Blogs from New Zealand, Oceania - page 2394

hey there everyone, well day number three in new zealand now, still in auckland wadering around trying to sort out all the boring stuff that has to be done....yawn. Hoping to buy a car tomorrow though so it'll all be worth it, wish you were here to help dad! Still struggling to get over the self inflicted jet lag, drinking a few (small, honest) bottles of wine on the plane not sleeping for that night and then staying up until 4.30am the following night has confused my body no end. Has been great to meet a load of new zealand people and everyone, except our silly hostel owner, have been super friendly. Spent last night at a yoga class, the sure fire way to meet nice people and i got all you can eat dinner and ... read more

After a week and a half of glorious summer sun shine we decided to do a couple of days camping a little way up the west coast at Franz Josef. Right on cue as we unpacked our tent, the heavens opened. We didn't do all that much here on account of the rain except for get eaten alive by Sand Flies ( Well, I had about twenty bites - which come up as large red welts that last for over a week - and Sara had a suspicious zero ). We did manage one walk up to the Franz Josef Glacier during a brief respite that kept us dry for the first half at least. Then feeling a little damp we drove up to Greymouth for a night where we sheltered from the continuing downpour in ... read more

We are now in Wellington. Here's what has happened since my last post. We left Taupo and went to Rotorua. Didn't really do much in Taupo because it rained all the time we were there. When we arrived in Rotorua we were driving past a golf course when something hit the front window of the car. We were shocked - and then realised it was a golf ball. It cracked a hole in the window. We had to wait a couple of days for a new window to be ordered and installed. While waiting we went to the Maori cultural center - we saw a show there as well as a geyser and some carving. We then went to Napier. We went on a winery tour there. We are now in Wellington, we will be heading ... read more

Greeting finally after 5 weeks on the raod from New Zealand. Yep after a seemingly neverending journey from Singapore we landed at 3pm local time this afternoon and have checkied into a backpacker hostel for our first night meeting more fellow backpackers than you can shake a stick at straight away. Was a shame to leave Singapore as we had a really good time on the bum boats (boats with tyres all over them), saluting Mr Raffles statue and braving the cronic subway system, especially as it seemed the flights from then on were never ending. Anywho aided by one or two complementary bottles of wine from Quantas (and $50 of duty free vouchers due to Claires TV not working for the last hour of the flight which she wasn't watching anyway- ace) we got here. ... read more

We have breakfast in our room, store some of our bags at the motel and wait for the shuttle to take us to Bluff to catch the ferry to Stewart Island. The shuttle arrives, picks up a NZ girl at a backpacker hotel, a French tourist at the airport and arrives in Bluff about 11:00 am. Bluff is a very industrial town and is a huge shipping port. The ferry leaves Bluff at 11:30 am, crosses Foveaux Strait and arrives at Stewart Island at 12:30 pm. During the crossing Michael and I laughed at a prime example of the Kiwi mindset. There was a skipper on our boat and one crew person that was working the snack bar. The skipper called the crew person over and she took over the wheel of the boat while the ... read more