Wednesday 8 December 2010

There and back again

Life in Sydney slowly moves on. On the days when I don't work in the restaurant, I try to do and explore as much as possible. This means mainly that I try to go to an other beach every time haha. Although I must say; the last few days the weather in Sydney has been pretty bad, so there wasn't much beach-exploring to do - my best option was to stay at home and read, write and watch movies. Not why I came to Sydney ... My mood started to slide down again.
Luckily I had an awesome trip to look forward to: a small detour to Christchurch, New Zealand, to visit Alex (who I can officially call my boyfriend since a few weeks). Yes, people, life can take strange turns sometimes. Time with Alex has been too good in New Zealand and we both agreed it would be a shame not to try and work this out. Hence, the short visit to Aotearoa.
Seeing each other again in Christchurch was of course a lot of fun and Alex made sure that my days in New Zealand were well spent.
On day 1 I was treated with what I couldn't do anymore in my first time in NZ: horse riding! I had never been close to a horse, let alone sat on it, so this was a complete first timer. And it was downright coooooool dude :-). We went to Otahuna, which is on the Banks Peninsula, about half an hour from Christchurch. There they gave us a short introduction on how horses think and act, followed by an extensive 'get-to-know-your-horse' half hour. My horse was called Angus and was the biggest of them all. I wonder why ...
After getting used to communicating with our horse, we all joined in for a ride through the hills. It was all very slow paced, but this gave us the chance to thoroughly enjoy the scenery ... Which was, of course (being New Zealand...), beautiful.
Horse riding was followed by a delicious dinner in The Bodhi Tree, a small Burmese joint in Christchurch. A few plates of finger food and a nice bottle of wine, you don't hear me complaining :-).
The day after, Sunday morning, we were to be found in the gym. Yes, my dear readers, you read well. Yours truly did sports. The treadmill was conquered, oh yeah! Now I'm hoping I can keep up the good work ...
After our gym session, we headed up to Mount Algidus Station, where Alex's parents live. Now, this station is exactly what you imagine when you think of Kiwi life. Located at the foot of the Southern Alps, and widely known in the area, it's a place that stretches out for several kilometres on every side. The place is so quiet and serene, it's no wonder Alex's mum often has guests over, who come up to enjoy the scenery and escape the crowds.
We were greeted by Alex's parents, who are both very lovely people, as well as Larry, Tick and Teddy, three very happy dogs.
Life on the station has treated me well, with an attempt to go kayaking (this kind of failed since after the first bend we encountered a few logs stuck on the hydrowaters - too bad ...), small walks here and there, a movie at night with the fireplace burning and Larry keeping my feet warm, and a brave walk on the Boulderstones, which was very pleasant, yet trying for me since I had got my feet wet a few times and tried to keep the damage to a minimum.
Back in Christchurch, we didn't do a lot anymore except enjoying life, eating good food (everyone who comes in Christchurch, go to The Bicycle Thief), drinking good wine and watching movies, going to the casino, go for small walks ... In other words, perfect bliss and perfect travel life.
Saying goodbye again was of course the worst part of this trip, but not to be worried - Alex is going to join me for my trip in South East Asia, so it's goodbye but not for very long.
In the mean time I have Christmas, New Years and my sister's visit to look forward to.
See you soon! :-)

Sunday 21 November 2010

Sydney life

Who said anything about a down patch?
It's been just over two weeks now since I last updated you, and it seems like almost a year.
I'm steadily getting to know and love this beautiful city.
As I previously stated, it's actually just a big city with a few nice eye-catchers. What makes it so important is the climate. When the sun is out, you can really go anywhere you like without a worry on your mind. I can walk around for hours and not be aware of it, until the growling of my belly tells me it's time to move on.
Sydney really is an outdoor type of city. There are the odd museums you might want to pay a visit - same goes for the Aquarium and Wildlife World, which I've done already - but the most important thing here is, in my opinion, the amount of green.
There are parks galore all over the city. You can hike, run, bike, sit, walk, lie down here all day. See it as your back yard. Go for a barbecue, take a book, have a chat with your friends ... What can be nicer than to just rest your legs in the Botanic Gardens? Or take a walk around Mrs. Macquarie's Point with the typical view on Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House? Go for a run in Centennial Park? Or just chill out at one of the many, many beaches?
As mentioned before, I have made a few nice friends here. Floriane and Anne-Sophie from France both have become my regular dinner-and-giggle gals and we try to see each other every once and a while. Dorian joins us on the odd occasion. And of course there's homie Frauke who I see on some occasions and who it's always nice to meet up with :-). In the mean time I'm never too shy to go up to people and have a little chat - which is the way it's supposed to be, right.
I have also met my dear friends James and Ralf one night. We took the ferry to Manly with spectacular views of Harbour Bridge and the Opera House at sunset, followed by a delicious dinner in Manly Wine Bar. Thanks again guys for a lovely night!
Work in the Belgian Beer Cafe is picking up as well, since the tourists start flooding the city. Over Christmas there will be hell to pay, but hey wasn't that the reason why we came to Sydney in the first place? Haha!

Here are some things I've learned about the Belgian Beer Cafe and Sydney in general so far:
- Asians like to order food 'to share'. This basically means you get to throw a couple of amusettes on the table and this will keep them happy all night long.
- don't go standing beneath the Monorail rail. You never know what might fall on your head.
- after every shift in the Belgian Beer Cafe, you get a free tap beer of choice - I can only cheer to that :-).
- Sydney has loads of parks and bays and I want to discover them all.
- Australian girls don't eat a lot. In fact, I'm almost crying at the thought of how much food I throw away every day in the restaurant.
- my apartment has a nice evening sun (I'm saying this because I'm sitting on the balcony and enjoying the late afternoon sun right now.)
- the Belgian Beer Cafe is a big restaurant. My feet are witnesses.
- Sydney sun is mean, MEAN I tell you!
- 500 ml Hoegaarden glasses are very big for my poor hands to handle.
- there is a lot to do in Sydney. Apparently, like we recently discovered, there are fireworks going on in Darling Harbour every Saturday night. Which is only an example, of course.

Like a dear ex-colleague of mine said on departing from Belgium: it's my time now to see, feel, discover, explore, taste and in short enjoy whatever I can! I can only agree.
And with this wisdom, I'll leave you dear readers in peace again - for a while ;-).

Saturday 6 November 2010

The first impressions of Sydney

On 28 October, after getting up waaaaaay to early in Auckland in order to catch my airplane, I landed in Sydney.
The road - or rather, the tube - went straight to Frauke's office in Mascot ("It's only two stops from the airport, lady, it's not difficult at all!") where we had lunch together and a cozy chat about life and Adventures and whatnot. Since she had to work again after half an hour, I wended my way into the city and spotted my first glimpse of what everyone imagines when Sydney is mentioned: the Opera House, and looming in the background - the impressive Harbour Bridge. Nice views!
My feelings for the city are kind of mixed right now. First of all, I entered Australia after New Zealand, which is such a beautiful country. Compared to that, Sydney just is your next ordinary big city, once you've seen the eye-catchers. Secondly, the weather hasn't been too good yet, which means that there really wasn't a lot to do for me. Beaches aren't a possibility yet since I want to see those with a clear blue sky in the background, and that's what Sydney is all about, isn't it? So it's been trying to find things to do where I can keep inside for some time (and not spending too much money while doing that, for that matter). Thirdly, Sydney means "work" for me. I have been running up and down the long streets in order to get every practical thing ready in case I find a job here. This was kind of exhausting and trying, especially when you don't really know anyone and you have to start from scratch. Luckily I have a trial shift coming up in The Belgian Beer Cafe in The Rocks. After this shift, if I'm accepted, I might get the job and work over there for a few hours per week, which will make a nice change of scene.
And last but not least, with leaving New Zealand so abruptly, I had to leave certain important people behind and wasn't ready to do that yet. So that on top of everything, has made these first few days pretty trying.
But have no fear, my dear readers. Mary Jay - otherwise known as Marianello, the fifth turtle - is steadily climbing up from her down patch and is trying to make her time here as fun as possible.
The black pants and shoes for the Belgian Beer Cafe are already bought, a visit to the Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife World has been payed (where I was honestly impressed by the giant crocodile, the cute koalas, the fighting kangaroos, and the vicious-looking sharks), on the odd good-weather-day I visited Darling Harbour with Frauke, which was pretty chilled, and I retrieved my RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate, which means I can legally work in licensed premises and I know how to recognise fake ID's - or at least should. I already met a bunch of nice people as well and have some more meet ups lined up, as well as an own bed in the city as of 13 November, address to be gotten on request. Bring on those post packets :-). The place is pretty central so I'm pretty stoked about moving in there - it will be good to have an own haven in this big city.
So, let's just see how long I last here - I'm sure when the sun comes out, you won't hear me complaining anymore :-). Cheers!

Monday 25 October 2010

A few strikes of bad luck, beautiful sceneries and soaking up some sun

We did the drive up to Tongariro National Park in two days, since we left Welly only in late afternoon. The easiest stop would've been Palmerston North, but we thought that Wanganui had a nicer sound to it so headed that way. Quite a detour, but on a road trip you just go where you want to go, right?
Glad to have chosen Wanganui. The city had a pretty nice atmosphere to it and the backpacker where we stayed (Tamara Lodge) was simply perfect, a grand Victorian house with large rooms, a cosy kitchen, friendly staff and a cute back garden. Shame we couldn't stay any longer!
After Alex' morning run and my sleep-in, we hit the road again for Turangi, where we wanted to prepare everything for the Tongariro Northern Circuit (a three-day-track which would pas around two active volcanoes) - only to hear that the weather would be terrible and we were not at all advised to go there. Yours truly got really disappointed but had to settle for the one-day Alpine Crossing, which is only a part of the Circuit. Unfortunately, even for this trip the weather was too bad and we had to cut it short when we were about halfway - too much wind, snow and fog which tampered with visibility (I almost lead the two of us in a ditch after about five minutes...)
So, Tongariro wasn't a big fan of ours so we headed off again. The backpacker owner in Turangi gave us a little tip to go to Gisborne through the Whirinaki Forest Park and do a few walks there. Of course we did that. The Forest Park turned out to be a very remote, quiet place, with only a few (predominantly Maori) settlements. The walk was nice, but not really breathtaking. What wàs though, was the trip continuing out of the park, which lead us into Te Urewera National Park. Had we known this before, we wouldn't have bothered with the Forest Park and we would've done some walking around here. A very beautiful place ...
After this came the city of Gisborne. Because we didn't do the Northern Circuit, we got here a bit early for our meeting with Penny, an Australian girl. We wanted to meet her on the Gisborne Food and Wine Festival, but this appeared to be sold out - which, according to Alex, was a real shame since 'the line up was so awesome dude, New Zealand's best bands in one day!'. So we hung around here for a few days - the city has a nice vibe - but apart from a beach and the odd walk here and there, there wasn't much to do for us, so we didn't wait for Penny and headed off to Rotorua.
What they say in the guidebook - that you can smell Rotorua before you see it - is really true. The whiff of rotten eggs is a nice hello from the city. We wanted to stay here for the night in order to see some boiling mud pools the day after, but hey, what do you know! There were about three activities going on in the weekend, so the city was literally fully booked. We tried about fifty places and everywhere we got the same answer - 'Sorry, we're tjokkers for the weekend.' (nono, literally). So we had no choice but to leave the stinky mud pools behind, unseen, and continue to Tauranga, an hour north in the Bay of Plenty, where we were booked in a perfectly decadent hotel called Sebel Trinity Wharf (down with Novotel, long live Sebel!).
Due to another unlucky shot we had a bit of a car crash in Tauranga on the way to Mount Maunganui, so we're stuck here for at least a few days. Luckily, Tauranga is another city with a lovely vibe so there are worse places to get stuck. But still. Ii
Depending on how fast the great white truck gets fixed, I may or may not extend my stay here. It may come as no surprise that time has flown here and that, although I am really looking forward to Australia, I don't have the feeling that I'm done here yet. So hold on to some wood, get those fingers crossed and hope with me that the damage to the truck isn't so substantial that there's no choice for me but to leave.
All car crashes aside, Tauranga is a nice place and the weather has finally turned gentle on us: perfect blue skies, bright sun and perfect 22 degrees. Let the sunshine in!

PS: photos of the north island can be found in a new album on Facebook.

27 - 10 - 10
Just a small note to this entry: as it turned out, the truck was too heavily damaged and our plan to keep on going north and after that back to the South Island to Arthur's Pass couldn't go on. This means that yours truly had to take the Intercity Bus today from Tauranga to Auckland in order to catch the plane tomorrow to Sydney. A very abrupt end to another perfect two weeks here in New Zealand ... But I'm sure that Australia will treat me well.
So here we go once again, saying goodbyes, parting ways ... Thanks Alex for the perfect two weeks and catch you later dude. Chea ;-).

Monday 18 October 2010

The Abel Tasman National Park, crossing over to the other side and the parting of the ways

In the north of the south island, there was one thing that we couldn't pass without visiting, which was - of course, duhuh - the Abel Tasman National Park. This park consists of tons of beautiful white-sanded beaches, lush foresty walks and comfortable DOC huts.
There are a few ways to get by in the park. You could walk, take a water taxi, go seakayaking,
or combine some of the methods. What a great adventure! Inge and me chose to do only a 2-day trip here, seeing as we would get a bit in trouble time wise to get to Picton (in order to catch the ferry to Wellington). First day we'd go sea-kayaking to Anchorage - unguided of course, adventurers that we are :-). Next day we'd do a one day hike to Onetahuti, where we'd be picked up by the water taxi to bring us back to the starting point.
So first day, there we are, getting the safety briefing and learning that we're the only ones heading out for a trip through the 'mad mile'. But ok, we're Belgians, we can handle it, we've been rafting for heaven's sake. We start the trip, fully confident, and notice immediately when stepping into the water that it's swarming with jellyfish. 'Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, they sting', Joel (the kayak instructor) said. 'Have a good trip!' We swallow
deeply and get in the boat. It's ok, we can still handle it ... Just keep your hands out of the water. While you paddle. No biggy.
'There won't be so much wind today, don't worry', Joel said as well. But when we're about 20 metres offshore, the winds starts blowing. The boat starts rocking. Waves go higher. Jellyfish wobble by. Hmmm. Getting some doubts now. But, if in doubt, 'paddle harder', Joel said, 'and don't worry, your sprayskirt will keep you dry!' Ha-ha-ha, I say to that. About 15 minutes after take-off, we were both soaked, freezing (because of the wind) and trying not to topple over. So when we got to Watering Cove (one of the amazing small, gold beaches), we pulled the kayak ashore and decided after 5 minutes and a talk with another kayak instructor, not to enter the mad mile anymore. Which appeared to be a good decision because instead of calming down, the wind grew stronger in the afternoon.
So we continued to walk to Anchorage and after half an hour we got there. The beach is so sheltered that there was hardly any wind, and the sun was really burning, so we had our first real 'holiday-do-nothing' experience, yay! The next day, we continued the walk to Onetahuti, for which we had to get up early enough to catch the low tide (isn't it cool to do walks in which you have to account things like low tides and stuff? :-)) and which was beautiful. Another extremely sunny day, even a small tan on the legs - because yes, finally time to get the shorts out! After the walk we just had to wait at Onetahuti beach for the water taxi to pick us up. Easy peasy, trip was over we had survived our first overnight experience into the wild - and we liked it!
The next days we only had to drive (with a few stops in between of course) to get to Picton, where we booked the ferry to Wellington for Thursday. Although we didn't see any dolphins from the observation deck - the weather had once again turned crap and it wasn't nice out - we did have cows on board... In a cattle truck of course.
In Wellington (Welly, for the friends) we got greeted by heavy rain showers and dark clouds, olé. So we booked our last camping and stayed inside all night, reading and packing our bags.
On Friday we had to say goodbye to Tony ... Which was a pretty sad business since we had driven him around over 4693 km, oh yeah. That kind of counts for friendship, I think!
The next days we explored the city a little bit. It's quite a nice city, i can imagine, when the sun would be out. But the sun wasn't out and there was only wind and often rain. So we tried to keep indoors every once and a while, like when visiting Te Papa, New Zealand's impressive national museum (we saw the only colossal squid on display in the world here, and trust me, it's colossal!) On Saturday night we were joined by Alex, the before mentioned travel partner for the North Island, who took us to some nice cocktail place, called Motel.
Sunday was another parting day ... Inge stayed in Welly in search of a job, whereas Alex and me would head off to Taupo for the Tongariro National Park. Another sad business, other ways parting ... But we both took a good big swallow and each headed our own way.
I'm sure Inge will do fine in her job hunt and on her further trip and hey, we still meet again in the land of Oz! Here's to Inge and a magnificent, wonderful five weeks together. Cheers!

Saturday 9 October 2010

Ice castles, pancake rocks and big, ugly whales

So, the West Coast. Although we mostly drove along it, there's no going around its beauty.
For starters, the weather here was ten times netter than we'd seen before. It was even possible to walk around without a jacket :-).
The second good point here were the glaciers. Now this is something different as to what you can see in, say, Switzerland. The Fox and Franz Josef glaciers exist of huge rocks of deep blue ice, sitting together wave after wave, retreating and advancing over many years. Because of several natural phenomena, the whole glacier exists of caves, tunnels and crevasses. This is what we came to explore.
We took a guided tour with Franz Josef Glacier Guides, where our guide Matt taught us some little tips and tricks so as to not stumble over our feet every five minutes. The trip took us over a large plain of glacier rockfall to the iceline, where we had to put on our crampons; a strangely different way of walking. After that the road was carved almost where we stood; every time when there would be trouble to walk, Matt started to carve steps and tracks into the ice. We went through a few of these tunnels and such, which was amazing!
The whole beautiful, impressive trip took us about 6 to 7 hours, and afterwards we were overwhelmed with a severe tiredness. Most of it went away after a good meal and a long session in our (free) camping hot pool though :-).
After the Franz Josef glacier, the road continued winding along the beautiful West Coast until we arrived at the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki; strange limestone formations, quite worth the trip up there.
On we went towards the hot springs, which could be found more inland. Instead of going to the popular Hanmer Springs, we made a stop in the quieter, smaller Maruia Springs. Glad to have done this: there were only a few other people so we had the stinking, sulphurous baths almost to ourselves (they may stink but apparently they're good for you) as well as the traditional Japanese bath house. Yay for that! We even spared time (and money) for a personal body massage; gone were all the stress signs which we had attracted since the glacier walk :-).
The Maruia Springs were followed by a stop in Kaikoura; yes, for the attentive ones amongst you, back on the East Coast, where the scenery resembled that of the beginning of our trip a lot. Kaikoura is famous for it's whale watching tours; after all our marine wildlife excursions, we couldn't of course not do this one. The trip was quite a lot of money, but at least we got to see a big, black, ugly Great Sperm Whale - wahooo! Check for the whale.
From Kaikoura we went into Blenheim (nothing special, as most cities in NZ) where we stocked up and afterwards we went to the whine region, where we tasted a few and ventured to buy a bottle. This was after a hectic morning on the doc camping: us with our silly monads went camping in an extremely remote doc camping in the middle of the pouring rain ... And of course, the day after we got stuck in the mud and had to start looking for someone (in the wilderness) to pull us out, hehehehe *blush blush*. So we'd quite deserved that wine, thanks Sue and Jim for helping us! (we went to the winery where Sue had worked before).
Now we have arrived in Nelson, which brings me to the last part of my travels with Inge: after doing the Abel Tasman Coastal Track for 2 days, we need to bring Tony to Wellington where we split up. An era ending, another begins ...

For those of you who haven't seen them yet: new photos can be found on Facebook.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Mystic beauty in the fiordlands and adrenaline kicks in Queenstown

Back in Invercargill,, we ventured back on the Southern Scenic route to enter the Fiordlands. Our aim was to go to the Milford Sound from Te Anau. The following days the weather stayed terrible. Winds, rains and sometimes hail showers kept torturing the place, in this amount that even in the information centre of Te Anau, the lovely woman suggested we take a book and look for a cosy cafe and 'sit next to the fireplace'. Hmmm, NOT why we came to New Zealand, but what are you going to do when all the roads and tracks are closed, and no cruise or flight or anything is going?
Luckily the next day, though the weather wasn't all that better, we got news that one cruise would go to the Milford Sound. Well, if we couldn't do the track, we might as well do the cruise, right. Anything to get into the Sounds.
This cruise appeared to be actually a nice day out, even with the bad weather. The Milford Sound is a very serene place and the rain and mist kind of added to that atmosphere. Due to the bad weather, there were almost no other boats going out which only added to this mysterious place. And again, we got to see some fur seals ... This time younger males. Check!
When we got back in town, we decided we hadn't had enough yet and might as well book another tour, to the glowworm caves on Lake Te Anau ('Te Ana-au' actually means 'cave with a current of swirling water' in Maori). This was a nice and quiet smaall tour which led us into an underwater cave, pitch black, full of little glowing lights. Cute!
After that, it was time to pack up Tony and head for better weather in Queenstown. This appeared to be a lucky shot because when we arrived, the sun was out and the city was kind of warm. Hallelujah!
Now, Queenstown seems to be the Walhalla for adrenaline rushes. Of course we had to participate in this economy. The second day we went to book a trip to go rafting. Now, the whole point of the thing is: in Summertime, a bus would drive you to the starting point of the rafting. But this isn't summertime and the road was closed. So, what does one have to do to sustain ones economy? ... Bring your customers over in a helicopter, of course! :-)
Needless to say, yours truly stood jumping about this fact.
The bus ride to the place where we changed into wet suits in itself was fun: we started talking with a few guys and immediately it became clear that we would form a perfect heli-raft team. Then, the heli landed and not only me, but about everybody started bouncing around the place. Yaaaay, I got to be in front! The ride was short, but amazing. OUr dear pilot made a game out of it to give us a little tour and made us enjoy the ride thoroughly. I konw what my next job is: obtain a heli-pilot license and do this every day :-). For the rafting itself, we appeared to be a very good team indeed, only Inge and Matt fell out of the boat. So no harm done, haha!
After the rafting we went for a well-deserved drink in World Bar, where we were joined by a few other people, amongst whom was Alex who we'd met the day before.
On our last full day in Queenstown, Inge and Alex convinced me to go snowboarding after all, in the Remarkables, since this was quite the area, the snow was good and the sun would be out. Although convinced I'd break a bone or 2 (or 6), I agreed and am very happy to have done so; the boarding went -quasi- excellent, the sun was perfect and the day was very well spent.
Goodbye with Alex wouldn't be for too long since I seem to have found my travel partner for the north Island, which is in about 2 weeks. So Inge and me packed up Tony, said goodbye to lovely Queenstown and arrived in Wanaka, where we did an impressive walk - the Rob Roy Valley Track, and where we had an afternoon of fun in the Puzzling World: strange sensations in the illusions room, running around in the great maze.
Time to move on; West Coast, here we come!

Photos are to be found on this link (for those of you who hadn't seen them yet):
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1228897007#!/album.php?aid=2098693&id=1228897007

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Maritime wildlife, Westerlies and hobbly boat rides

Where did I stop talking?
Oh yeah. We were in Oamaru. Well, we walked a bit around the (rather beautiful) city, and even went to the movies - for those of you who haven't seen it yet: Despicable Me is a real laugh! :-). We were also waiting for dusk to go to the Blue Penguin Colony. There we saw an amazing number of about 100 penguins come ashore - quite the experience! Those little bastards are again too cute for words, we can line them up next to Kiwi's :-).
After Oamaru, down we went to Moeraki to see the boulders. They're quite impressive; big spherical rocks embedded in the sand and cliffs. Fun to see, and fun to take pictures!
From Moeraki we went straight down to Dunedin. This city is quite nice, but after visiting the obligatory Art Gallery and the few churches, we'd quite had it and made a useful day out of it, reading and sending emails to all you homies and uploading photos in the public library ;-). A day well spent, let's say! The day after we went to see Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. Now, we'd done a lot of steep streets in Dunedin so thought we'd covered them all. But this one, oh my. Luckily we didn't put Tony through the ordeal, the poor boy would've rolled right back down!
More interesting was a visit to the Otago Peninsula, quite close to Dunedin, where we headed straight up to Taiaroa Head. Our late hour of arrival was again rewarded by viewing a few penguins coming ashore - this time in the wild, which was even better than the colony! Good on you, mother nature!
We spent the evening in a great camper ground, where owner Elliott went out of his wits to make it possible for us to see The Lord Of the Rings 2 (which we already wanted to see since Twizel). Elliott also gave us the tip the day after to go and see Allan's Beach. This is a lovely bay on the peninsula where we spotted two real sea lions sleeping on the beach. Booyah, and up go our maritime wildlife grades again! Thanks Elliott, great place to see :-).
From Portobello on the peninsula, on we went down south on a "great endeavour" (so everyone said): a ride through the Catlins. Loads of people had already warned us about winds and snow, but we hadn't seen any of it so weren't really bothered. Indeed, the snow really wasn't a problem, we saw something white laying beside the roads but we as Belgians are used to more of course. The winds, that was something different. Dear god, poor Tony had real trouble to stay on the road, and two or three times the poor bastard almost didn't manage. But in the end he took us where we wanted to go without real trouble. Apart from that, the Catlins had really nice places. From viewing the Pacific at Nugget Point, over a strange blowhole (that unfortunately didn't blow) and some beautiful waterfalls, to a supposed shipwreck: mix it with the winds we had and you have an interesting combination! ;-).
We have now arrived on Stewart Island, after a hellish ferry ride from Invercargill. Honestly, this boat trip isn't for the weak-stomached! I'm still trembling on my legs :-).
The weather has turned really horrid on us (due to 'the Westerlies", as they call it so nicely here), so there's not much we can do except making short walks in the pouring rain (or hail, or snow, or whatever). Of course our hopes stay up and I still believe tomorrow the sun will shine brightly in the sky ;-).
Yours truly will keep you updated!

Thursday 16 September 2010

2 skiwis on the move

After we grew a bit tired of Christchurch (seeing as everything was still closed), we decided to try and book the camper a bit earlier. This didn't seem to be a problem -wahoooo - so we hit the road immediately. We didn't leave Christchurch before seeing the Willowbank wildlife reserve though. This is a kind of small zoo, where we caught our first glimpse of Kiwi's :-). Such cute animals! They're like big balls of fluff with a large beak and they only come out at night. I had to restrain myself from taking one home, but that wouldn't be so nice seeing as they're almost extinct ... And there's still a long road ahead of me.
From Christchurch we drove in the direction of Methven, after first seeing a bit of the Banks Peninsula. The small village of Akaroa proved very charming but, like almost everywhere we've been yet, a bit dead because of the winter period and the quake. It's located at Akaroa Bay and the views are lovely though.
Going inward, we took the scenic route towards Methven, to find a camping site in order to go snowboarding the day after. The first night in our van (which, by the way, we baptised Tony) turned out to be a success and we love camping and driving around and being able to get out wherever we want!
Mount Hutt (the skifield we wanted to hit) appeared to be closed in the morning for at least a while. Bummer... But Tony took us further up the road and we headed South for Mount Dobson. Seeing as we wouldn't get there in time for lessons any more, we decided go straight for Lake Tekapo. Best decision ever! Sun came out as if it was meant to be, and the views are downright beautiful. Atmosphere is so peaceful and quiet. Everyone in the world should see this place.
Mount Dobson wasn't open as well the next day, due to winds (grrrr) so snowboarding was a no-go after all. We continued to Lake Pukaki and went to Mount Cook, after camping in the very sleepy town of Twizel. The walks in the Hooker Valley and Tasman Valley beneath Mount Cook were very beautiful with loads of glorious scenery.
We have now arrived in Oamaru, a 'big' city -to NZ standards, anyway- and plan to see the penguin colonies out here and the Moeraki Boulders. Fun!

New Zealand is a truly beautiful country, and doing it with the camper really seems to be the perfect way to do it. Temperatures sometimes get a bit low so it gets a bit hard at night, sometimes, but we that's part of the deal I guess. Kiwis are also a big help, anywhere, anytime, really. Just ask and you'll get an answer! That's the way we love it ;-).

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Chaos in Christchurch

Here we are then. 37 hours, 7 airplane meals, 4 flights and a confusing airport shuttle ride later, we have safely arrived in Christchurch.
Again, saying goodbye in Zaventem didn't prove to be my favourite waste of time... But once we passed every security check and passport control, we quickly put the smiles back on our faces and started to enjoy the ride.
The trip went very smoothly; we had a tad of a delay when leaving for London, but that was only to our advantage: less waiting time in heathrow. All the connections (London, Bangkok, Sydney) passed without problems.
On arrival in Christchurch this noon, we learnt that there had been 3 more (quite severe) aftershocks to the earthquake of last week. Of course that was something we hadn't planned! It proved quite an ordeal to get to our hotel. We passed several road blocks, guarded by military men and police, and couldn't enter loads of places in the city centre. We ended up being guided by a man from the tourist info, who actually drove us as far as possible and persuaded the army men to let us pass. Thank you, unknown mister!
Now we are here in our room: very small, but cosy and packed with high tech appliances. Not that we need those, of course, but hey, what do you have to do if you cant go outside again for a whole afternoon and you shouldn't sleep yet?... That's right.
In a few days we had planned to go snowboarding around mount Hutt, not far from here, but that turns out to be a no-go: due to the earthquake there's a risk of avalanches... I'll keep you posted on that!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Preparations, preparations

I wonder how people sometimes get the idea 'ooh, let's go traveling!' and then just pack their bags and go. None of that for me. I'm happy I quit my job one week before take-off. I thought I'd have a bit of a relaxing week, slowly adapting to the idea of not having to go to work every day and step by step trying to get some sleep in order to be completely healthy when I leave. But to be honest, i don't see that happen anymore. My weekend started perfectly with a birthday present from my friends and in the evening a beautiful wedding of one of my colleagues (correction: ex-colleague by now). On Sunday I had (no secrets here) quite a heavy head and had to go to a family dinner. In the evening i was broken and almost dead and thought I'd be able to have a nice sleep-in, but ahhh what was i thinking? This whole week is packed with moving, visiting friends and family to say goodbye -apparently that's something I'm not very good at -, trying to at least get some sleep and not get ill, think about all the last-minute stuff,... To be honest I have to say that sometimes it gets a bit over my head and i wish i was already flying and needn't worry about the paperwork (or nothing, for that matter) anymore. But hey, who am I to complain: at least I am the one who's really saying 'ooh, let's go traveling' and packs their bags - even though it's not just in a finger snap :-). World, here I come!