A bit of bad luck but A LOT of fun!

After saying goodbyes to all of our Kiwi-bus friends in Queenstown we were all ready to head back up to Christchurch along a very scenic route, however this was not to be as the road was closed due to a heavy snow-fall the previous night (yes, it really was that cold!) so we eded up taking the extra-long way round in a bus journey totalling 11 hours! It was a bit of shame that we missed the apparently beautiful views of the likes of Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo however we did get to visit the towns in Dunedin (somewhere we had actually hoped to visit if we'd had more time) where we made a pit stop at the NZ Cadbury factory; Oamaru; and Timaru (no time for penguin spotting though). After this epic journey we were very gald to see friendly faces back in Christchurch where we had a lovely saty with Larry and family again. Luckily we weren't even too upset that the weather was awful for our whole stay in the Garden City; it was a nice excuse to chill out and catch up after what turned out to be avery busy two weeks!

Back on the bus two days later up ot Kaikoura (again!). Better weather than our last stay here, but still no whale watching or dolphin swimming (not that we could even contemplate getting into the freezing waters!)

Our bad luck with the weather continued the following day when we awoke early for our next journey up to Picton to catch the 2hr Interislander ferry to Wellington. Unfortunately though the ferry was cancelled due to extreme winds so we headed back to Christchurch to catch a rather turbulent flight up to the capital city. We arrived safely though, however had two days of some of the worst possible weather; extreme wind and rain made it virtually impossible to even walk down the street! So we amused ourselves in our [very nice] hostel, playing board games and watching movies, and even though we were unable to see much of the city we did manage to get in a trip to the impressive te Papa museum. Whilst in Wellington we also met back up with some of our friends from our initial Kiwi Bus, it is always like seeing old friends again which is lovely, and we all fully intend to keep in contact because we have had some good times together :)

Our luck improved as soon as we left Wellington and once in Taupo both the Charlottes embarked on our first skydive. A very early start meant that we got up in the plane at sunrise and managed to see the stunning views across Lake Taupo and the surrounding volcanoes and mountains (including Mt Doom!) thanks to clear skies. The rest of the day we were on a bit of a high and we managed to get to Taupo's natural Thermal Spa pools and bathed in the bubbling underground water! We then took a visit to Taupo Bungy (don't worry Mums: we weren't crazy enough to do another!), where we watched 8 of our crazy friends do the jump (most of whom where dipped head-first into the freezing waters; and two of whom jumped in tandem - crazy!)

Next stop, Rotoura (aka Sulpher City), a slightly stinky town surrounded by hot springs, geysers and bubbling mud pools. It was here that we spent the evening at the rather touristy (but totally worth it) Tamaki Maori Night which is held at a re-created traditional Maori village from the 1600's. Here we witnessed the intimidating Maori challenge, watched a show of traditional song and dance, learnt about their weaponry and even witnessed the haka! The main attraction of the night (for the Charlottes, anyway,) was the amaing array of buffet food, all traditionally cooked in the ground on hot rocks: delicious!

We celebrated Evans' bithday on the 29th May. First in Rotorua and then we took our final Kiwi bus up to Auckland. Luckily our bus journey coincided with some other friends from our initial bus so we had a fun day altogther. First stopping at 'Hobbiton' (in fact a town called Matamata, but so-called due to it being the location of the sets for The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Then onto the city of Auckland for an evening out including trip to the Minus 5 ice bar!

We have had much better weather up in the north island so we have finally been able to ditch the winter gear! Having said that, we've been plagued by rain in Auckland today, so hopefully we'll manage to see the sights before our flight to the Cook Islands tomorrow (definitely ready for some sunshine now :))

The Westland

Moving down from Nelson and Westport we have seen even more: New Zealand's landscape is absolutely amazing, even in the rain! It seems as though this country is in itself a wonder of the world, every day we have travelled the west coast of the South island it feels like we have visited numerous different countries!

Our first stop after Westport was Lake Mahinapua (Ma-hee-na-poo-ah) where we stopped at the 'Poo Pub' for one night. This place was in the middle of nowhere and was all part of our Kiwi tour. Basically it is owned by a Kiwi leg

end, 83 year old Les Lisle, who accommodates bus loads of Kiwi Experience passengers every night in his cosy pub! We were given the task of dressing up in anything we could make out of black bin liners, fed a huge meal of steak and Venison stew (extremely yummy) and allowed to dance the night away to the juke box! At the end of the night we all put warm clothes on and walked down to the lake in search of glowworms which were absolutely amazing to witness...it was as if the trees and bushes had been lit up by natural fairy lights under the full moon - brilliant!

Our day hike of Franz Josef glacier was definitely one of the best days of the entire trip. We were properly kitted out in warm and waterproof clothes and led by a professional guide up the ice, witnessing some of the most unbelievable sights ever; crawling through ice tunnels and across! In spite of the cold and wet we laughed our way up and back down the glacier.

Upon reaching Queenstown we both decided to get involved in the real extreme sport

s, Dunkley for the Shotover Canyon Swing and Evans for the Nevis Highwire bungy (which, at 134m high is the third highest bungy in the world!) Our bravery has certainly been  tested  and luckily we have photo and video evidence to prove our madness!! Unfortunately we have been plagued by rain in Queenstown but it has been a good excuse to indulge ourselves in many an infamous Furgburger and have a few nights out and long-awaited lie-ins!!

From Queenstown we also took a day trip to Milford Sound. Luckily we had beautiful weather, and were able to stop at the foot of huge mountains to play in the deep snow as well as having clear blue sky for our cruise  through the stunning fiord and under waterfalls! 

We've definitely been filling every hour of each day, most days up before 7am and on the road shortly after. It means we have been able to enjoy lots of walks between each town, and visited the pancake rocks and blowholes of Punakaiki, as well as having some fun being baffled by the maze and mind tricks at Puzzling World in Wanaka (a perfect little lakeside town).

This week we are literally moving onwards and upwards through New Zealand: Back to Christchurch for a couple of days to see Larry and family again, before making our way up to the North Island (which we will hopefully be able to fit into our last week here!)

The Land of the Long White Cloud

We couldn't have asked for a better introduction to New Zealand. Coming into land in Christchurch we flew over the snow-capped alps which seemed never-ending. Apparently this was a pretty rare sight because most of the time there is too much cloud-cover to see the mountains, so apparently it's not such a land of long white cloud! Our luck was to continue in Christchurch as we were met at the airport by lovely Larry who is Bernie's Dad. For our inititation into New Zealand we were taken to a wine bar to taste the delights of gorgeous red wine and restaurant food with real Kiwi's! We then stayed 4 nights in Christchurch. We were also lucky enough to meet Bernie's brother and family who treated us like their own family. They had 3 gorgeous children who we had a lot of fun with and we were very grateful for home cooked food and big double beds with electric blankets!

We spent a couple of days seeing Christchurch and the surrounding areas including an artificial insemination farm for bulls and deer (an experience to say the least!). It was like being back in England in Christchurch which was really nice :)

Reluctantly though we had to leave these lovely people to begin our Kiwi Experience journey. On Friday we took a beautiful drive to Kaikoura along the coastal road with seal colonies and amazing turquoise sea on one side and snow capped mountains on the other. After one night in Kaikoura (we'll be coming back here after our loop of the South Island, so hopefully we can do some whale watching or dolphin swimming next time!) we moved onto Nelson for a couple of nights where we hired a car with 3 other girls for the day and drove up to the Abel Tasman National Park. It was really nice to do a bit of walking and have the freedom of a car!

We're now in Westport where today Charlotte E went on a horse trek through rivers and stunning scenery; and Charlotte D started the adrenilin sports with a jet boat ride along the river!

As much as people warned us it was going to be almost winter here, we were totally unprepared for the cold! However we have now bought new coats, hats and gloves which should come in handy because apparently we're in for some snow as we move down the South Island...

We've got loads planned for the next week or so but will try and update as soon as we can :) Also we have a lot more pictures coming!

The GOON TANG CLAN

Hello everyone it is Charlotte D....i have finally decided to write an entry for the blog :) Right well our first stop after Brisbane was Noosa a really beautiful beach resort. After being convinced by the tour company which we booked our trips with to stay at their desired accomodation, we were pleased with our choice - we also had a twin room which was nice to have space to completely empty our bags and be as messy as we liked (which we were). Our first night involved walking along the river looking for food, which I feel we do alot :) We both had gourmet burgers and then icecream...charlotte got a bigger helping than me...i wasnt happy! Anyway after a good nights sleep and a little lie in we headed into the town and to check out the shops and the beach. We also decided to see Noosa National Park and decided on a Coastal Walk which was really beautiful and led us to Alexandra Bay or as we knew it the nudest beach!!! There was certainly a lot to see on this beach!! it was also our favourite beach so far - simply because it was so quiet (it might have something to do with the naked men just appearing from the bushes) but anywho we had a lovely day and both think that Noosa is amazing and one of the nicest places we have visited along the east coast! At the hostel we also met some lovely people and learnt a really good card game called Jap (or jeb)

Leaving Noosa we headed up the coast to Rainbow beach which is where we meet our group and travel to Fraser Island! Rainbow Beach itself is a really small town which only has 200 residents so is really chilled! On our first night we met Pat, Joe and Jake who had met while travelling and we ended up in the same car as them for Fraser Island! Fraser Island, which is the biggest sand island in the world, is basically a 3 day 2 night trip which groups off about 11 drive 4wheel car around the island (we were so excited). In preparation for the trip our group which was charl, me, pat, joe, jake, roger (a dutch guy), Ida and Yanni (two swedish girls) Annika and Chantel (2 German girls) and Joe (a guy from Korea who didnt speak much english but was a legend) had to go on a shopping trip and buy food!! It was a little bit crazy as everyone wanted diferrent things however after what felt like 4 hours we were actaully under our budget by $11! this money went to towards alcohol :)

The next morning involved packing the car and learning our itinerary for the next couple of days, there was also another car leaving at the same time as us so altogether there were 21 people! After all the car had been checked and packed safely we left for Fraser Island on a ferry over to the island! Our first stop on the island was Lake Birrabeen which was so beautiful as the sand was white and the sea crystal clear and it was relly quiet! Driving on the island was an experience and as it was being on a theme park ride when you were sitting in the back! Charlotte E took up the challenge of driving the car along the beach, over rocks and up the sand-tracks - pretty scary stuff!

It's now Charlotte E taking over, (the novelty has worn off for Dunkley!!)
So ultimately Fraser was by far a highlight of the trip, big adventures and challenges but a lot of fun along the way! We camped out on the beach under the stars on the first night and stayed the second night at an aboriginal camp (with much appreciated facilities of toilts and showers...wahey!) Here we learnt about aboriginal beliefs and even had a didgeridoo lesson. We cooked all our own food on the island which was often an interesting process but luckily we had some excellent chefs amongst us :) In those three days we learnt a good lesson in how to be completely self-sufficient and we definitely now know the importance of teamwork!!

The trip definitely had its "good times and tough times": the two flat tyres were a bit of bad luck... but we laughed our way through it all and we took away nothing but brilliant memories :)

When we eventually returned to Rainbow Beach (we made the last ferry by a few minutes!) we had a well needed BBQ and sleep and said our farewells to our Fraser-friends the next day and made our final Greyhound bus journey to Brisbane. Dunkley slept the whole way (as usual) and Evans watched two more movies on the trip!

Australia has definitely proved what a small world it is....(even though we know we are travelling the same route as so many others) it's been so nice to bump into the same people again and again! So in a way it was no surprise that the following day we met up with Patrick, Joe and Jacob again in Brisbane! So we were kept amused for a few more nights by these three and managed to see some more sights of Brisbane.

On Saturday we met up with Bernie and Jill Jack (Brisbanites who we met on our tour of Vietnam) and had an absolutely fantastic day with them! They took us to the Alma Park Zoo where we fed and stroked koalas and kangaroos; introduced Charlotte D to the rather addictive lottery-like game of KENO; and we finished with a trip to a Vietnamese restaurant in the evening for old-times sake. We have been so lucky to meet so many lovely people in Austalia and this was a perfect way to finish our stay :)

Off the beaten track

We have had a very busy week whizzing around some beautiful parts of Australia!

After 6 days in Sydney and more farewlls to some lovely friends we knew it was time to move on....so we travelled to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for two nights. It turned out to be just what we needed; an escape from the city and some of the most amazing views we have ever seen. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, all the locals said they had had solid rain for two weeks but we had three beautifully sunny days! We took cable cars over the breathtaking canyons and journeyed down the steepest railway line ever! Katoomba was a really chilled out little town but it also felt like we'd gone back in time about 30years! We stayed in a Fawlty Towers-esque hostel, hired $1 DVDs and cooked three of the biggest steaks ever.

From there we took another overnight Greyhound up to Byron Bay and stayed right on the gorgeous beachfront. Whilst there we experienced the wonders of Cheeky Monkey's and quickly got into the chilled out atmosphere and were both on a go-slow before we knew it! We have definitely taken advantage of the Sunshine Coast and Dunkley finally managed to get a tan (although I'm a little suspicious as it literally appreared overnight!!) and we had a lot of fun practising our Body Boarding skills!

We've now made a quick pit stop in Brisbane to meet Evans' old work buddy, Sean who we spent a day on the surprisingly lovely city 'beach' with and sort out our last two weeks in Australia! We've got a lot of exciting things planned so we will check back with what we get up to....

Overall we are extremely healthy and happy...we're glad that the weather is improving and prices declining as we move further north... Dunkley is still about 3 weeks behind on her journal; Evans is realising that mosquitos do like her after all; and goodbyes are still sad but this has not yet stopped us from making friends :)

Pictures will follow soon!

Everybody needs good Neighbours!

After just one week in Australia we have already seen so much and made some really lovely friends (including a famous few!)

Well we were right to be worried about being cold in Melbourne!! It was a real shock to the system after the heat of Singapore so we found ourselves wearing all of our warm clothes at once for our 5 days there! It was a really amazing city, there was always so much going on yet there was always a really realxed atmosphere, but unfortunately we moved North as soon as we had seen everything in a bid for some warmth! (sorry this sounds so ungrateful!)

Quite unexpectedly we found ourselves to be number one Neighbours fans whilst in Melbourne: After a tour of Ramsay Street and a trip to the infamous 'Neighbours Night' I think we were a bit Neighboursed out!! But it was absolutely brilliant, in fact, Dr. Karl himself actually promised to check out our blog!!

From Melbourne we spent a day on The Great Ocean Road with our brilliant guide, Geoff. We actually had beautiful weather for most of the day and managed to see the scenery and landmarks perfectly! One of the highlights of the day was randomly seeing a wild koala when we stopped at the side of the road :)

We have also had some brilliant food in Australia: Parma's, Billy tea and Australian cake, snitzel, pecan pie, and the numerous varities of Cadbury chocolate bars (we are definitely indulging ourselves on this trip: good job we're doing so much walking!). We're yet to get a kangaroo burger on the barbie but it's on our list of things to do!

This week we experienced our first overnight bus journey from Melbourne to Sydney and both of us slept pretty much the whole 12 hours...we're thinking not only is this is an excellent way to not only get from A to B, but also to save on accommodation costs?!!

Sydney has been fantastic, not only has it been nice to have some sun again, but we have stayed in two brilliant hostels and met a lot of great people. We spent a day on Bondi Beach, another with the many animals of Taronga Zoo! We also spent Easter Sunday in the beautiful Botanic Gardens next to Sydney Harbour and have enjoyed a lot of spider spotting (as well as finding time to drink our fair share of 'Goon' and play numerous games of categories!!)

Next week we are heading inland for a few days to Katoomba to see the beautiful Blue Mountains and then we head onwards and upwards to Byron Bay...we will update again soon!

By the way, photos are now up to date on my (Evans') Fecebook so have a look...there are quite a lot so hope it's not too boring!

The Slick City

The past 5 days in Singapore have been a breath of fresh air for us... literally. We can finally breathe without exhaust fumes and air conditioning! This city has definitely lived up to all our expectations, so efficient and unbelievably clean, and lovely people to top it :)

Needless to say, we have loved Singapore! We thought we might be bored spending 5 days here but in fact there are still things we wanted to do! We went to the Night Safari (very cool), explored Chinatown and Little India, watched a music show in the Esplanade (...actually a sound check!!), went to some galleries, and we've even been to the beach!

Remarkably we have managed to stick to our budget here, eating the delicious food from Food Centres, where there is an endless choice of yummy food for very little money and taking advantage of all the free attractions! It would be possible to spend A LOT of money here....maybe one day we will return and be able to do that!!

Weather has been great too, hot but not too sunny: which is pretty good considering it was forecast heavy rain for the entire week!

We also spent a day cycling around the island Palua Ubin which is a nature reserve just north of the main city island with very few inhabitants and lots of wildlife....most of the time it felt like we were the only ones there which was perfect after the craziness of the cities we have visited. Unfortunatly though our insect repellant seemed not to work that day and we got bitten all over! Luckily the Singaporean Tiger Balm has come in handy in relieving us from the scratching :)

We are now at Singapore Airport again, I think we would quite happily be delayed here - it's fantastic!

Next stop, Melbourne....we'll check back soon (most probably with how cold we are!!)