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Published: August 27th 2008
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For our last few days in australia we headed to st kilda which is on the coast near melbourne, in order to meet up with paul's cousin rich and spend a few days chillin. It was a nice couple of days and we saw some dolphins really close to shore and on our last night we went to the end of the breakwater and saw penguins!! before going for a nice meal to celebrate our last night in Australia.
The flight to auckland was a little troublesome as due to multiple things we ended up being some of the last people to board the plane, and it didn't get much better at the other end. this was because New Zealand are almost as paranoid about bio security as Australia and we ended up emptying our packs at customs to get to all our camping gear and anything else they wanted to look at. But we did finally make it into Auckland city around 8pm so by the time we'd eaten and checked in we were pretty trashed.
We had a day to spare before picking up the campervan so we had a look around the city and all its
gear shops checking out the nice merino wool thermals etc!!
The next day we headed out to pick up the campervan and after doing a bit of shopping we were on the road by about 1pm and heading for the corromandel peninsular. after about 3hrs of driving we found somewhere to pull over and cooked dinner whilst watching the sunset over islands out to sea.
Our next destination was our first experience of NZ's geothermal activity at hot water beach where if your there at the right time of day you can dig yourself a spa pool right on the beach!! however we were there a bit early so had to settle with burying our feet into the red hot sand whilst freezing cold waves splashed our legs and thighs (a bizarre feeling). Over the next few days we moved through the geothermal heartland of Rotorua which although it smelt of rotten eggs which impregnated your clothes for days,was amazing and we came across smouldering pools of every colour from Black,neon orange and BRIGHT green and everything in between!!! there were also gushing geysers,fumeroles and bubbling mud pools.
Whilst we were there we also treated ourselves to a mineral spa
and mud bath which was a laugh,although the cold shower after the mud bath wasn't to much fun!!
We then moved onto the the home of "the best day walk in the world" the tongarriro crossing!!
However it was in its full winter coat and severe gale force winds were expected so we didnt have much hope in attempting it and settled for a snowball fight on the lower slopes of what was used as mount doom in lord of the rings...
but it was slightly overshadowed by the fact that although we were in such beautiful surroundings,we couldn't see any of it as it was ALL shrouded in cloud :-(
so we'll just have to go back one day :-)
After tongarirro we moved towards the west coast via the Lost world highway which was a full days drive where we only saw about 3 cars in as many hours and we drove through pastureland where we saw more cows than we'd seen people and fern rainforest, and at times this "highway" ended up turning into a gravel track with the evidence of fresh landslides here and there which was quite disconcerting as it had been pissing it down
for virtually the entire time that we'd been on the road and we'd seen everything from snow and sleet to drizzle and monsoon like rains!!!
We stayed in Stratford that night which was just down the road from strathclyde and not too far from cardiff!! LOL.
There was meant to be impressive views of mount edgemont which is another massive volcano,but we could only see the lower slopes and our attempt to drive part way up was thwarted by the snow and ended up with me running behind the van and helly reversing for about 10 minutes to the nearest turning point, Ooops.
Our last few days in NZ were spent heading back up the surf coast towards Auckland stopping at a few black sand beaches, visiting the Waitomo caves to see a galaxy of glow worms and a few crafty places along the way before we dropped the Camper off and spent a little bit of money on a few merino treats for ourselves before heading to the Airport for our flight to LA!!
We got to the airport with time to spare and it was lucky we did as the check in lady said that in
order to go to LA we had to have pre booked accomodation as a condition of the visa!! so we spent about the next hr and a half scouring the internet for somewhere to stay that was both reasonably central and relatively cheap!! it didn't make it any easier that although we were due to be on a plane for over 10hrs we would actually arrive earlier in the same day than we left new zealand!!which wasn't enough time in advance on most of the online booking engines.
However in the end we had to settle for a cheap hotel and after being questioned for about five minutes at LA customs about the fact that i'd been to pakistan for 3 wks (don't think having a beard helped the situation!!) we were finally in America and were soon checked into our hotel which was nice enough for what we'd payed.
So we spent the next three days visiting Hollywood, which as you might have guessed is one of the tackiest places in the world but it was fun to see all the people in character costumes and walk down the "walk of fame" and try to find all the stars.
Universal studios, which was amazing and we had a full day out touring the studios and going on the uber cool rides as many times as we could in the time we had and then touring all the shops which included a sweet shop the size of which has never been seen before!!!Then we went for a KFC which concluded our junk food trio of the last few nights of pizza,burger and KFC (the true american experience).
After a bit of a lie in (as our bodies were still on Auckland time) we spent our last full day visiting Santa Monica beach where baywatch was filmed!! we traipsed round the mall and the pier until sunset when we couldn't resist going on the ferris wheel before heading out for a nice italian then catching the bus back to our hotel.
The next day we did a quick trip to hollywood to buy a few irresistable tacky presents and then went back to the hotel to pack before heading to the airport for our final flight, and if you've made it this far into the blog then the penny might drop as to what our final culture shock might be
;-)
Love lots
Paul n Helly xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Ruth Pownall
non-member comment
Beard
Great to get your news. No sun tan in NZ I guess? Paul, you look like Robinson Crusoe with the beard! You look like you are really enjoying it all. Did you try one of the American 'Greasy spoon' cafes? Take care, Ruth (Oyster)