Blogs from Oceania - page 6517

We are officially on the countdown with less than 3 days now before we leave the land of Aus! Adam and I have been crazy busy in the lead up to our big adventure-madly trying to tie up loose ends at home and catching up with as many friends and family as we can. We celebrated our departure with farewell drinks and dinner with our closest friends both in Newcastle and Tamworth which was a wonderful opportunity to say farewell to all our lovelies that we will miss so much! With farewells almost done, we can now look ahead to what's just around the corner...Europe. After so much planning, at last the time has come! And so begins what we know will be the adventure of a lifetime...... read more

The other side of Tahiti looks a lot like Mexico, except that it’s on an island in the middle of nowhere. Once you step outside the grandeur of $1000 per night over-the-water bungalows it becomes very apparent that French Polynesians are a simple people socially enslaved by the French to more or less function as Mexicans do in the United States. Today marked our first day in Papeete (pronounced Pap-a-ate-a), the provincial capital of Tahiti. The seaside city reminds me of Tijuana except that the vendors hock cultured black pearls instead of chiclee and Chinese stars. After fumbling our way through an all French language menu and musing at the locals dining with us, we decided to stroll through downtown - Gina was determined to find her Christmas ornament or something we could fashion into one. ... read more

Chile Its been a while since my last entry and i had almost forgotten my responsibilities to my avid subscribers of which there at least six. So here follows an account of my travels especially for them, following my progress since i left Buenas Aires up until a few weeks ago (Queenstown, New Zealand). Perhaps more than the feeling to fullfil my responsibilities to my six subscribers i really wanted to share a little video with you all that i am rather proud of. I hope it works. I have just found out it doesn't, so in its place sits a static photo of the nevis gondola from which i jumped, i hope that surfices. I don't think it does! So since Argentina and some problems with my plane tickets that i won't bore you with ... read more

As a final note on Hong Kong, I have to mention the food. It is truely awesome. You can get anyhting you want and its dirt cheap as well. I have put on about 6 pounds in weight in little over a month but i dont regret one bite. Well maybe the chickens feet but i had to try it! If you like seafood then you'll love it here and of course if you do happen to like chickens feet, well then ditto i guess. Upon leaving Hong Kong I experienced certain immigration problems. Apparently STA have managed to make a mess of my application for an Australian working Visa! So currently I am only here on a 3 month tourist Visa and i have been informed that if i want to attain a working Visa, ... read more

- I was back at work on boxing day(but on 2.5x pay, i wasn't complaining...much) and the next big thing to happen was of course New Years Eve. After much research, planning and conversations with all parties involved, I managed to find a place we could watch the fireworks that accomadted everyone's varying needs. Was feeling a little nervous on the day in case everyone thought it was pants when we got there but was happy to get the thumbs up from everyone. We arrived over on the north shore at about 4pm with our picnics and plenty of alcohol and found ourselves a spot with a pretty good view and a fair bit of space. The theme for the celebrations this year was 'Diamond in an emerald city' because they were celebrating 75 years of ... read more