Blogs from Oceania - page 6577

This morning we were up early 05.00am (I am sure you will agree this is officially early!) to catch a flight to Melbourne. After dropping our bags off at our Guest House, we proceeded to explore the city, first of all taking a tram to the centre and then walking the streets. We discovered a free tourist tram ride the circles the centre grid system of the city which we happily rode on for the whole circuit! The city is very cosmopolitan, with every restaurant you can imagine and so many pieces of art, sculpture and modern architecture to keep your eyes out for, you would be forgiven for thinking you were in a city in Eurpoe. We pretty much covered every inch of the centre grid before I started to do my ‘nodding dog action’ ... read more

As a result of the night out on Tuesday, I bumped into two Scottish girls in the bar, who I made friends with. This has now doubled my previous best "friend total" which makes me happy. Came across to Manly yesterday morning, booked into hostel. Hostel wasn't lovely. Didnt help that I'd had to check out my chuffing hotel at 8am that morning with what can only be described as a hangover. Anyway, lounged on beach for a while (weather still a bit crap) and met my two new friends. We (I) was very excited to have people to play with, so on the grounds that the weather was still a bit crap, we went to a Bavarian Bierkellar place on the waterfront and did beer tasting. This started about 3pm and finished about 9, when ... read more

happy new year!! Jack and I have just arrived in Picton in South Island, and are preparing to go on a 4 day tramp (had to buy a tent, sleeping bag, food, etc - but it's ok, no need to carry our bags as the water taxis take them free of charge to each campsite for us!). Here's what we've been upto in the last few weeks. (i'll try add photo's when i'm next on). We spent 5 days cherry picking and grading (sorting out the nice, alright and bad cherries) from 7.30am to 5.30 pm - long and tiring days!! we worked for 2 different cherry orchards, firstly a very distant relaitve, then his scary mad scottish friend. cherry picking is much as it sounds, the first lot of cherries had a lot of water ... read more

Hello All We thought we would try and get up to date with a few new postings as we have been falling behind somewhat! We havent told you about our last couple of days in Melbourne. On 29th we had booked the neighbours tour, including star meeting! We didnt meet Dr Karl or Janae Timmins but did meet another Timmins, Kim the Dad, who is one of those characters who is in and out of the programme. He was a very nice chap actually and told us a few stories about the show. A trip to Erinsborough high and Pin Oak Close (AKA Ramsey St) completed the tour. Cheesy but fun. On the day we left Melbourne we had all day to explore as our flight out was in the evening. This meant a trip to ... read more

Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand and it is translated to mean "Land of the Long White Cloud", literally though I think it means White Cloud Long! The Māoris like to keep things simple when it comes to naming things, a word repeated means "very", “wh” is really an “f”, and after two months, I still don’t know the proper way to pronounce half of them! ------------- Kia Ora Mates (Hello My Friends)… it has come time to leave this Garden of Eden and start my travels home. Tomorrow afternoon I will leave Auckland and head to Tahiti for a few relaxing days before a quick stop in LA and then home. But before I go, I figured I'd tell ya all about Paihia and the beautiful Bay of Islands. Friday 12/29/06 Head to ... read more