Planes, trains and automobiles

After our 8 days in Sydney we flew north to Cairns. Cairns, a small tourist city, is the main hub for adventures out onto the Great Barrier Reef. Stephanie pursued getting scuba-certified and ended up diving to a depth of 28 meters (90 ft) even after suffering a panic attack in 3 feet of water on her first day of scuba class. She embarked on a 3 day/2 night liveaboard boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest stretch of reef where she totaled 9 dives on the reef. One of these dives included jumping in the water at night and diving with only a flashlight and 5 ft sharks (white-tipped sharks) swimming around her. She aims to pursue more diving during her travels.
After Cairns we returned to Brisbane to once again visit Meredith and Travis before our departure to New Zealand. This included watching Travis’ netball championship game as well as enjoying a lot of episodes of Masterchef Australia together. After two days we then flew to Christchurch, New Zealand on the south island.
Arriving in Christchurch at 6 PM we headed to our accomodation for only the night as we had a 7 AM train to take to Picton the next morning. We were so hungry but too tired to go out looking for food so we ordered Dominoes. It was delicious and just what we needed after a long day of travel. The train ride was only 5 hours long but we travelled alongside the mountains on the west and the ocean on the east. With the stunning views the train ride seemed quite quick. We arrived in Picton, a small ocean town on the northernmost tip of the South Island known mainly as a transportation hub to access Wellington by ferry. We boarded the ferry and embarked on a 3 hour picturesque ride through the Cook Strait bound for Wellington.
Making it to Wellington around 6 PM, we took a taxi to our hotel on Cuba St. Cuba St. is essentially the “Bohemian quarter” of the city with its many coffee shops, restaurants, vintage shops, etc. We discovered the Wellington Food Market here (offered only on Friday nights) with its many ethnic food stalls, musical acts, etc. I ended up trying a slice of delicious pineapple cake. We often strolled along Cuba St because of its proximity to our hotel as well as the numerous restaurants and street performances it offered. One night we even had Indian which I had never tried before. Who thought my first venture into Indian cuisine would be in New Zealand? Well it was and I’m willing to try more.
During our short time in Wellington we visited Mt. Cook, the highest point in the city which offered great views of the skyline and harbour, the Te Papa Museum which is the museum of New Zealand and encompassed natural history, political and social history of the country, and the Wellington Farmer’s Market, with fresh produce and its many independent food stalls. The Te Papa Museum had a great collection and has been one of my favorite things we have seen/done in New Zealand so far. In the atrium of the Te Papa they had 3 trolls from “The Hobbit” (the Lord of the Rings franchise) which has made New Zealand quite popular due to the large fanbase of the movies and the iconic New Zealand landscape the movies featured.
During our time in New Zealand we had seen/heard of getting a rental car for free if you drove it (“relocated it”) the car from Wellington up north to Auckland (8 hrs in total). We looked into and it was only free if you were able to get the car to Auckland in 48 hours. We decided to try it with Stephanie being the one doing the driving. We ended up with a silver Toyota Corolla from Thrifty Car Rental. Now, New Zealanders drive like they do in Britain and Australia, the driver’s side being on the righthand side of the car and driving in the left rather than the right lane. I was too hesitant to attempt this but Stephanie believed she could. Just for safety though she purchased the full insurance policy.

She said the weirdest thing about driving this way wasn’t that you wanted to veer right but it was difficult to get used to the turn signal. Normally our turn signal is on the left hand side of the steering wheel but here it is on the right. Therefore often when she first started driving the car and wanted to signal she would accidentally flip on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. It made us laugh but she would always quickly remember it was opposite. Soon enough she got the hang of it. We also rented a GPS with the car and everytime she would drive 10 km/hr (6 mph) over the speed limit it would make a sound like a door-bell. Stephanie soon became complacent and submissive to our GPS often apologizing and saying, “Yeah, yeah I hear ya.” It was quite funny that we developed this repartee with our GPS so quickly.

Our car trip soon took us into the boonies of New Zealand. Two lane roads through the mountains, flat plains and just straight-up countryside gave us a new view of the country as we had only seen cities up until this point. Our first stop was just outside Rotorua to a place called Jack and Di’s Lakefront Motel in Waiteti. Our room sat overlooking a goregeous serene lake, so calm that you could see the clouds’ reflection in the water. Stephanie set to taking photos of the water, local fisherman and Maori boys collecting shells in the shallows. Down by the lake’s edge she met a black cat that was quite affectionate and would hang out around our room. We befriended it in our short time there with Stephanie often remarking we should take it with us on our road trip.
Even though we were only going to be there for 1 night in Rotorua/Waiteti we decided to try out a Maori cultural experience (“show”) which the area is quite well-known for. After some mishaps with shuttling/transportation we finally arrived to the Maori village. We saw a traditional war chant and “challenge of peace” welcome ceremony and watched as Maori performers showed us ancient techniques and customs of their culture. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand and like most indigenous cultures have suffered from colonization. However there has been a strong cultural renaissance and resurgence of teaching to ensure their culture is kept alive. The Maori are most well-known for their war dance wherein they stick out their tongues to symbolize that they are going to eat you, their enemy. Even the New Zealand rugby team will perform this act before they play a game both to loosen up and get their heads in the game. It can look quite funny when seen out of context but during the actual ceremony it can come across quite intense and intimidating. After the show and a huge buffet dinner we were dropped back off at our accomodation to sleep for the night gearing up for our trip the next day.
We left the lake around 8:15 AM to drive for 1 hr 10 minutes to Hobbiton. Hobbiton is a 1250 acre sheep farm that was used for the filming of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit. This is where the hobbits “lived”, the small round homes dug into the green hills of the farm. Stephanie enjoys LOTR but I don’t so she took a tour of the grounds while I stayed back, read and watched the sheep. She thoroughly enjoyed herself and afterwards we set off to the Waitomo Caves about 1.5 hours drive away.
Once again driving through the boonies we made our way to the famous Waitomo Caves. Once there, we decided to visit 2 of the caves, Aranui Cave with its numerous stalagmites and stalagtites and the Glowworm Caves, known for its bioluminescent glowworms. Stephanie enjoyed Aranui Cave but I thought it only alright since I’ve seen bigger at Mammoth Cave. However the glowworm caves were magnificient and ethereal.
Glowworms are a type of insect that live in caves due to the unique conditions of the caves being continually wet, cool and lacking in air currents. These insects only “glow” when they are larvae and lose this ability once they mature into adults. The larvae live on the cave ceiling where they produce a sticky strand (think a vertical line of spider web) from the cave ceiling in order to capture other insects and consume them. In order to attract these insects though they produce a bluish-white bioluminiscence (light) to trick the insects into thinking the “light” is a way out of the cave. In turn the insect is duped into flying right into the sticky strands and into their own sticky end. In order to see these amazing creatures we took a boat ride on the cave river where we saw thousands of glowworms on the cave ceiling. We weren’t allowed to have any lights or cameras as it would not only ruin the ambiance but also negatively affect the glowworms who are used to the complete darkness of a cave. It looked like constellations in the sky. It looked like the glowworms were floating. It was so dark but still so lit up by the blue lights of the larvae. It seemed of another world and everyone was silent as they were taking in this magnificient spectacle. It was something I had never seen and something I will probably never see again. Stephanie and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Stephanie had originally intended on rock climbing in the caves but her plan had fallen through. Because of this original plan she had gone ahead and booked a room for us at a local place for the night and planned on heading to Auckland (2.5 hrs away) in the morning. Arriving at the lodge, they had messed up our reservation. We checked out the room and it was stuffy and hot (and to mention again, wrong). Stephanie looked at me and asked, “Do you want to just drive to Auckland tonight?” Yes, I said. She responded, “Let’s blow this joint.” And we did. We hopped right back in the car and set off for Auckland. Spontaneity and all.
We arrived in Auckland and stayed in a random hotel that night seeing as we hadn’t even planned on getting into the city that early. We drove to our new accomodation in downtown Auckland the next morning and Stephanie dropped off the car. Therein lies the end to our road trip through the north island of New Zealand. So far in NZ we have taken planes, trains and automobiles, not to mention a few boats. We’ve seen the cosmopolitan cities to the drought-ridden sheep ranches, the snow-covered mountains and the blue waters of lakes, oceans and straits. We’ll write again once we’ve figured out the sights in Auckland.
Until next time,
Kia Ora (Maori for “goodbye”, “safe journey” and “welcome”)
(Pictures to come soon!)

Sydney

We’ve been travelling around Australia and as such we’ve gotten a little behind on this blog (alright, a LOT behind). But here we are now! We’ll first begin with Sydney, our second week in Australia and was after our time with Meredith and Travis in Brisbane.
In order to get to Sydney we took a 14 hour train ride which rode through misty forests and flat cattle ranches and gave us a chance to see the countryside and smaller towns of the states of Queensland and New South Wales. We consulted with Google Maps before we arrived in Sydney to see how we were to get to our accomodation. It directed us to take a train (metro). However since it was later in the night the train kept switching tracks and after finally just giving up trying to figure it out, we shelled out for a cab. The first cab driver we approached just looked at us and laughed. Why did he do that? we thought. It was strange. Fortunately the second cab took us. It wasn’t until our second to last day that we found out exactly why he had laughed at us.
Our accomodation was a downtown hostel called Maze Backpackers (Can you imagine me in a hostel?! I couldn’t but it actually wasn’t that bad). Checking in and settling in for the night, we stayed in our private twin bunk-bed room eager for a night of rest and no more transportation. We found out that our hostel had a very strange layout/design. Set in a square and with numerous steps up and down in the hallways (instead of being flat) it was definitely a maze (hence the name) but this allowed for little sound to travel even when people had collected in groups/were socializing.
We won’t go in order of what we did in Sydney because that would require to much researching/organizing. Instead we’ll give you the highlights of our eight day stay. Our favorite was the Sydney Opera House. Stephanie especially liked it and would try taking photos of it everytime we came near it. The Opera House has such a fascinating and unique history which we discovered when we took a tour of the inside. The Opera House original plan was to have a 3 year construction time and would only cost $7 million. It ended up being 16 years and $102 million. The design they used for it was initially rejected due to it not following the contest design rules as well as the architect and engineers knowing no way of building the unique curves required of the roof. Engineering techniques were designed/discovered in building this magnificient building. The original designer/architect was kicked off the project after 14 years after a new government was elected that deemed him and his project as “wasteful”. He returned to his native Denmark never to see his masterpiece completed in its entirety. Its not only an architectural feat but an artistic one as well since it houses 6 venues including a grand symphony hall that houses a 10,000 pipe pipe organ (that took 3 years to tune), an opera theater with translation board, and many other theaters. 
After our tour we decided to see a show especially since we received half-off discounts. We decided on a show called “La Soiree” in which the ticket lady could say about it was “it is a weird show. Just a strange show. But you’ll like it”. The show started at 10 PM. It turned out to be fantastic. A cabaret-esque circus it included a juggling Freddie Mercury impersonator, a contortionist known as Captain Frodo who could fit his entire body through a 10 in tennis racket, singing puppets in drag, and so much more. We had sat in the back row in case we wanted to leave early and instead became avid fans. It was so much fun and we continue to talk about to this day.
Sydney of course has its fair share of museums. One of these was the Australian Museum or what we’d call a natural history museum. They had fantastic hall of skeletons including a human skeleton riding a horse. But what I especially enjoyed was the gem collection. Australia is known for its mining of precious metals, gems, etc. It boasts the best opals in the world and this gem collection didn’t let us down. Decorated with opals, garnet, and others, I was impressed by the variety and size of the museum’s collection.

Speaking of opals, we have often seen these precious stones in jewelry stores which often attracts our eyes. On our first day in Sydney we decided to enter a pretty nice jewelry store which was pretty busy. We started chatting with the one available counter lady simply conversing about our trip, where we were from, what her life is like, etc. Then out of nowhere she invites us into the locked, ultra-private, high roller collection in the back. We clearly didn’t belong there and she knew we didn’t have the kind of money that this room was used to seeing but she took us back there nonetheless. There were gorgeous pieces. She showed us the necklace she wanted costing a cool $19,000 dollars and even showed us a decorative flip-flop made completely of opal which I especially enjoyed (the shoe-love that I am).  She pointed out a $40,000 belt buckle that as she said “cowboys love this but I don’t know why.” It was a very neat experience and she was incredibly nice.

Along with this we visited the opal museum, not so much a museum but rather a small collection in a room. However we did get to see an opalized Pleiosaur, a marine dinosaur’s skeleton that had become opal instead of just a normal fossil. We of course looked at the beautiful opal jewelry they had for sale with Stephanie buying an opal necklace and I buying a pair of earrings.

Other activities included walking “The Domain” and Botantical Gardens, beautifully landscaped and open to the public for leisure and sporting activities. The Domain is the original buffer area between the Governor’s mansion (where the art gallery is housed) and the penal colony that was there long ago. Now it is used for football (“soccer”) games, laying out and general walkways through beautifully landscaped gardens. Another activity included riding the monorail which I had never seen or rode before. I had only ever seen it in the movies and while it was a new experience it wasn’t quite what I had expected. But now I can say I’ve ridden a monorail. During our time in Sydney Stephanie also walked across the Harbour Bridge, an iconic bridge that you often see in photographs with the Opera House since they are close together. She got some lovely photos of the Opera House from its higher vantage points known as the Pylon Lookout tower. She said the bridge felt very militaristic because there was barbed wire and security guards everywhere to keep people from committing suicide so while it was interesting to see it wasn’t quite a lovely, scenic walk across a bridge.

We took one day trip out to Katoomba, a 2 hour train ride from Sydney in order to see the Three Sisters and the Blue Mountains. Kind of a last minute side trip we really had no idea what to expect and instead we happened across one of the most scenic, epic vistas either one of us has ever seen. The Three Sisters is a unique rock formation (essentially 3 rock pinnacles) overlooking a vast valley which has Aboriginal lore ascribed to it. The valley was immense and we guessed it was almost as large as the Grand Canyon. It was so grand (and green!) and such a lovely sight that neither one of us could have predicted. Stephanie was even able to hike out to one of the Three Sisters rock pinnacles which had a 80 degree angle “Great Staircase” down onto the rockface. Returning to Sydney from Katoomba we finally discovered why the cab driver had laughed at us the night we first arrived. It turned out the train station to our hostel was a 5 minute walk maybe max of 3 blocks and we were asking for a taxi. Dumb tourists he must have thought. But hey he’s the one who missed out on the cab fare. :)

And these are the highlights we wanted to give of our venture to Sydney. Stephanie often said many times she could see herself living there and I had the same thought as well. Good transportation infrastructure and so many cafes, restaurants, shops, activities, etc. it is definitely a tourist haven. We’d highly recommend it to anyone. Go to Sydney!

Arriving in Australia

 WEEK 1

    After a total of 25 hours in transit, we arrived in Brisbane at 7:55 AM on Thursday, February 7th which would be 4:55 PM Feb. 6th for those of you in Eastern time. We flew from Dulles to LAX and straight on to Brisbane. While checking in the ticket counter man kept saying "She's so active! I can't believe how active she is! She's 80! Like my mother! So active!" I was lucky enough to have "Premium Economy" seats affording me the luxury of choosing between water, orange juice and champagne as a welcome beverage. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to be greeted at the airport in Brisbane by Meredith's smiling face and a handwritten sign with "Mrs. and Miss Mock" on it. 
     Taking a taxi back to Meredith's apartment in Windsor, a suburb just north of downtown Brisbane, we set our things inside and settled in to our new accommodations. Having some coffee to help us with jet lag, we sat in Meredith's living room chatting and reading. Our first day was spent mostly lounging around and relaxing in order to acclimate to the time difference and rest after so much traveling.

     The next day however we decided to make our first venture out into Brisbane. Meredith had to work and so Stephanie and I decided to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, the world's first and largest of its kind. Meredith gave us very detailed instructions on how to navigate the Brisbane bus system and we made our way there. We walked around the sanctuary seeing multiple exhibits of koalas and even got to hold one, a young male named Finn.  We also pet an emu and some kangaroos. 

A native kookaburra

     One thing we've noticed is the birds. Not only do they sing early in the morning (around 5AM) but they have interesting songs and are very beautiful. To the right is a photo of a kookaburra bird, a very loud albeit amusing bird. They are quite large but are not as colorful as the lorikeets, a rainbow-colored bird which we have not been able to photograph quite yet. 
    Even though the birds sing quite early in the morning, it's not distracting. Often the sun is beginning to rise at 4:30 in the morning and I often mistake it to be around 7:30 or even later! Jet lag hasn't really affected us all that much but it's just a little more difficult to tell time due to the sun rising so early. 

    We've also strolled around downtown, making our way to the Queen St. Mall, a two block pedestrian area with sidewalk cafes, shops and interesting art along the plaza. As you can see in the picture below I am standing in front of a building with a very interesting facade, a wall covered in colorful, metal butterflies. 

In front of the Winter Garden (Butterfly) Wall on Queen St, Downtown Brisbane

    The next day we decided to take a city sightseeing bus tour called CitySights. Our bus driver was named Maurice and he was quite genial and accomodating. He had visited Chimney Rock in North Carolina and had visited many states along the east coast and told us of his adventures. We rode this bus throughout Brisbane and made our way to Mt. Coot-tha, the highest peak in Brisbane. Coot-tha from the Aborigine "ku-ta" means "honey" since Aborigine locals would collect honey from the native stingless bees that lived there. Enjoying the views we sat down and had lunch and some drinks. The vista was beautiful and we were able to see the river that runs downtown as well as the entire Brisbane metropolitan area. After our lunch we strolled along the Mt. Coot-tha Botanical Gardens viewing a unique Bonsai House, cockatoos and some more lorikeets. We made our way back onto the bus and on to Meredith's house.

South Bank Parklands, Downtown Brisbane

    On Sunday, Meredith, Stephanie and I decided to walk along the South Bank Parklands, a scenic walkway along the river that opens up into a man-made pool/lagoon surrounded by shops, pubs and cafes. We enjoyed the people-watching and after spending some time doing just that at the lagoon we went on to have lunch at one of the nearby restaurants. After such, was some souvenir shopping and looking at the little outdoor market with its jewelry and other knick-knacks.
   After a couple of hours we again made our way back to Meredith's. Once on the bus our bus driver asked if we were from Tasmania on account of our accents. We hadn't heard that one before! Many people ask us where we're from and are surprised that we respond, "The U.S." as they think we are Canadian. Later on Meredith and Travis' friend Eddie came over and I watched as the four of them ended playing a 5 hour poker game. Stephanie had only learned how to play Texas hold'em the night before from Meredith and this was her first time playing with actual money albeit only 10 dollars. Eddie, a British man who had spent time living in New Zealand, was a interesting character. 51 and currently a "lollipop-turner" or sign waver for construction here in Brisbane, he spends his week in Brisbane and goes to the beach every weekend in his van. Having two kids, one a scholarship-recipient for women's rowing at UCLA and the other still living in New Zealand, Eddie's jobs have run the gambit from primary school teacher to corrections officer at a New Zealand prison where they affectionately referred to him as "Mary Poppins". It was fun meeting him and he gave us some great advice for our upcoming venture to New Zealand.

King's Beach

   On Monday, Meredith drove us to King's Beach about an hour north of Brisbane. We dipped our toes in the Pacific and proceeded to simply read our books on the beach. Having enjoyed the breeze and warming sunshine, we packed our things and made our way back to Brisbane.
   We are currently making plans for our trip to Sydney so we will see what happens. It will be an adventure!