Snagged a noon flight to Auckland on Wednesday to meet the parents at the hotel in downtown Auckland. Our first full day together we went to Waikia (spelling) Island that is just off the coast of Auckland and allows some more low key island life for those that wish to commute via ferry. This little island was a great start to the vacation with the family. It had a nice atmosphere with a solid city centre that provided us with ample opportunity to delve into New Zealand culture. The only downside was a bus driver who was adamant that no one other than a New Zealander could ever understand the differences between Aussie rules, Rugby League, and Rugby Union. Whatever, wasn't offended, he is just stuck in his own little world of hierarchy that I could really care less about.
Listening to: Apocalypse Please – Muse
After our little island excursion, we headed to the downtown area of Auckland and just roamed around for the rest of the day to see the rest of what Auckland had to offer. We jumped on our flight to Queenstown the next day and picked up our rental car that we would have for the next few days. Oh right hand drive. This sticker pretty much explains everything that needs to be said on that front.
We pulled into Queenstown about a half an hour later to see a bustling resort town that was rapidly preparing for the approaching snow season (seasons backwards down here). Queenstown is a smaller, just as expensive version of Aspen minus the proximity of ski-in ski-out hotels. All of the roads to the “ski hills” are dirt roads that snake up the mountain to the lifts which are pretty high up on each peak. Qtown is where Peter Jackson and his posse spent most of their time filming the Lord of the Rings series as it is centrally located to most of the filming locations. Our first night in Queenstown was spent wandering around the town and sorting out what we would do for our three days that we would be here. We found a few good options for the following days: seeing a musical adaptation of Oliver Twist and taking an off road safari to see LOTR filming locations.
The first up was the musical adaptation of Oliver Twist aptly named “Oliver”. It was put on by the local community theatre in Queenstown and like the other musical/music acts I have seen in my time here, was surprisingly well done. It was really neat to see the story told in a different way than I had ever seen before.
After the performance, we headed out on a safari the next morning to take in the sights of a few filming locations of the LOTR trilogy that were shot on location in New Zealand. Our guide was a 5 foot tall woman with cayenne pepper running through her veins, Fran was full of energy and more than happy to tell stories of just about anything. She led us on a splendid journey through the country side of Queenstown and the surrounding areas that was second to none. We were the only three on the tour so we had some liberty to do our own thing. She even (much to my mom's chagrin) stopped by the first ever commercial bungee jump site so that I could dive head first off over the river. The bridge is 43 meters (141 feet) tall and I was able to dunk a good portion of my arms into the frigid water below.
Listening to: Wolves – Machine Head
(Will get pictures up ASAP post Queenstown) After this grand experience, we headed out for a nice drive down a river bed, with running water going through it. Fran claims that this was a “public highway” although I refuse to believe that any city council in the free world would allow a river to be used a 4WD trail. At least the Hickory City Council would never deem this as a logical idea for anyone, not without a waiver and declaration of next of kin. This wrapped up our last day in Queenstown and we were now off on a drive to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park (pretty much like Denali vs. Mt. McKinley). We'll stick with Aoraki for the obvious reasons. For those of you playing along at home, Aoraki is where Sir Edmund Hillary trained for his and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent of Mt. Everest.
We got into Aoraki late in the afternoon and weren't able to see much due to some serious cloud cover that had the whole valley socked in with low clouds. Hoping for a clear second day in Aoraki NP we woke up to see much of the same, but on our drive out, some of the clouds began to break up over the peaks of some of the taller mountains. From what the posters in the gift shop looked like, Aoraki would be a beautiful place to see on a bright, sunny, summer day, and quite a fun hike up as well. With Aoraki NP in the books, we turned the car north towards Christchurch and for this segment, I'll let the mother figure of the family recap our experience:
Christchurch is a beautiful city with a very British feeling more than the rest of NZ! The weather continues to not be the optimal but then we remember we are here in the winter so not really prime time for tourism but that does have its perks. No waiting in long lines and getting in to all the exhibits, etc that we wanted to see. The International Antarctica Center was very interesting with penguins and a room you could suit up and experience snow and sub Arctic weather. There are many here who have not experience or seen snow. Great to see a site where there is so much international cooperation and research on protecting the continent. Off to a tourist site where you can drive an army tank! Then we catch a flight to Melbourne and begin our Aussie adventures.
After a short stint in Christchurch, we caught a plane across the Tasman Sea to Melbourne (read: Melbin). This being my second time in the city, I can't say I felt like I had been before, as we spent just over 2 days in the city during our first time through and a good bit of that was spent in class and the harbour, preparing/waiting for our boat to fight gale force winds so we could get to Tasmania. Back to the present, we spent our first night in Melbourne looking around the Yarra River walk. (Flanners, Syl, and Ladelman if you are reading this, we inadvertently ate at that same food court we ate at before the concert). Let me finish the random shoutouts here, Bui, I'm doing 5k (I will switch back, I promise) at just under 7 min/mi pace. Stoked for this fall. Anyhows, we took our second day to grab the free city circle tram to get a view of the city and head over to the City Museum. This museum was the Science Centre and Discovery Place, rolled into one and pumped full of Floyd Landis grade HGH and blood doping agents. There was an impressive exhibit for the Titanic which I can only assume was a well funded travelling exhibit. Tons of artifacts were well displayed and even a part of the ship's hull had been recovered and placed on display. We wandered around and even saw Phar Lap (google it) in all his taxidermy glory. Also a really neat exhibit that showcased a local design school's finalists for a product design competition. Once we finished with the museum we headed back to the hotel to grab what little sleep we could before our 6am flight the next day for Cairns (read: Cans).
Listening to: Tuesday's Gone – Lynyrd Skynyrd
We arrived mid afternoon on the 21st in Dunk Island. Google “Dunk Island, QLD” and you can skip this next part of rambling. Dunk is a small island south of Cairns that is a 30 minute flight away from the city. It sits about 2k (just over a mile) off the coast of the mainland but is quite a considerable distance from any form of serious civilisation (like most of Australia). The place was really well built even though we found out it (like Darwin, for those sorry souls reading this consistently) was wiped out by a cyclone about 5 years ago, Larry to be exact. We took a trip on the 2nd day out to the Great Barrier reef where the folks would go snorkelling and I would get some more diving in. We took the hour boat ride out to the reef and anchored in a deep part of the lagoon and no sooner had we anchored than the other 3 divers and myself were leaping head first (kidding) off the boat. We got to have 2 dives with 40 minute bottom times thanks to the shallow depth (10m/33ft). Thanks to a lingering cold I sucked 200bar of air on the first dive in just about 35 minutes. With some tips from the dive master I got the full bottom time on the second dive and even got some really neat skin diving done in between. Up to about 3 hours of total bottom time now, not sure if that makes me more certified or as SRR aptly calls it certifiable. We played catch with 2 different types of sea cucumbers and got to lay on the bottom by two different sea turtles. Who much to my dismay do not speak with surfer drawls like the ones that frequent the East Australian Current in Finding Nemo. Sigh.
Listening to: Don't Leave (When Winter Comes) - CunninLynguists
After we took in the reef for the day we headed back to our island abode. Dunk was a really welcome respite from the travelling that we had been doing over the past 10 days. Sitting by the beach and having a beer with lunch was receiving no complaints from me at any point. Our time at the island was a great experience with only about 20 other guests on the island at any given point but we are off to Sydney now for the final leg in our journey. This country will make you smile and drop your jaw with its beauty and hospitality but it will cause a brain haemorrhage and various other gastrointestinal disorders with the high cost of living and lack of cheap (yeah not free) internet. That's my excuse for not posting this update until now. Sorry for those of you who were hoping for a consistent update during our adventure. Hope the US of A is still in one piece for our return trip home and I am stoked out of my mind for some good “reverse culture shock” since apparently my life is going to come to a screeching halt when I realise that the US is a different country from Australia and that I have fallen face first out of the looking glass. That's all for now.
Cheers!
-zuey, rick, and trudy