Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2007
Edit Blog Post
My time travelling in countries similar to Canada has come to an end. In less than 24 hours I will be on a plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where I will begin to travel through Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Although slightly nervous at the unknown, I am feeling extremely excited to embarque upon the one part of my trip that I think will truly open my eyes to different cultures, experiences and ways of life. This is the reason I wanted to travel and therefore it seems that my entire journey has been leading up to this moment.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my last couple weeks in New Zealand, but once again it seems they have also been filled with anticipation as to what next to come. After the Routeburn track I spent one more day in Queenstown recuperating and then travelled to Dunedin. Dunedin is normally a student town and with summer upon us it was much more like a ghost town. This is the case of many parts of New Zealand at the moment with everyone on family vacations. The campgrounds are full of caravans and the hiking trails full of holidaying kiwis. My first day
in Dunedin consisted of a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory where I saw a 9m chocolate waterfall...sooo tempting, you have no idea. I have also never seen such elaborate flavours of chocolate, including banana cream pie, rocky road, black forest, lemon meringue, and so many more. From Dunedin I decided to take part in a wildlife tour to see an Albatross colony, fur seals, sea lions and the rare yellow-eyed penguin. The Albatross were truly the most interesting of them all to learn about and watch nesting. These amazing birds have a wingspan of more than 3 meters, so much so that they have to fold their wings twice to tuck them against their body. They also can spend as much as 3 or 4 years without ever touching land, either in the air or feeding on the water. After leaving the Albatross centre we travelled to a private farm and made our way through sheep pastures to the seals, sea lions and penguins. It was so windy that we seemed to be walking in a more horizontal posture than vertical and had to avoid flying bits of sheep droppings that were being picked up by the wind. Seeing
Jen and I
Lake Tekapo at sunset these animals in such a private location was really nice, especially the sea lions because you could walk right up to them. However in the end, the weather got the better of us and we were happy to return to the bus.
After Dunedin I went to Lake Tekapo, an extremely small town built on the edge of a brilliant blue lake and an hour drive to Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. Here I ran into not one but 5 people I met in Australia. Once again there were the Israeli boys from Fraser Island, Jen who was the very first friend I made at the start of my journey in Sydney, and Julia and Ko who were on my Great Ocean Road tour. I can't even describe how good it feels to unexpectedly run into people you know in a country where you know virtually no one. That first night Jen, her friend Amelia and I went for drinks with a young Israeli man. After Jen and I caught up, we had some extremely interesting conversations with this Israeli who had been through a lot in his short life and held a very secretive position
At Mt. Cook
Julia, Ko, Katie, a Frenchman who's name I don't remember, and I in the army. Lets just say we danced around his intriguing position and experiences a lot as he was "not at liberty to say" pretty much anything at all. He probably didn’t even tell us his real name. Actually we mostly spoke about how hard it was for him to live such a secret life, lying to everyone including his own family. I must say, I have enjoyed learning about life in Israel the most out of every nationality I have met so far.
The next day I went with Julia, Ko and two of their friends to the Mt. Cook area where we had a nice day of hiking. The most interesting part of the day was our visit to the Tasman glacier where we played around with random pieces of ice and hopped on floating ice chunks fighting not to float away. One again, each and every view was spectacular and I found myself truly appreciating the beauty of this country.
Next I made it to my final destination, Christchurch. Not surprisingly, I ran into the Israeli boys literally on the street (it was truly getting a little scary at this point since none of our
Near the Tasman Glacier
The ice on and around this glacier wasn't all that clean. The glacier was actually covered in dirt and you had to trust there was ice beneath. The floating chunks of dirt in this picture are actually chunks of ice. meetings have been arranged). However, I wasn't really looking to socialize so I spent those 3 days gearing up for Asia and enjoying my time alone. I think I’ve learned to appreciate the difference between ‘being alone’ and ‘being lonely’; one does not necessarily lead to the other.
Yesterday I flew back to Auckland where I have been staying with Celia and Allen once again. When I left home with no prospective travelling partners, I thought I would be even be doing Southeast Asia solo. However, much to the relief of myself and my parents I'm sure, I now have two travelling partners. Celia is going to join me and so will my cousin April...I can only imagine the things we will experience as three blond Canadians. I'm also looking forward to adding new people to my picture collection, instead of just me or a landscape. Tomorrow (Jan 15th) I fly to KL on my own; April will join me the following day and Celia will be arriving on the 20th.
I also thought I would share the one piece of advice my mom gave me this morning. She said (in a very serious voice), "watch out for
the ice cream." I'm going to Southeast Asia and that's the advice I get?! Apparently they have some unusual flavors, she mentionned something about refried beans???
And on that note....Southeast Asia here I come!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.191s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 76; dbt: 0.1478s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Hillary
non-member comment
Have Fun!!
Hey Heather! I know you're super excited about this next part of your trip. I'm glad that you'll have some company for this part, I'm sure you'll really enjoy it! And it puts me at ease knowing you won't be alone, since it'll probably be safer, hehe. I miss you lots, I know time will fly from now until you come home. I can't wait to see you in a few months! Love Hillary