Blogs from Oceania - page 7429

Despite being the victims of elderly envy, the two volunteer farmhands could not be deterred. For three days, the idea of spending Saturday night dancing in Timaru township had been festering in our mind. A native party animal in Berlin, Anne had modest expectations of what the night would entail. We would soon discover we were in for a night of bizarrities and sheer intrigue. When our first four transport options into town didn't pan out, we were not deterred. At 10pm, we began our 31 kilometre hitch hike from the farm road. We flagged down our first passer-by with signals from my headlamp. Anne leaned in, smiling and matronly, to ask the driver "could you take us to Timarow?" The older couple in the vehicle looked incredulous, confused, and bordering on fear-stricken. After a stuttering ... read more

January 28th 2006 - Over 4 months after arriving in Sydney - I was finally going to escape the place albeit for just a week to go on a road trip from Sydney to Melbourne and back. This time I was going to go with my two friends Mandy and George in a camper van which seemed like the typical backpacker thing to do in Australia. After my usual incessent planning, stressing, worrying we finally got going at 1 pm - leaving behind my beloved Blue Parrot Hostel for one week. The first thing that we discussed as the we drove the van south out of Sydney was what we were going to call her - George came upon the name of Cedric - which was bizarrely the name of her cat back home. I ... read more

After another overnight bus, I pulled in to Arlie Beach at 09:30. It was hot and very humid. Magnums, the hostel that I was staying in, was a huge money making machine! The rooms were comfortable, if not a little off putting when you see mousetraps in every corner. The rooms were air-con’d which was a great break from the tropical climate. That afternoon I prepared for my sailing adventure around the Whitsundays. There were a couple of heavy showers, but nothing that worried me too much, as long as there was some sunshine most of the day I didn’t mind. My boat was called Samurai and was a 40ft Maxi racing sailing yacht. Five minutes before I started my walk to the mariner it started to rain, heavy! The rain did not stop until the ... read more

230km from Hamilton lies New Plymouth. We had breakfast in Hamilton and checked out the shops, it is quite a large city compared to Whangarei (a city here is wot we would call a town in the UK, a town here is maybe wot we call a hamlet (not the cigar but the collection of a few houses) often without an obvious pub!). Drove onwards to Otorohanga, which is built around the fact it has a Kiwi house, seriously, everything in the town makes reference to this fact and there are giant statues of Kiwi going in and out of the town, its like some huge alter to a giant Kiwi god. Anyhoo, watched them feed Kiwis, they is mental birds innit... One was doing flying kicks at the keeper of kiwis, landing some serious blows ... read more

After four sea days with large swells and a broken oil pipe, Voyager finally reaches Auckland in the late afternoon (about six hours late). With the sun shining on city buildings in the distance and blue water sparkling around us, our sail into port is a memorable one. As usual, Captain Dag has picked an appropriate song to play over the loudspeaker, announcing our arrival. No wonder they call this the “City of Sails.” Auckalnders certainly love their boats…sailboats, motorboats, all kinds of boats. They are everywhere, sailing beside us, in front of us and around us. Some look like they have trouble getting out of our way and several times the Captain has to blow the ship’s horn. This is a three day holiday in the Auckland area and it seems that the entire city ... read more