Blogs from Oceania - page 7662

Woke up this morning to Kea's (huge, cheeky parrot like things) shouting their heads off on top of someones campervan - although thankfully not ours! Headed off this morning to catch our boat for the cruise, which was awesome, although the day was very misty and not as clear as we'd have liked. Observatory was really cool and lots of really nice fish and coral to gawp at! Decided to head back to Te Anau as the lack of civilisation and the thought of spending another night in LOG country was a little daunting :o) Off to Queenstown tomorrow to watch the Haka, visit some kiwis and do Shotover Jet. ... read more

Greetings from Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand, or perhaps the world. Now, I'm of the school of thought that adventure can happen anywhere and you don't necessarily have to be emptying your wallet or risking spinal injury to participate, but for certain types of paid outdoor adventure type activities, Queenstown is the place. Take your pick from rafting, jet boating, parasailing, skiing, snowboarding, river boarding (boogie boarding down a river), canyoning, canyon swinging, and even some kind of airplane-like tethered rocket plane kind of thing. and of course bungee jumping (invented here). Queenstown has all of these. Sherry and I will probably partake in the jet boating, but that's about it. The landscape on the south island is beautiful: snowcapped mountains, green valleys, still lots of sheep. On Saturday (2 days agao) we had ... read more

We spent a long weekend in Cairns planning our next moves, partying (after a top night in the "Woolshed" Emma braved her first ever Falafel Kebab!), shopping, using vouchers to get free backpacker grub and exploring the town in the rain. We also arranged first to join a 3-day adventure bus tour right through the Queensland and Northern Territory outback to Alice Springs (Desert Venturer), and then after a day of rest to join an 8-day camping adventure tour right through some of the most remote places in the world down to Adelaide in South Australia (Wayward Bus - Face the Outback).... read more

got woken up by the sun, shining down on me :) absolutely beautiful, warm, sunny morning. so off we headed for our final destination of the trip, kings canyon. and yet another 8km walk. eep, don't think i've ever walked so far!!! once again with the wow factor though. it was totally worth every second of pain trying to hike up what might as well have been a bloody mountain! it was so so steep!!! (thankfully it was all downhill on the way back :)) again, saw many lizards and birdies - good fun this wildlife spotting lark! we headed to the garden of eden, which is a natural swimming hole at the bottom of the canyon. it was so peaceful and beautiful, and 5 of us were brave enough to actually go for a (very ... read more

We woke up Monday excited to be in Australia and ready to go to the city for orientation. This is where renting the car proves to be a mistake, haha. We find out that Sydney is the 2nd largest city in the world the hard way. MN trying to direct me and me trying to drive in downtown Sydney is quite the disaster. We somehow find where we’re going and then go to the nearest parking garage. It definitely cost $40 for two hours, no good! We went to orientation and found out a ton of great information that will certainly help us down the road. Our first mission when we got out was to get the car, so we weren’t broke, and turn it in a day early. The rest of the day we spent ... read more