Blogs from Oceania - page 6503

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Franz Josef January 22nd 2007

No pictures today. This email cafe can not load pictures Hike to Franz Josef glacier and took hilicoper ride to top of mountain and landed on snow field at the head of the glacier. Hopefully, pictures in a few days Bob... read more

We're Alive - It's Offcial!

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Invercargill January 22nd 2007

Inspirado

Ok, sorry if the title seems a bit alarmist but this is just a quick blog entry to let you know that we are, in fact, alive and haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth as some people might be thinking. I'd love to tell you we've been having a terrible time while you're all enjoying the delights of winter in Britain but I cannot tell a lie - South Island rocks! The reason I've not been posting any news blogs is purely down to now being on the road in our funky campervan and internet access has either been hard to find or very expensive when it's been available. If you're having blog withdrawal symptoms then fear not as tomorrow I should be uploading enough blogs to keep you entertained throughout the forthcoming days. ... read more

Sydney, Cousin Jill, and a killer opera

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Newcastle January 22nd 2007

Darling Harbour

JohnnyLightning

The Sydney Acquarium is spectacular. We went along for Megan's cousin Jessica's birthday outing of going to the acquarium. They have excellent exibits but the best one has got to be underwater walkway through various types of sharks, turtles, sting-rays and other sealife. My mom enjoyed it so much we had to go through it twice. Afterwards, we went through the Wildlife World next door where we took in some deadly spiders, snakes, as well as wallabies, koalas and wombats. Wombats rule~! We drove to Parramatta and took one of the Harbour Cat ferries through the river and into Sydney on Tuesday. It started out cloudy but soon turned into a beautiful clear and sunny day. We arrived in Sydney harbour around lunchtime and purchsed tickets for the hop-on hop-off Sydney explorer bus. It went absolutely ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island January 22nd 2007

First shot of Milford Sound

Em_the_Gypsy

So, where was I? The remainder of my time in Queenstown was pretty restful, with a solo trip to Milford Sound breaking it up a bit (more about that in a minute). Stuart and I went to the cinema a couple of times (finally saw 'Happy Feet' - it's so cute!) and I spent a lot of time just pottering around the town, which had a lovely feel to it. I can't claim to have indulged in any of the extreme sports and activities that the Queenstown region plays host to - I'm just not that type of person! I did, however, go on a 'Photo Safari' in the Glenorchy area, which was a 5-hour 4WD trip with an international award-winning local photographer. I had a great time, and learned a fair bit about digital SLR ... read more

last day

Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Cairns January 22nd 2007

Rijkaard

Hey everyone Well due to either sheer greatness of my last blog and the pictures that were on it or the fact that Leon spent the day refreshing the blog page when he should have been working on some clever phd stuff but, the last blog has 46 views... which is abuot 16 more than the lowest one so, well done to everyone... but obviously mainly me because i wrote it and what i wrote was good (its that kinda english that makes the blog worth reading) but, also i think the pictures in the last blog made it pretty sweet also. Any way so, in cairns.... yesterday i went out on a snorkelling trip on th egreat barrier reef... which was pretty cool apart from waking up at 7:30 when the boat left at 7:45 ... read more

With less than a week to go the skies opened....

Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Cooktown January 22nd 2007

mncepitt

Hi All Less than a week to go to our flights to the US, and with no rain for ages all of a sudden the skies opened to pour rain upon the parched earth in Cooktown. 2 inches on Saturday night and then rained most of yesterday adding a further downpour - don't know yet how much (waiting for the Bureau of Met to release this info.) Had a good look on the Internet at the weather for Los Angeles, Santa Paula, Santa Clarita, Sacramento, Willows, Williams and of course San Francisco - all major areas that we will be visiting in the US!!!!! 4 night time sleeps and then off to Cairns - Skytrans again (what a great little service that is - and we hope to be on the new Dash 8) and of ... read more

Opera House and Centre Point Tower

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Sydney » Opera House January 21st 2007

The Opera House

Bex35

Hidee ho, so after recovering from my trek across Mordor....ops, I mean The Blue Mountains, I took a leisurely saturday with Emily to visit The Opera House and go to the top of Centre Point Tower - thank goodness there was a lift! We went on this little ride telling you about Australia (I is now educated about where I is) and then got the lift the size of a small thimble to the top. The view was tremendous! Sydney is huge and is seperated all over the place by water. Lots of yummy bridges! The we scooted on down to The Opera House (stopping for gelato joy on the way to prevent melting!). Twas a very cool building and The Harbour is beautiful. Went out in the evening to sample to beverage and dancing opportunities ... read more

North Island to South Island

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Christchurch January 21st 2007

Cari and the Campervan!

Cari P

Greetings!! I arrived in Auckland with several hours to wait before my campervan was ready. The flight wasn't all that bad and I was able to get some sleep. After getting used to driving on the other side of the road and sitting on the opposite side of the van, I made my way out of Auckland and headed north. I made a slower start than expected, so I wasn't able to make it all the way to Cape Reinga - the northernmost point. Instead, I stayed the night at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. I took a cruise and enjoyed the scenery. The weather was nice, but a little overcast, so I'm sure that hampered some of the beauty. There was a huge private yacht anchored in the bay that we all were amazed ... read more

Geelong

Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Geelong January 21st 2007

Geelong

Garrett

This marked my second trip outside of Melbourne since I arrived here in Nov. last year. I thought it was just a small town just outside of Melbourne but Geelong is Victoria's second largest city with 200000 people. Since I've seen almost everything there is inside the Melbourne city proper, the idea was to do day trips to the surrounding areas to get a better feel of the state of Victoria. The train is pretty cheap too being only $15 for a round trip out to Geelong and back which is roughly an hour from the city. I arrived in Geelong around 10:30 and just started wandering aimlessly around the town. As luck would have it I stumbled across the main tourist office in town and was able to get a city map and found out ... read more

The South Island; Bloody Sand Flies !!

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Westport January 21st 2007

The South Island: Bloody Sandflies

Matt The Pig

Tuesday 16th January to Thursday 18th January 2007. We didn't push north from Queenstown until 11am having spent an hour looking around the picuresque but essentially tourist hotspot town and whilst Marg had called her hubby, daughter and sister which had undoubtedly put a spring in her step as well as succeeding in banishing the upset stomach from which she'd been suffering the previous night and purchased another couple of postcards I got up to date with my e mails. If you haven't received one of Marg's postcards by the time you read this then you must be out of favour, I've taken the mickey mercilessly and told her when she's been thinking of something to write "just copy the other ones, they'll never know" but she's always blatantly snubbed the idea completely. We had two ... read more

Tot: 2.251s; Tpl: 0.007s; cc: 17; qc: 104; dbt: 0.2944s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.3mb