Blogs from Oceania - page 7659

On Thursday, after watching the sun rise onto Spring, we travelled the 800km Donahue-Plenty highway from Boulia to Alice Springs, skirting the top of the Simpson Desert and visiting NO towns on the way. Mid-morning we crossed into the Northern Territory (and set our clocks back 30mins). The highlight of the day (except for the awesome nothingness) was finding a Thorny Devil. The lowlight was meeting the most extreme flies we've even had to suffer poking in our noses, ears and eyes! We arrived late evening for dinner in Alice. The next day we walked into town, climbed Anzac Hill for comprehensive views and then visited some of the historic buildings including taking a tour around the Royal Flying Doctors Service base and marvelled at the completely dry Todd river.... read more

Well the year is nearly over but I still remember the first day of this year vividly. Not only did I have a great night before, but stayed up partying till the sun came up 6am!! And what is even more special is that I was in Gisborne NewZealand, which is "officially" the first place in the world to see the sun. That is because the GMT timeline starts in there, so it is a special place to greet the New Year. Very funny moment when we were at the lookout with about 40 other people (kiwis and tourists alike), and I said to my cousin Anna "Wow-look at that beautiful skyline" And she replied "where'? as she looked around the carpark!! She has been in the city too long, because the word Skyline to her ... read more

Hello all... We have been in Cairns about a week now. We have a place to stay, we have rented a condo about a 15min walk from downtown. the address is 133/12 Gregory St Cairns, QLD 4870 We also have a cell phone, our very first one.... 0431 155 138, if any wants to chat... We have had a great time at the hostel so far, a lot of walking around. On Wednesday we went out with a group from here on a Bar Hop. we went with 6 Irish, 1 Scotish, 1 New Zealander, 1 from Wales (Stork, or the great white hype...funny), 3 from Gremany, and 2 from England. The night was awesome...the bars are the same as Canada, but they had competions...Heather and I competed in a couples competion, and won a 2-4-1 ... read more

After picking up our new wheels it was time to set out on our 5 hour drive over to the Able Tasman National Park. After speaking to others about this area of the country, we were looking forward to some back to nature, peace and quiet. What met us on our arrival at Marahau was something beyond our imagination, a sleepy coastal village in the middle of the most beautiful 'nowhere' that we have ever seen. The handful of perminant residents were really friendly and laid back and when we asked what time the local pub opened our reply came with a smile 'October', yes even the pub gets a 6 month holiday, now thats relaxed! We were prebooked into 'Old Macdonald's Farm' where our room was a small cosy hut and the kitchen was a ... read more

Ended up stopping the night in Haast which was really in the back of beyond! Found out that the locals were actually Whitebait fisherman which was really odd sharing a camp site with these guys! Not a lot to do in Haast really, especially as it insisted in peeing it down for most of the day and night :o) One of the fishermen reassured us that this weather was "only scotch mist" and we should be worried when the rain falls an inch a minute!... read more