Last week of Oz and arrival in NZ!!!

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Hello

last Monday we spent the day at Lou's only venturing out for a smoothy late afternoon when we realised we'd been stuck inside all day. The smoothy was basically a litre of yoghurt... which even for us was tough going and made us feel a bit sick! It was a bit of a non day really as we spent the rest of the day watching films and eating oven chips!!

On Tuesday was got up early with the intention of going to Palm Beach (where they film Home & Away), however it was raining, so we did a load of washing and had a leisurely breakfast, only to find the weather had changed and was now brilliant sunshine! We decided to visit Manley instead, going by Ferry and using up our weekly travel cards! The Ferry gave us awesome views of the city and Opera House, but it was so windy sitting on the upper deck that we sat inside on the return journey! IN Manley we had fish and chips on the beach and ate icecreams... which was a nice treat, then decided to try and walk along the coastal line... to work off a bit of the food we had just munched through. We were stopped in our tracks not very far into our walk by three MASSIVE spiders, spinning webs across our path! Needless to say we quickly retreated back onto the ferry!
To kill a bit of time that afternoon we rode around on the ferry's, seeing different parts of Sydney. That night was our last night with Lou and Mike. Mike gave us a CD of him playing the Dijeridoo to electronic music... and it will come as no surprise that we have not listened to that yet!!! We ate celery risotto, drank wine and watched numerous episodes of 'House'.

On Wednesday morning we did yet more washing, using their tumble drier (!) then heading out for lunch with mum's colleges from Reader's Digest! Cheryl and Lou were fantastic company and very interested in our trip, and of course we were very pleased to ahve a free nice meal out! I tried my first oyster... I am not a fan!
After a quick walk through town, we did yet more washing then went to the shops, buying nothing as everythingin Oz is far to expensive and depressing ourselves in the process! Mike was meant to be giving us a lift to 'Jacko's' (an old school friend of Sophie's mum, who's real name is Annie) where we would be staying for the next three nights. However Mike got held up at work and therefore we headed to the bus stop much later than planned, turning up at 'Jacko's' late, but they were very friendly and welcoming! We had dinner with Jacko's husband Phil and Jame's their son and Hugo their nephew. It was a very relaxing evening and the diner was curry, which I hadn't had since India!!!! Shock! Horror!

Thursday we attempted to lie in, however both of us woke at 9.30am and spent a leisurely morning watching tv and eating a lot! We then ventured to Paddy's Market hopign to find cheap warm clothes for NZ but nothing was as cheap as we wanted. That afternoon we walked from Cugee Beach to Bondai Beach which took us about 4 hours! It was dark by the time we had finished, but the views were great and we really felt we had achieved something!
We waited for a bus home in the dark, completely shattered! After a quick change, we were back out of the door and off to meet a few of Sophie's old school friends, soem of whom I knew, for dinner and drinks. This was a great night, eating nachos, pancakes and icecream and drinking cheap fizzy wine!! It was really nice to see familiar faces!

Friday we finally made it to Palm Beach... unfortunately not meeting any of the cast! It was an early start after the night before and so the 2 hour bus ride was relaxing and eased us into the day! However, it was very boring too! We ate a picnic lunch on the sand and reminised about old episodes of Home & Away!
That night was our last night with 'Jacko' and family. The boys were off to the rugby, so we all went down to the local pub before the match, then Soph, Annie, Phil and I went out for an Italian - their treat! The food was amazing and a great end to Oz! They ordered many bottles of wine, and Sophie ended up ahving to drink a bottle of white wine to herself as she was the only one drinking white!!!
We later met the boys at the pub for a few goodbye drinks before returning to pack before our flight the next morning.

We slept through our alarm and after a rushed start Phil drove us to the airport! There was nothign to do at the airport so we spent our last dollars on breakfast! My bag was 2kg lighter at check-in and Soph's was 2kg heavier!!!!
Soph bought honey at the airport, which was promptly taken off her upon arrival in NZ! The flight was boring, though shorter than usual, and we were able to spread out over 3 seats.
From the airport we picked up a stack of brouchures about Christchurch and then got a bus to Cathedral Square, where we checked into a place called 'Base', into the female only dorm (as there was nothing else avaliable... howver the perks of this was we got given a free towel and shampoo and conditioner to use while we were there!) One of the girls in our room was extremely ill, and of course, passed her germs on to us and now we both feel very rough! The freezing temperatures in NZ don't help either!!
After booking our bus tickets to get us around NZ we cooked dinner with what we thought were potatoes... which later we found out were Kumara's! Whatever they are we know we DON'T like them! Needless to say dinner was not a success!!!
As we are running low on funds we did not venture out that night and crashed out instead...

Later that night we were attacked by bed bugs!

On Sunday we were woken by housekeeping changing the beds - very early!
We dragged ourselves out of bed and made our first attempt at porriage. It was quite sucessful. After using the internet and managing to avoid the rain we wandered around the city, visiting the markets we couldnt buy things from and the shops we couldnt afford!
That afternoon we sat in our room and had a serious chat about money whihc enede rather depressingly... we've realised we cannot afford to sky dive!!! We will just have to come back to NZ...
For dinner that night we made cauiliflower cheese, which was the highlight of our day!

On monday we were up early again! Surprise, surprise! We got on our booked bus to Queenstown, which gave us amazingly beautiful views of NZ. It is awesome! We viewed from afar mountains used in 'Lord of the Rings' which was so cool!
It is extremely cold in Queenstown! We arrived in the dark, having not booked anywhere to stay and everywhere was full! Eventually we found a hippy-esque hostel full of people with nose ring and dreadlocks! The hostel had no blankets or heaters so we literally wore everything we owned that night!

Checked out early the next morning after our first experience of a hostel including breakfast.. we both tried 'rice bubbles', which are basically a cheaper version on rice crispies! We cheked into Base, buying a 5ngiht deal package for a cheaper price! After a supermarket shop, it is getting easier to buy economy food and bypass the luxury cheese, veg ect... NOT!!! We then attempted to book a package for our Fiji tip as you are meant to book an all inclusive package before you go which we hadnt done. After much discussion and trying to find the cheapest package I then realised I couldnt get that large amount of money out of my account because of some limit... so I ended up waking up mum in the middle of the night (before her birthday!!!) and she paid by creditcard!!! Sorry mum...
After a walk by the river we cooked dinner, which was a success (roasted veg and pasta) then watched T.V. all night as going out is now not even an option!!!

On Wednesday we were up early again to get our bus to Franz Joseph The bus was pretty cold but again the views were spectacular! Eventually we arrived at 'Glow worm cottages', which we had booked the day before - we are learning from our mistakes! - and showered before meeting the members of our dorm. I ahve a constant runny nose and was worried I would make enemies during the night... however we must be cursed as there is another really sick person in our room, in the bed underneath me!
OUr hostel supplies free soup at 6pm so we ate that... although it wasnt particularly nice, then amde macaroni and cheese, before watching T.V. and chilling out by the fire.
Fortunately Franz Jospeh is really small and therefore there isn't much night life to miss!!!

Bye for now! xxx

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