There are lots of new photos on our photo bucket site in the Australia Part 2 and New Zealand sections.
The last 2 weeks since coming back to Australia from New Zealand have passed so fast. We started off in Adelaide. It was really nice. Not loads to do: we visited another chocolate factory, a cricket museum at the oval, the Adelaide museum and art gallery, and just had a look around some of the shops and a walk down along by the river which was really nice.
We are now in Perth staying with some of Kerrin's family, Ian, Lorna, Catherine, Rachel & Nathan. Have had such a good time here & getitng to know them all, not to mention how well we've been fed!! We've had a couple of trips into Perth city where we went to another art gallery and museum, the Perth Mint where we saw a bar of gold being poured which was pretty cool & not something we've seen before, went up the bell tower, and spent most of another day having a walk around the Kings Park. We did a day trip out to Rottnest Island. Took the bikes and went for a cycle around - must have been about 25 km. Both pretty exhausted afterwards but it was good fun, got to stop at lots of nice little bays. We were going to snorkel but it was far too cold & didn't get in much above our knees! Over on the island there are these little animals called quakkas which were pretty cute, little rat/kangaroo type things. We also visited Freemantle and did a tour of the prison, the largest in the southern hemisphere which was built by the convicts. So that was pretty interesting. Last night we all went out for a really nice Italian and then to see Angels & Demons. Today we've been busy packing up and went for a dip in the pool!
And that's the Australian part of our trip over. Tonight we fly to South Africa which we are both SO EXCITED about! Will try and keep this up to date too while we are there.
Pretty much everyone we had spoke to was saying, "you will love it when you get down south, the scenery is amazing", its really nice but looks exactly the same as Scotland, loads of hills and mountains, lakes etc.
Our first stop in the South island was Marlborough a world famous wine region so needless to say we stopped in at a good few, I did most of the tastings with Les @ the wheel.
Further down the south island we did a hike on Franz Josef glacier, was amazing this huge lump of ice in the middle of nowhere, walking through loads of ice caves etc.
We had heard loads about Queenstown being amazing but just ha d a few hours there, nothing much to see or do unless you wanna do a skydive so got on the road to head to the Milford Sound.
Its a big fiord , really nice drive to get there and loads of nice wee walks etc on the way.
After there the next major place was Dunedin. Driving in we were starting to sense something familiar the main streets are Princes & George Sts with Castle St, Frederick and Hanover Sts across them. It was a scottsih settlement years ago called New Edinburgh, so all the streets are like Edinburgh ones, its the only place in NZ with a castle and loads of Burns stuff including a statue in their main square, really weird. Was good we managed to get a Haggis and real Scottish Irn Bru, got it was good!
We checked out the castle, climbed the worlds steepest street (bloody hell its steep!), see seen some wild seals and seen some of the Scottish settlement stuff.
Last place on our route was Christchurch, the English settlement, absolutely nothing there tho but a few good pubs so it wasnt too bad i suppose!
Hello,
Sorry for our lack of blogs we have been going round New Zealand in a camper van living a bit rough so not been on the net all that often. Anyway, started off in Auckland and checked out the Skytower, climbed the harbour bridge and enjoyed the place before picking up the Disco Van.
Our camper was sprayed in Disco colours as above, so as you can imagine we got plenty attention when driving about. It was pretty comfy for sleeping and even though it was an automatic, it wasnt as painful as I though it might be to drive it.
We took off up to Hot Water beach where you dig a hole in the sand and because of the volcanic activity from years ago you get hot water from the ground, so had our own litle hot tubs. We did a bit more exploring up the coast of little places including Kiwi 360 a place totally devoted to kiwi fruits, it was brilliant, before heading to Rotorua.
Its a town built on loads of hot springs so you can be walking down the street and theres boiling bubbling mud pools all over the place, really cool. We had a brilliant mud spa and did some Zorbing there, its going in a big inflatable ball, like a hamsters and getting rolled down a big hill, brilliant fun.
After a few days there we headed to Taupo, famous for its huge lake and being skydive capital of the world, so rude not to I did one jumping from 15,000 ft. Was bricking it the night before but cool on the day. It was awesome just a pity it costs so much otherwise would like to do a second, maybe in South Africa.
We had a few days in Featherston, a tiny wee place where Dad's mate Clint stays. Was brilliant to meet up him again and meet his wife Anna and their 3 wild ones, kept us busy for the 4 days, we slept in real beds AND washed every day!!! We were treated like kings, cheers guys.
They stay pretty close to Wellington so we had a day there, its a bit of a disappointment, apart from the Te Papa museum.
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