scheduled we arrived in downtown LA at the greyhound station. we think the driver put his foot down anticipating a lot of traffic from the MJ memorial serviceyes we were in LA for that monumental dayWe hopped on a couple of buses which was relativly straight forward and arrived in Santa Monica abo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/Santa-Monica/blog-421189.html Frisco...our first views..Smog smog and more smog no golden gate bridge or alcatraz or anything remotely recognisable..so straight to our residence.. the first motel EVER in San Fran. yes you must be thinking hell its a bit old and rundown now..but NO it was suprisingly lovelyA little walk on the wild side.. past the zoo and onto the beach for a brief ooooh its COLD before heading to a nearb http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-421166.html From Vegas we drove another fair distance and braved the high temperatures of death valley to reach Mammoth Lakes. Matt was occupied for a large portion of the journey by conspiracy theories surrounding 'Area 51' and it's possible whereabouts.. he saw a signlike it would be THAT obvious Approaching Mammoth was a little surreal as we headed through blistering heat we had a perfect view of snow http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Mammoth-Lakes/blog-417028.html Next stop L.A.. but a brief stop before being whisked away in our charriot with mum over the desert plains to the stripWe spent most of the journey chatting about what mum had been getting up to the previous week and filling her in on the hardships of living out of a rucksack and living off noodlesWe watched the landscape alter considerably from tourist tack to literally almost nothing but deser http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-415633.html Feeling very much like we were on a flight to Benidorm we survived the 3 hours over to the Cook Islands. Families galore on the flight spent the time thoroughly overexcited and cheered once we'd landed...very bizarre but then again i suppose it is sort of their spainbeing only 3 hours accross i know i'd prefer to come here for sureQueuing to go through arrivals there was a little man playing http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Cook-Islands/Rarotonga/blog-412698.html The ferry crossing from Picton was pretty calm and we both had a little nap. Excitingly we managed to see a huge pod of dolphins swimming alongside the ferry and a Whale too although i could only get photographs of the splashes by the time i got outsideWe were only in Wellington for one night to begin with but we managed to have a brief look around the museum in the morning and then went in searc http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-412695.html From Franz Josef we made our way down to Wanaka stopping at Lake Matheson to get some beautiful shots of Mt Cook's reflection in the water.Wanaka is set beside lake Wanaka and is a small town which is very pretty we had a nice hostel and chilled out before heading down to the bar underneath for a few drinks but the music was a little out of our taste so we didn't stay too long although long enou http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-407442.html Christchurch NelsonWe landed in Christchurch after a mere 4 hours of flying expecting to be met by polar condiitions requiring 17 layers of clothing from warnings we had been given after 6months of Aussie Summer however we were pleasently suprised to walk out of the airport to glorious sunshine with only a slight chill We headed off to the centre of town on the bus and checked into our hostel http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-402595.html Our first day in Sydney started pretty well we managed to naivagate our way around to drop the car back at Darling Harbour and then went for a bit of culture at the Maritime Museum we decided against the aquarium due to ridiculous overpricing so instead we headed over to meet Chewy another mate from the Asia trip briefly before he left Sydney. Following this we decided to go on a wander throug http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/New-South-Wales/Sydney/Balmain/blog-399397.html So we left Gotcha in Mackay after some interesting time at work and some more interesting people and times with the gang We flew direct to Sydney and stayed the night in the maze backpackers in central sydney arrived fairly late so didn't see much of the city but SCORE we got upgraded to a 2person room instead of an 8 bed dorm much better considering half to residents there were drunk and sick http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Australian-Capital-Territory/Canberra/blog-398651.html Finally we said goodbye to Gotcha and boarded a very late flight to Melbourne via Brisbane. Flight was pretty uneventful but neither of us managed as much sleep as we'd hoped. It was a bit of a shock to the system getting on a flight in Darwin where we'd finally got used to the heat and humidity then getting off in Melbourne and feeling cold enough to actually put on a jumper God help us wh http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/blog-392943.html Only a 4 hour stint in the car this time arrived in Darwin in the dark and took a few minutes longer than usual to locate the apartments but we found it eventually and headed pretty swiftly to bed. Plenty to choose from beds enough for 11 people and only 3 of us there Bit of an upgrade to the spacious cabin of Katherine and our own ensuite againOur first morning we went down to the local mar http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Northern-Territory/Darwin/blog-381864.html We finally reached the small town of Katherine in the afternoon of Matt's birthday. It was quite fun to see all the abo's staggering around in the shopping centre car park and get out of the car to hear the music the large streetspeakers play to all of them presumably to entertain them and try to prevent them fighting in their drunken boredem.We were pretty astonished to find that everyone in tow http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Northern-Territory/Katherine/blog-377763.html We arrived in Townsville pretty late and our first views were through torrential downpours..not good fun driving around in the dark trying to find the place you have never seen before. The apartment was BEAUTIFUL we were all gobsmacked We fell on our feet and got the master bedroom with king size bed ensuite bathroom with spa bath and a tv The kitchen http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Townsville/blog-377762.html Our first work post was a few hours up from the gold coast we met up with our other 2 team members.. two Danish girls called Sofie and Signe pronounced ZENA like the warrior princess and moved into travelmode before reaching our apartment full of krispy kreme doughnutsyumThe apartment was fairly nice comfortable and clean with some lazeboys chairs and stuff so that was nice. Not great wi http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/blog-377749.html We drove for several hours accompanied by some Harry Potter on the old Ipod and it wasn't such a bad drive We reached Tin Can Bay late evening and pulled up outside a campsite to get our bearings and make plans for overnight accommodation and seeing the dolphins the following morning only to be approached by the owner of the caravan site brandishing a torch and accusing us of sneaking in to us http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Airlie-Beach/blog-363925.html Following christmas we took to the roads for some serious driving Our first stop was a night in Mackay a nice town further up the coast. The campsite was nice and shady and a lovely sea breeze which helped us get to sleep that night There was a beach just next to the campground so we had some nice walks along amazed at the huge amount of tiny little crabs all along the beachOnly a brief st http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Whitsundays/blog-363924.html Christmas day for us began at the not so dignified time of around 7am the sun was definately already high and hot hot hot We got up at our usual leisurely pace and indulged in some lovely cereal.. before exchanging a few xmas greetings with our pals on the campsite.After slapping on the suncream we headed down to the beach for a quick dip. Naturally aftter the mention of sharkinfested water th http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Hervey-Bay/blog-357807.html