Blogs from Oceania - page 7057

.....that is I have two t-shirts, one to prove that I did a sky dive, and one to prove that I did a bungee jump! New Zealand is a fantastic place, everything I expected it to be and more. Fortunately, the pound is very strong out there, unfortunately, this means that all of the activities are reasonabley priced, which means you end up doing it, which means you end up spending a fortune! It's worth it though, and even in the middle of wintertime I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. I arrived on 20th May, after cutting down my Fiji trip to two weeks. Most people I had met in Fiji had warned me that New Zealand was "freezing", but after six months of a rocky mountain winter-time, stepping off the plane at Auckland was ... read more

You guessed it - it was an early start out of Townsville. We had a lot of outback kilometres to cover so we needed to get going. We were quickly free of the city and on our way to Charters Towers - an old gold mining town about 160km (100 miles) west. We were cracking along, about half way there in fact when I suddenly noticed I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. Panic set in and Lins desperately tried to get me to calm down and stop swearing long enough to find out what the problem was. I thought fast where did I have it last - when I did the washing up in the camp kitchen and I took it off and put it next to the sink. Another set of expletives as I begged ... read more

So....finally the moment we'd been waiting for...the arrival of the Hawgood parents!!! We had an amazing and fabulous 10 days with them but it all feels so long ago now! Before they arrived, it was all feeling completely surreal but exciting at the same time. We had arrived in Townsville on the Monday (12th June) and had spent a couple of days 'milling' around and exploring Townsville. On the Wednesday morning we moved from our Hostel, round the corner, to a hotel (going up in the world now the folks were coming!!!) Yvonne and Alan arrived at the hotel at lunchtime. It was so bizarre that they were actually here in Australia! A friend of the family - John - lives in Townsville, so he had picked them up from the airport. After an emotional "hello" ... read more

Got the ferry from Wellington to Picton and then boarded the bus again for the journey south. Wellington was nice, but wet. Busy few days, when Team Handsome became proud Scottish warriors dressed in bin liners at the Poo Pub fancy dress night. We also had a full day hike on the amazing Franz Josef glacier - has to be seen to be fully appreciated.... read more

My time in Sydney is quickly coming to an end. I leave on Monday 26.06 to head to Bangkok. My last few weeks in Australia have been a great finale. I enjoyed my jobs (though I also enjoyed the few free days I've had this last week!), I made some great friends, and all in all....I've definitely become quite fond of Sydney. I think it's fair to say that my perspective on Australia has changed a massive amount during my 7 month stay. I remember when I first landed in Sydney and had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into...well what I ended up finding out was that Australia is full of fantastic places and people. The landscape is gorgeous...my top locations were 1. the view of Bondi Beach the first time the car ... read more