What a trip

So here is my final post. I’m sorry it’s a little later than I said, but jet lag has been crazier than expected! The first morning (or should I say afternoon), Mom and I both slept past 12:30 PM! Then the next night we didn’t sleep at all. Hopefully I’ll be back on the right schedule soon.

I can’t believe it’s all over. I started planning for this trip last November. Since then, right up until the day of the trip there were always checklists of things I needed to do to prepare. The preparation was so long that I never thought May 22nd would arrive, and as excited as I was about the trip, it turned out even better than I had hoped.

My research went really well. I ended up with eight interviews and several other sources. I really enjoyed my interviews and discovered that my research topic was something I am truly interested in–success number one! Now I have to begin the fun task of actually putting what I learned together in a coherent report. Hopefully I’ll get that done sooner rather than later.

The numbers:

I was in New Zealand for 33 full days and nights, and in Australia for 12. When you add in travel time, I was gone for 47 days.

In New Zealand, I visited nine cities, staying in, you guessed it, nine different hostels.

I spent 2 1/2 weeks with friends and a little over 2 weeks traveling by myself.

Then I spent 12 days traveling through Australia with Mom.

Things I did for the first time:

SKYDIVING!

Tried a Flat White

Experienced a Tim Tam Slam

Traveled solo

Stayed in a hostel

Conducted interviews with people working with the government

Went Zorbing, Jet Boating, and Canyon Swing-ing

Began to use “heaps” and “cheers” in everyday conversation

Went sea kayaking

Went on a wine tour

Hung out with koalas, kangaroos, and wallabies!

And probably several other things I just can’t think of right now.

Needless to say, I did a lot on this trip, and had tons of fun while doing it. It had its hard moments, especially when I would arrive somewhere new and not really know where I was going, but it always worked out. I met tons of great people from all over the world in my hostels, my tour guides were excellent, and I really fell in love with New Zealand.

I’ve posted new pictures of the South Island and Australia! I’m going to have pictures printed soon, so if you want to see more pictures in the near future, you can come look at my trip photo album!

Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. I really enjoyed writing this blog and reading all of your messages and thoughts!

Home Sweet Home

Alright this is going to be a quick one, but after two rather long flights (which, thanks to time zones took off at exactly the same time–both at 2 pm on Monday July 7! One from Sydney, and one from LA) we are home safely! The flights were on time, and we have all of our luggage! So it was successful.

I’m out for now to take a much needed shower and get some sleep, but check back tomorrow or Wednesday because I’m going to put up a final post summing up the trip and posting more pictures from the South Island of New Zealand and Australia!

Last two days

Wow. I can’t believe I’m going home tomorrow. I can’t decide if it feels like forever since I’ve been home or if it feels like no time at all. Depends on when you ask me, I guess. One thing is for sure, getting off of the airplane into really hot weather is going to be a shock to my system!

Yesterday in Brisbane we woke up to rain. So, we decided to stay in our hotel (which was really nice, by the way, although I cannot forgive them for attempting to charge $7.50 for a bottle of water) until we had to check out, hoping that by then it would stop raining.

Wishful thinking. It rained fairly constantly all day until we left to go to the airport. It would seem to slow down, but as soon as we decided we were going to walk somewhere, it would start raining harder! As a result, we didn’t get any pictures of the mangroves we saw (unfortunately), and spent a lot of time in Borders and shopping in the mall.

Our flight to Sydney was fine, and we made it back to our original hotel without any mishap. We stayed up really late watching the Williams sisters duke it out in the Wimbledon Final. I was really entertained, and we’ll probably be up late again tonight for the men’s final.

We had a great day in Sydney today. We slept in a little bit and then headed out to take a tour of Government House, which is located in the Botanic Gardens. It was a beautiful house and we had a great tour guide! He had a really funny, dry sense of humor. We learned about the history of the house and some of the governors that have lived there.

After that, we headed over to The Rocks for the Aroma Festival, where there were tons of stands set up selling various types of chocolates, coffees, teas, and other sweets and spices. Needless to say, it was PACKED. I mean, wall to wall people in every direction. I guess when you advertise good food people just come out of the woodwork.

The lines for all of the food were really long, so we did a little research on what everyone was selling before we decided what to buy. The first things we got were basically mini fried pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. It was delicious. That stand had the longest line in site for a reason.

Then we decided to try a cupcake. I was worried it wouldn’t taste good because the icing looked just a little too perfect, but it was also really tasty. After that we wandered around a little more, listened to some of the various bands, and sat on a bench in the sun to people watch for awhile. It was a lot of fun observing all the people that walked by, and seeing some really cute dogs too.

After a little while, we explored some more, bought some final souvenirs, and decided to head back to the hotel to call it an afternoon. We booked our shuttle to the airport for tomorrow and then went to find a place to eat. We just finished a great dinner, and are getting ready to head back to the hotel and pack.

Our flight leaves Sydney at 1:45 PM tomorrow (Monday), and because of the time zone changes we’re going to land in Los Angeles before we left Sydney! (Even though it’s a 13 1/2 hour flight…) We’re due to land in Charlotte at 8:45 PM on Monday, July 7, and I’ll put up a real quick post that night when I get home to let you know we made it safely!

Brisbane

Sorry there was no post last night, Mom and I decided that $5.95 for half an hour of internet in our hotel was highway robbery and were too tired to go find an internet cafe (which is probably good since today in the middle of the afternoon it was a little bit of an adventure trying to find one. In Sydney they are everywhere, but here, not so much.)

I really like Brisbane a lot. It is less than half the size of Sydney population-wise (“only” 1.8 million people), and is a really pretty city. It’s got a fairly big downtown, with a huge pedestrian mall filled with shops and places to eat. We even found a Target, which looks really different from its counterparts in the US; we decided we like US Targets better. The city also has several parks, and we found a really great area yesterday called the South Bank, where there are lots of cafes and parks and there were lots of little kids running around everywhere.

The city is built around a river, and there are at least 4 bridges going across it. The city botanical gardens sit on the edge of the river, and as a result at their edge have lots of mangrove trees, which were pretty cool to look at. We also had a tour of the Queensland Parliament Building yesterday. It’s a really pretty building and about 140 years old, which is pretty darn old for around here. Like New Zealand, Australia’s history is very young.

Today we got day passes for a hop on, hop off city bus tour. We got to learn a little bit of history and it took us through some suburbs to Mt. Coot-tha (coot-tha means honey in the Aboriginal language). It provided beautiful panoramic views of the city and some surrounding mountains.

After that we went to the Botanical Gardens, which are different from the city gardens. Brisbane floods really badly, and after the most recent flood in 1974 (a lot of the city was under 5-6 feet of water), they decided to make Botanical Gardens at a little higher elevation than the one right on the river so that it wouldn’t be ruined. These were beautiful, and Mom especially loved looking at all the different trees and plants. They also had an entire area with Bonsai trees, which I thought were really cool.

We got a really nice late lunch this afternoon and finished our tour of the city. We didn’t have our camera yesterday so I think we’re going to spend the rest of the evening going back to places we saw yesterday to take pictures! (And I don’t think we’ll mind seeing them again.)

Brisbane has been a really nice contrast to Sydney. We’ll spend most of the day here tomorrow before flying back to Sydney tomorrow night!

Hunter Valley Wineries

Today we had a very pleasant, full day. We got up early to catch a bus for our Hunter Valley Wine Tour. We figured we have covered most of the main areas of Sydney, and wanted to experience a little more of the surrounding area. After clearing up a little confusion (they had us signed up for a Blue Mountain tour, which we’ve already done), we transferred to our charter bus and were on our way.

We had a great tour guide named Adam. He was very Australian, and has just started doing these tours after being a full time surf instructor for several years. He talked pretty much all morning, and managed to stay interesting and fun to listen to the whole time.

It took us about 45 minutes to get all the way out of Sydney. (We learned today that the third largest city in Australia is North Sydney, topped only by Sydney and Melbourne.) The suburbs of Sydney had beautiful, expensive houses (average price: $1 million dollars), and we got to ride in a car over the Harbor Bridge during rush hour (luckily we were going against traffic).

We finally got out of the city and the surroundings started to change. The road started to wind more and got narrower, and the hills began to grow into mountains as we saw more grass and trees. Most of the morning was spent driving, but I really didn’t mind since we got to see such pretty scenery, including the Hawkesbury River and several coal mines.

We stopped at Wollombi for morning tea. We had the opportunity to try Dr. Jurd’s Jungle Juice here, which is a mixture of about five different wines, but Mom and I opted for coffee instead since it was 11 AM, not to mention we hadn’t had a whole lot to eat. The town was TINY and consisted of a small Catholic church, a two room museum, a couple of cafes, a police station (in a house), and an old Dance Hall. That was it. I can’t imagine living somewhere that small. It was really cute though, and seemed caught in a time warp from about 40 years ago.

We got back on the bus and continued on our way, getting into wine country. The vineyards over the hills as far as we could see with mountains in the background were absolutely beautiful, and we got to stop and take some pictures. At about noon we got to McWilliams Winery, our first major stop. We got a brief tour of the winery, heard some history, and learned how wine is made. This winery is famous for its Shiraz because it has vines that are over 130 years old. This is significant because, the older the vine is, the deeper its roots go, making the flavor richer. However, as vines get older, their yield decreases. These Shiraz vines have roots that are 20-25 feet deep!

We had a delicious lunch and got to taste four wines that this winery produces: Semillon, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Shiraz (not the expensive one from the really old vines, I don’t think they’d give that away). After lunch, we headed over to another winery for another tasting. This winery also had a cheese shop, and I really enjoyed tasting that! The cheddar cheese was the best I think I’ve ever had.

After that it was off to Hunter Valley Gardens, a beautiful little area with several shops, a couple of restaurants, a winery (of course), gardens, and a chapel that the owner built for his daughter to get married in a couple of years ago. Mom and I opted out of the third wine tasting (I think most people did), and instead wandered through the shops (including a chocolate shop), and walked through the chapel.

We left the Gardens and began to head back to Sydney. On the bus (which was a really nice charter bus, by the way, much better than our Blue Mountain bus) we watched Finding Nemo; fitting, since it takes place partly in Sydney.

It was a great day. We got to see a beautiful part of Australia, tasted a lot of wines we liked (and quite a few we didn’t), and had a lot of friendly people on our tour that led to several fun conversations.

Tomorrow morning we have to catch a shuttle at 6:20 AM (yuck!) to catch our flight to Brisbane, where we’ll spend the next three days!

Darling Harbour

Today we could have slept in a little bit, but Mom is still on a go to sleep early, get up early schedule, so she was awake reading for awhile waiting for me to get up.

We spent today in Darling Harbor, a really nice, quieter part of Sydney only about a ten minute walk from the city center. It was a little cooler today, which was nice, but very windy, and it almost blew us over a couple of times! We wandered around the harbor, where there were lots of restaurants, shops, a couple of museums, and an IMAX theater. We found a little mall and spent a couple of hours wandering through there and shopping. Mom got her Australia shirt she’s been wanting, and I found myself a very cheap pair of Ugg boots, which will be great for next winter.

After a quick snack in a cafe, we headed over to the Sydney Aquarium. It was pretty crowded but not too bad. It was a really big, nice aquarium, and we saw everything from platypuses and seahorses to great white sharks and huge sting rays. We also got to see a big coral reef exhibit, which made up for the fact a little bit that we aren’t going to make it to the Great Barrier Reef.

We got dinner at Circular Quay and got some fish and chips before heading over to the Opera House for our show. It was called Holy Cow and consisted of two Dutch magicians. We had seats at a table near the front (it was in a small studio theater), and laughed a lot and were really impressed with their magic. I tried my best to figure out their tricks but it was beyond me. The show was a lot of fun, but pretty short, which actually is probably a good thing because we’ve got to get up bright and early in the morning for another all day tour!

A little bit of history, a lot of walking

This morning we headed over to The Rocks, an area near Circular Quay that is full of history and where the first European settlements of Sydney started. We signed up for an hour and a half walking tour of the area.

Our tour guide was extremely friendly and smiley, and she reminded Mom of Julie Andrews. Our tour group was pretty small, and we discovered that three of the other people (out of 6) were from Albemarle, NC! Needless to say, we were pretty surprised. The tour was really interesting. We learned about how Sydney was discovered and developed, and that it originated as a penal colony for people convicted of petty crimes, such as stealing. (One woman was even sent because she stole a hairbrush!)

The convicts were allowed relative freedom and flourished pretty well. Some of the barmaids even had a pretty mean trick. Sailors would come into the harbour, and the first place they would go was a pub right on the waterfront. The barmaids would pick a sailor to target each night, and they would give him a drink called “exploding skull.” This drink consisted of: wine, rum, opium, and pepper. Yuck. The pepper opened up your cavities and made you really sensitive, then the opium kicked in, and then the alcohol completely knocked you out. The barmaids would steal everything the sailor had on him (money, etc), and then put him on a ship and by the time he woke up he’d be out to sea again and have to work on the ship to earn his passage back to where he came from. He should have gone to the church next door instead.

We saw some of the horrible living conditions of people in the 1860s, and just learned about the development of Sydney and how it transformed from a penal colony to an actual city.

After that, we decided to head over to King’s Cross, the redlight district. It wouldn’t have been a bad walk, except we weren’t really sure where we were going, so it ended up taking us almost an hour and a half. After walking around there for a few minutes and seeing all sorts of people and shops (if you know what I mean), we decided to head out of there and find some lunch.

After lunch we walked around Paddington and Oxford, where there were lots of upscale and eclectic shops. It amazed us how quickly the character of the city changed from one block to the next. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering back towards the City Center, and then decided to walk through Queen Victoria Building, a huge, old, ornate building that takes up an entire block right in the middle of downtown. The tile on the floor was beautiful, and there were a couple of really impressive stained glass windows. The building now is basically a really upscale shopping mall (a la Southpark), and we felt a little underdressed.

Now we’re trying to decide what to do for dinner, and getting ready to spend the day in Darling Harbour tomorrow!

Playing Outside

We slept in a little bit today after our long day yesterday, and had a fairly low key but very fun Sunday.

The weather was great, again, and even warmer today. We got rid of our jackets after being outside for about 5 minutes and stayed in short sleeves for the rest of the day. We spent the morning in the Royal Botanic Gardens, which aren’t too far from our hotel or the harbor. They were beautiful!

Because it was Sunday, there were people out everywhere, tourists, families, and lots of people out running. We saw more huge trees and lots of plants and grass, and we were sad that we couldn’t see the rose garden in summer. We headed over to Macquarie Point, which was at the edge of the gardens and provided a really nice view of the Opera House and bridge. After we walked around for about an hour and a half or so, we decided to start making our way out.

On the way out, we heard what sounded like a huge flock of birds all talking to each other. We looked up to see….flying foxes! Flying foxes are really big fruit bats, and there were hundreds of them hanging upside down in the trees all around us! It was a little disconcerting to see them fly, but luckily they stayed way above our heads. The people running the gardens don’t like the bats at all, because they damage the trees that they nest in, but I thought they were really cool, and only a little scary.

We got lunch at Circular Quay, then hopped on the ferry over to Manly Beach, which was an even more popular tourist destination than we thought it would be. Manly Beach is actually a decent sized town, with lots of stores, restaurants, and cafes, and seems to have a fair number of permanent residents. The beach was pretty (the Pacific Ocean is so blue!), but the sand was so fine that it was hard to walk in, even though we took off our shoes and did for about half an hour. There were a lot of people out trying to surf, but there weren’t really any good waves today, so they were all just kind of sitting on their surf boards. There were also TONS of people walking around and laying on the beach. We were amazed at all the different people, even though it is the middle of winter. It was a good day for the beach, though.

We headed back late this afternoon and just got dinner at a really good Thai place near our hotel. We knew it had to be good because it was crowded every time we walked by. We discovered that lots of stores and even restaurants are closed on Sunday nights, which kind of surprised us.

We haven’t decided exactly what we’re doing tomorrow, maybe exploring Darling Harbour or King’s Cross.

Kangaroos and Koalas and Wallabies, oh my!

Okay, so that doesn’t flow quite as well as lions and tigers and bears, but that’s okay because we got to see and pet all of those today!!

Our morning started off very early when we got picked up at our hotel at about 7:30 AM for our Blue Mountains tour. Our guide was named John, and he was the epitome of an Australian. He said “no worries” all the time and had on a crocodile dundee-style hat. Our group had 17 people in it, and was an eclectic mix of people from all over the place.

First stop of the morning was the Featherdale Wildlife Park, where we got to spend 45 minutes. The first thing I saw was a man holding a baby wallaroo in his arms! (A wallaroo is a cross between, you guessed it, a wallaby and a kangaroo.) It was SO cute and really sleepy and we took pictures and scratched its chin.

Then we headed inside, where we were met with wombats. Wombats are really goofy looking, and this one was going crazy running in circles around his cage. Apparently they bite, so we didn’t get to touch him.

Then came the wallabies. We walked around in the enclosure with them, and got to see them and touch them up close, although they were pretty shy so I only really got near one. The koalas were SO cute, most were sleeping in their eucalyptus trees, but a couple were awake and eating, and they had a few out that you could feed, touch, and get your picture with (which we both did, of course).

Then came the kangaroos! There were about 20 of them lounging around, hopping, and eating. We got to pet several of them–their fur is so soft and thick! There were also a couple of greedy emus wandering around, and when you fed the kangaroo they would stick their beak in and try to take the food for themselves.

We also got to see Tasmanian Devils, dingoes, peacocks, flying wolves (aka BIG bats), and a crocodile. The only Australian animal we didn’t see was a platypus, which we should get to see when we go to the aquarium next week.

We got back on the bus and headed out for morning tea and some boomerang throwing. Throwing the boomerang wasn’t really that easy, but I managed to do pretty well. Mom struggled a little bit, but just about everyone had some trouble, even the guy teaching us!

We were off again to see Sublime Lookout in the Blue Mountains. We got to see the Three Sisters, a rock formation, and long views in every direction. The Blue Mountains were formed the same way as the Grand Canyon, but they are 12 million years older, and covered with really really thick bush.

Then it was lunchtime at a country club before heading over to Scenic World, for a ride in a Cable Car, a walk through the rainforest (where we saw huge tree ferns that are over 700 years old), and a ride on the world’s steepest railway (it reaches an incline of 52 degrees!). The railway was originally used to carry coal up the side of the mountain. If we hadn’t taken the railway we would have had to walk up 1200 steps to get back to the top.

We stopped in Leura, a small town with a really crowded candy shop, and then headed over to see the Sydney Olympic Park. The park was really big and impressive, and apparently still stays really busy with lots of large sporting events and rock concerts. The Olympic pool is even open to the public.

We caught a ferry back to Circular Quay, and are getting ready to go out to dinner. It’s been a long, great day, and we feel like we really got the Australian experience, from the guide to the kangaroos! I can’t post pictures now, but I think the next hotel we will be in has wireless, so hopefully within the next week I’ll get a few up!

Views, Opera, Chocolate

Mom and I got up bright and early this morning, a result of the fact that she fell asleep at 7:45 last night and I only made it until about 9:15 myself. We spent awhile figuring out what we wanted to do, and after a quick breakfast in our hotel room, set out for the day.

First, we found an internet cafe and bought plane tickets for Brisbane. We decided that 7 days in Sydney would be plenty to see all of the major stuff we wanted, and since we found cheap plane tickets, decided to take a side trip. Brisbane is in Queensland, and is supposed to be even warmer and sunnier than here.

I don’t know if it can be any sunnier than it is here, though. Today was even prettier than yesterday, which I didn’t think was possible, and luckily didn’t have the gusts of wind we had yesterday. We went back to Circular Quay, the main part of Sydney Harbor, and bought tickets for a hop-on, hop-off harbor cruise, after receiving advice from a man dressed up as Captain James Cook, with the 1700s wig and all.

We rode under the bridge and saw Luna Park, a famous theme park in Sydney, and around to Darling Harbor. We got lunch again at a cafe in Circular Quay (I love the abundance of cafes around here), and then hopped back on the harbor cruise over to Watson’s Bay. On the way, we passed “billionaire row”, where the most expensive real estate in Sydney is–I believe the going rate is around $25 million per house.

Watson’s Bay was a cute little town, but didn’t have much other than Doyle’s Seafood and lots of fun, old houses. But then we walked up to the Point, and got the most amazing views. We were at the top of about a 90 foot cliff that dropped straight to the ocean, and could see many others just like it, not to mention the Pacific Ocean stretched as far as we could see in front of us. We wandered around up there for awhile and saw some really interesting vegetation (including enormous palm trees and these even bigger trees with crazy roots called Morton Bay Fig Trees). The area used to be an army station but is now part of a national park, so it was interesting to look down and see the remnants of a parking space with vegetation all around.

We almost missed the ferry back, but luckily they pulled back in for us, and we were in for a very informative and interesting ride back. We passed by a nudist beach (one of 3 in the area), with about 10 people out on it, even though in our opinion it was way too cold to be out there in a bathing suit, much less with nothing on.

After the harbor cruise we went on a guided tour of the Opera House, which far exceeded both of our expectations. We learned about the history of the opera house, how they held a design competition for it and the winning design was discarded the first time around, and how a building that was originally supposed to take 3 years to complete and cost $7 million ended up taking 13 years and costing $102 million. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

Some fast facts:

The opera house has 5 main theaters and puts on over 2,400 shows each year (it’s only closed on Christmas Day.).

Over 7.3 million people visited the theater last year, which is a ton considering the population of Sydney is 4.3 million (which, by the way, is bigger than the entire population of New Zealand).

Out of a world population of about 6.5 billion people, 4 billion recognize the Sydney Opera House when shown a picture. More people recognize this than recognize a kangaroo.

The biggest theater, the Concert Hall (which we were lucky enough to get to go into!) has the largest mechanical organ in the world. Only 6 people in Australia know how to play it because it’s so complicated, and it has over 10,000 pipes, which took the builder 2 years just to tune!

After the tour it was starting to get dark and everything started lighting up. Sydney is even more beautiful at night, I think. We had heard about a Lindt chocolate cafe, and naturally, both being chocoholics, had to go find where it was for dinner. We headed over to Darling Harbour, which is a really fun area full of nice restaurants, shops, an Imax theatre, and the Sydney Aquarium.

We finally found it and enjoyed incredibly rich chocolate cake. Now we’re heading back to the hotel to get ready for an early start tomorrow heading to the blue mountains!