Blogs from Oceania - page 6518

On the 16th we drove 30kms north of Coromandel to Colville. Colville is a one street, 10 houses town. Here we stayed on a farm stay backpackers. Our main reason for staying in Colville was to do the Fletcher Bay to Stoney Bay walk. This walk started at the top of the Coromandel Peninsula, the drive was windy gravel road that took us1hr and 10 mins to do. At one point it took us 20mins to go 6km. The walk took 3 hrs to do one way, so we only went half and then turned around. The walk started through farmland, then dropped down to the coastline and into a bay. We stopped for lunch in Poley Bay and collected some Paua shells. From there we walked another hour to the lookout point where we could ... read more

My last day in Perth was one I will never forget. My Uncle Liam and I spent some really great quality time together, his sense of Humour is so much like mine we joked and had a good laugh at the Wildlife Park seeing the Koala, feeding the Kangaroos & had a cuddle with a most impressive Wombat! Sadly Auntie Kala was unable to join us as the walk around the park would have been too much for her. We took a slow scenic rout to the airport where we had some lunch and said our good byes. I felt very sad to leave them both and I promised that I would return. There is no doubt about that I will. Australia is a fantastic Country and there is so much to see. ... read more

Friday 12th January 2007 I grabbed a quick morning swim before breakfast and then we headed out to pick up the campervan we had booked to allow us to drive down the East Coast to Adelaide. It had not been a good few days for Lisa - she had been having a terrible time trying to get through to various credit card companies to arrange replacements (lost her wallet in NZ) - in typical 'big-company-take-your-money-now-speak-to-a-machine' wanker style. I hate big companies' customer 'service' - don't get me started... So while we waited for the campervan to be ready Lisa tried (in vain) to get her cards sorted. We finally picked up campervan 'Armageddon' - 'spelt incorrectly' Lisa tells me. She was also not too impressed that most Wicked vans are funny or arty - ours was ... read more

The 170km from Omarama to Queenstown take us gently back towards the mountains. The road passes through Tarras, a tiny blip on the map which gained worldwide fame (well, almost) as the home of Shrek, a naughty merino sheep who was found in 2004 having evaded the shears for six consecutive years and, as you might expect, looking quite alarming for this fact. The hapless creature, having avoided capture for so long by hiding in caves, was caught and promptly shorn of his fleece, which weighed in at no less than 27 kilograms (enough wool, I am told, to make twenty suit jackets). Queenstown has a spectacular location: on the shores of squiggle-shaped Lake Wakatipu, the town sits against a backdrop of soaring, snow-capped peaks. Queenstown has developed into New Zealand's undisputed backpacker capital which, in ... read more

Along with our cheese toasties for dinner last night, we thought we'd add a touch of sophistication by cracking open a bottle of white wine. New Zealand produces some fabulous wines but unfortunately most of them are well out of our price range so the cheap Black Label wine we picked up at the supermarket before leaving Christchurch was far from the best. Flavour-wise it was quite nice actually but the way my head felt this morning made me vow never to touch a drop again as long as I live! Luckily we weren't going far today. Well, in fact we weren't going anywhere at all! We had enjoyed our time by Lake Pukaki so much yesterday that we agreed to stay on another night if the weather was nice again and it most certainly was. ... read more