The land of the sheep shaggers

Ahh my poor neglected blog..I have been off travelling for a month and have come back to uni bombarded with 40% assignments and whatnot. I went back to Christmas Island and travelled to singapore but the best trip would definitely be New Zealand! It started out great by me and Weif almost missing the bag drop off counter by 1 minute! We had a big fat sticker on Weif's bag to remind us so too!

Day 1
We arrived in Melbourne at 1am in the morning so we stayed at the 'Greenhouse backpackers' which was ok because we got to have a private room. The accomodation included 'free breakfast' which sounded good until we arrived in the kitchen that morning to find pieces of bread everywhere and a big ass bucket full of jam and many butter knives stuck in it and another big bucket filled with peanut butter. That's backpackers for ya. Our flight to Christchurch wasn't until 6pm that afternoon so we were stuck in Melbourne until then....you know what that means! SHOPPING!! We headed straight to the closest DFO and bought a few things but decided that we didn't have much room in our luggages and had to bring it to nz and back!

Day 2
We arrived in Christchurch at 1am and our lovely friend Novi & her husband had come all the way from Wellington to pick us up from the airport. We stayed at Hotel SO in the city and they had lovely see-through bathrooms.
We walked around town and met up with Deka and her brother's family and headed to Kaikoura around lunch time with Novi's friends. In Kaikoura we got to stay at a backpackers right next door to Tuti's restaurant and it was called 'the lazy shags', delightful name. Elle & Jamie came later in the afternoon and we ate delicious food (I had lamb curry) at Tuti's Restaurant (Highly recommended). Later that night we went to the local pubs 'Aldephi' which was really quiet and we were the only ones there really and later shifted to the 'Whaler' which was a bit more lively.

Day 3
We woke up to breakfast made from Tuti's even though they were closed! Chicken and cranberry jam paninis and coffee/tea! It was so lovely and the girls followed Deka to the Fyffe Country lodge where Novi was going to have her wedding. We spent the day decorating the place and it looked gorgeous!


We decided to chuck a little hen's night for Novi even though she had one last week with her kiwi friends. We had a girly sleepover with pizza and wine for dinner and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. Oh and penis straws! that glow in the dark!
Day 4
The wedding day is today!! Lorraine had picked us up to finish the remainder of the decorating at the venue and we went back to Novi's to get ready for the wedding. The wedding was amazing, it was so beautiful. The night was filled with food, music, dancing and weif, elle & I made a speech which went ok I guess.

Day 5
Today we left Kaikoura. Elle & Jamie had a flight back to Canberra the next morning and weif & I were going to start our little adventure around the South Island. Jeremy took us to Christchurch around lunch time when we said our goodbyes and we picked up our Campervan and stayed the night in Christchurch.


Day 6
We had a nice early start of 4am in the morning as we took Elle & Jamie to the airport and headed to Hokitika our first stop. At each town there's sort've like a visitor's centre called i-site where you can grab free maps and stuff. Hokitika was a pretty nice town and we went to visit Dorothy Falls and the Hokitika Gorges which is like ice blue! It's so pretty!

Dorothy Falls

Hokitika Gorges

We didn't stay the night, we headed straight to Franz Josef and stayed at a caravan park. We made us of the kitchen and had tinned beef and rice for dinner.
Day 7
We got up early in the morning to catch our helicopter ride to the twin glaciers! Fox & Frans Josef Glacier.





After our little heli-hike we headed to Fox Glacier Town where we visited Lake Matheson. We decided to head to Wanaka as it took a few hours to get to. As you drive down to Wanaka, it's one of the most amazing views you'll ever see with with Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka on either side.

Day 8
Puzzling World! was our next place to visit, there's a maze and an optical illusion area. The leaning tower of Wanaka is pretty awesome too. Weif left me to rot in the maze as I had no sense of direction and came out like half an hour later than she did.

Headed to Queenstown after Puzzling world and we had a romantic dinner at the Gondola and watched the Haka dance.


Weif was part of the Haka dance.

Day 9
Today was an action-packed day as we did the 'Awesome Foursome' package which consisted of Bungy jumping, white water rafting, shotover jet and a helicopter ride. We had a bright early start of 7:30 and the first activity was the Bungy jump, way to wake you up! We did the Nevis Highwire Bungy which is the tallest bungy in nz of 134m!


See that little cable car look thing that where we jumped from into the Nevis Canyon!
The next thrill was the shotover jet experience and it does 360 spins and zig zags through the shotover river and the rocks get really close to the boat. That was really fun. Then we took a helicopter ride up to the Skippers Canyon and we went white water rafting down the shotover River. There were different names for each rapid such as the toilet, pinball, jaws and the last one as we went through the tunnel was grade 5 (the worst) and it was appropriately named 'the mother-in-law'.

Finished the day with a nice gourmet pizza from Winnie's and did some shopping and went to bed.

Day 10
We woke up at 5am cause we're nuts and left at around 6.30-7am to Christchurch which is approximately a 6 hour drive. We got to Chch town at around 2 and did some shopping, OMG WE LOVE GLASSONS! It's a New Zealand company which is also found in Melbourne and they have a website!!! www.glassons.com and they deliver to Australia too! Then we headed to Kaikoura because there isn't much to do in Chch, not a very touristy area and surprised Novi at work! Kind of. Got to eat lovely food once again at Tuti's restaurant and got some rest.

Day 11
The AMP show was on in Kaikoura which is like a country fair, a bit like the Perth Royal show. We had rainbow snow cones and hot dogs. Novi came real close to purchasing a puppy but decided it wasn't the best time to get one with the wedding costs and all.

We headed back to Christchurch at nightfall and that ends our little new zealand adventure.
Did some shopping in melbourne and bought krispy kremes on our way back!

4 day Sydney trip

My very belated blog entry on my trip to Sydney (18-22 Feb ‘09). Last minute decision to head to Sydney as the tickets were only $120 return!! I made a booking at Baysview Boulevard which is a 4 star hotel in the Sydney CBD so it’s pretty much close to everything. The Town Hall monorail station was just down the road.


Day 1

Robbie came to pick me up at the airport with his friends and the first place we went: Bondi Beach! Yess! Ticked off the list of places to go in Sydney! After watching the Bondi Rescue shows, I have to say, it is a whole lot smaller than I imagined it to be, it was quite pretty and when we arrived there wasn’t many people which is great because I don’t like crowded beaches. For Lunch we went to a shopping centre and there was like THREE Westfields all in a row, damn Perth and its small shopping malls. After lunch, Rob’s friends dropped us off at our hotel to settle in. Our room got upgraded from a Deluxe to an Emerald because they ran out of rooms or something which was fabulous!! There was a restaurant upstairs and a gym and a sauna, wish it had a pool or a spa!

In the afternoon, we decided to go exploring, grabbing a map from the front reception, we walked to Darling Harbour which was like a 15-20 minute walk. We had dinner there and oh our hotel is near Kingscross and it was too early and we only saw the one prostitute and she was fat and ugly, should’ve gone later at night and checked them out.

Day 2

We woke up early in the morning to go to Sydney’s famous fish markets!!! This was not on my list of places to go but Robbie’s friends were going there, so we thought we might as well meet up with them. It didn’t really appeal to me, because I didn’t plan on buying any seafood but I did get some blueberries from the fruit&veg shop that was really delicious and sweet! We got a 3 day monorail+tram pass which basically goes around the city even though it’s walking distance but we just didn’t have all that much time. Paddy’s market! Canningvale market is nothing compared to Paddy’s and above Paddy’s there’s like floors and floors of shopping. Across paddy’s was Chinatown and we decided to have lunch at some random restaurant and we were unlucky enough to pick one where our food wasn’t cooked properly :<. We left the restaurant disgusted.


The Opera house and the Harbour Bridge was a must! I didn’t care too much about going in it or on it, I just wanted to take pictures of it! I also wanted to look for a charm for my ‘round the world bracelet. So far I have an Eiffel tower and the Arc de triumphe from Paris, Stonehenge & the Double decker bus from London, a crab, seashell and turtle from Christmas Island. And now the harbour bridge!! From Sydney.





We also went to the Centrepoint tower, there’s a rotating restaurant upstairs but we didn’t end up going to eat there and we went to the Aquarium instead, The Sydney Aquarium was a big disappointment. Why? Because they advertised a glass-bottom boat ride and touch pools which were closed!! But I suppose the famous dugongs were alright. Here’s a video.



For dinner, we decided to try the restaurant above our hotel. Food wasn’t all that great and I decided to have an Apple Martini and it tasted like pure vodka diluted with water. I could not smell the apple flavour so Rob finished it off for me and when he went to the toilet, this waiter comes up to me and goes, boy you must have liked the apple martini!! I was like, no not really, it was too strong, to be honest. And he goes ‘so strong that you finished it off in 5 seconds?” haha..”No, my boyfriend finished it”

Day 3

Paddy’s Market located in Flemington is like hugee! I love markets! Bought all sorts of useless cheap things. After we finished shopping, we went to Rob’s family friends’ place and they took us to a restaurant at some yacht club and the food there was delicious! I had the fish of the day, I can’t remember what fish it was, but it was really good. The family is Polish and I learnt how to say how are you? and I am fine. In polish it’s “Jak się masz?” which sounded to me like “Vash she mash” and “dobrze” which sounded to me like “dobsha” although I could be completely wrong! After dinner we headed towards Chinatown because Yueh Lai told us that there was market night at Chinatown on Fridays! Except we went a bit late it was almost 11 and everyone was packing up but there were satays, asian food and all those toys from China. Later that night, Rob’s friend came to stay with us from Canberra.

Day 4

I caught a cold on the last day!! Arghh! Today we went to Central, and bought Krispy Kremes to take back to Perth. There were a few shops down that area but I prefer shopping centres. We went to Queen Victoria which is where all the posh shopping was like Oroton, Mimco, Bally and Coach. Also went to Gallery Victoria which was under the Town Hall monorail station. I was on the phone with Yueh Lai last night and she was telling me about a place called “Pancake on the Rocks” and coincidentally there is a place called “The Rocks” and the three of us was walking around trying to look for this pancake place because it’s meant to have lots of delicious dessert pancakes. What I didn’t know was, it was located in Darling Harbour and not The Rocks!! We ended up at some café that had dessert pancakes and it was yummy because we were starving looking for this place that didn’t exist! I spent the rest of the day resting in the hotel room, watching the plasma tv while Rob and Phil went out to do their own things. They went to a pool nearby and they bought me a sandwich and some satays that were really nice!

The next day Phil dropped us off at the airport and we flew back to Perth! It was such a fantastic trip, I want to go again!