The World Through Our Eyes

Indonesia - Bali Part 1

2009-11-26T03:01:00.007Z

This is Bali- to say somewhere is unique to this world is an overused cliché but somehow this really is true for Bali.

Our time in Ubud, Bali was reserved for a slow down. A place that not only could we reconnect with each other but also our surroundings and our time to appreciate how unbelievably lucky we are. It also harboured a sadder fact, that once Bali was over we only really had (excluding a small section of backtracking) under two weeks left, a feeling that makes our hearts drop. Yes we’ve missed our friends and family but we haven’t really missed the UK, we’ve felt as if we could hop on a plane after Dubai and let the wind take us wherever it chooses.

However, this wasn’t going to dampen our spirits on our little slice of tropical luxury that is Bali. Before I write please note that unlike previous entries where we’ve written a day by day account in detail of our actions, some of our days in this case won’t contain a great deal.

Our first day gave us the chance to get our bearings as per usual and check out our absolutely stunning hotel, we decided not to really discuss our hotels/hostels in the blog- but this place is an exception to the rule. Some of the shots of the rice fields around our hotel.

We decided for ease and convenience to eat at the Abian restaurant which is attached to Tegal Sari (our accommodation). The prices are amazingly reasonable and the food is as good as you’ll find anywhere else in Ubud.

Our second day was a very atypical (I joke) Richard and Jenny day, we decided to get some sun and hopefully work on that non existent tan, but we spent far too long doing so which resulted in as you can guess, burn as opposed to tan- that’s the sun tan out of the door.

That evening we ventured out to a place Jen had been looking forward to for months before we actually travelled; Bali Buddha. A restaurant that specialises in vegetarian/vegan food and healthy juice concoctions (including a Turmeric, Apple and Aloe Vera juice), all their food is also non MSG and organic/free range. Fear not carnivores, meat eaters are also catered for- though it’s definitely a turn of the tables with only a few free range meat dishes on offer. The food is absolutely amazing and the restaurant is simple but atmospheric. Underneath the restaurant is an organic shop. Walking back through Ubud, which is referred to as the cultural capital of Bali, you get the feeling that everyone has been inspired by their country, with artists’ shops lining the streets (they outnumber the rest of the shops by at least 4 to 1), Spas and massage parlours, music shops, book shops and many carving stores.

Day three and breakfast brought to our room the next morning (a reoccurring theme for the week that followed), gave us the refreshing boost that’s needed for the very easy day that followed.

We decided we owed it to ourselves and Ubud to take a venture out and explore, of course our first ports of call were the main Ubud attractions, first stop; Ubud Palace. It doesn’t really have the grandeur of Buckingham Palace or the Whitehouse but this palace, which is still home to the Balinese royal family, holds a certain charm in a form of architecture that we had never witnessed before; it kept reminding me in a sense of Mayan but then I could be horribly wrong, just an instinct though.

Next on the cards was the Water Palace, a small temple situated next to Ubud Palace and with one of the most impressive approaches to a temple you will ever see. The architecture is in typical Balinese style like that of Ubud Palace.

In the mid afternoon heat we were getting slightly exhausted so one last stop off this time, around the Ubud market, with hundreds of a little stores trying to plough their goods of on you. Just a look this time, though I’m sure Jen will be back to spend her hard cash on them- hopefully she’ll be able to haggle them down a bit first mind you.

We got back to the hotel grounds for some great views of the sunset.

Then we ventured out to Pizza Bagus for a pizza that would challenge any British pizzeria and nearly (emphasis on nearly) challenge the Italians themselves and a mere fraction of the price; £2.35 roughly for a large pizza.

Day four and another day and another happy couple wake up in the beautiful though exceedingly hot Balinese weather. Today was one of the ‘must do’s’ while in Ubud, the monkey temple- just another typical though charming temple but the grounds are renowned for the abundance of free roaming monkeys and at 15,000Rp (approx 90p) you really don’t have a valid reason not to. It also gave Jen the chance to have her leg caressed by one of the younger monkeys.

Our evening was devoted to our first Balinese dance, one of the main draws of Ubud itself is the cultural attractions and the most famous of which are the dances. There are at least four dances a night of varying price and quality. The first dance we chose to see was a Legong dance at the Ubud Water Palace performed by Chandra Wirabhuana Troupe. The Legong is a series of dances performed in very colourful traditional Indonesian wear and accompanied by a Gamelan- a traditional Indonesian orchestra.

To say Jen was impressed would be a large understatement, as was I, but she was truly mesmerised from the moment the show began to the moment it ended. The dancing was amazing and the choreography was insanely precise, with both parties; the dancers and the orchestra excelling at what they do best. If we didn’t do anything else with our time in Bali this is the one thing we’re glad we did do.

The rest of the evening was spent with great company and more importantly;

Day five was a day for Jen, somehow she managed to get me to agree to have a Balinese massage with body scrub, body mask and flower bath at the Petrenin Spa. For a variety of reasons I was personally against the idea though of course I was more than willing to do it for Jen. The phrase best suited for this experience would be ‘eat my words’! With our skydiving experience we had been left feeling exhilarated and the adrenaline was rushing through our bodies like never before, with this experience we were left at the opposite end of the scale feeling so unbelievably relaxed and so devoid from any stress (not that we have any) and worries. The whole thing lasted two and a half hours and for the level of service and quality we received we would pay upwards of £150 (and the rest) in England but here in Bali…175,000Rp or approximately £11, you just can’t say no. As I had at first convinced Jen to skydive and she had loved it she had returned the favour, though it was so different the experience will definitely go down as one of our most vivid memories.

Our evening was filled with jazz and tapas at Coffee and Silver Café on Monkey Forest Road. We stopped by for some dinner when we were met by the Danish owner who had told us about the music and asked us to stay, which we did and thoroughly enjoyed our night.

Singapore

2009-11-22T09:18:00.006Z

‘Singapore is a fine city’, is something that you’ll see printed on many t-shirts and other forms of apparel, not because Singapore is a great place to be but due to the fact that one step out of line will result in a fine. A country that has banned chewing gum, will fine you for dropping litter and jaywalking and a set of rules and regulations exist for everything you could possibly do or imagine doing. What does this result in? One of the cleanest, safest and most efficient countries in the world. They even have hygiene ratings on their food courts.

Many people dislike Singapore and it could easily be branded as plastic/easy Asia; it’s clean, everybody speaks English, it beckons no cultural challenges and in all fairness it could be London. However we personally enjoyed our time though we can see both sides of the coin and can fully understand why so many people don’t enjoy it.

Anyway our first evening in Singapore was a simple one. Our hostel hostess kindly led us to the food court and gave us a run down of what stalls to eat at and what we should expect to pay, the first thing we noticed was how cheap it was to eat- something we weren’t entirely expecting. In terms of general shopping and accommodation Singapore is a relatively expensive destination, especially when it comes the latter. After yet another great meal this time at the Smith Street Chinatown food court we decided to hop on the amazingly clean SMRT (Singapore underground/overground system) and took a stroll around the river, past the ridiculously grandeur Fullerton hotel until we finally found what we were looking for- the largest fountain in the world at Suntec City, again a place I remember fondly as this was the area I spent Christmas some 8 years ago.

Day two and we headed out to the Chinese and Japanese gardens for a wonder around. The gardens are the largest green area in Singapore… actually one of the few green areas in the whole country (this isn’t taking into account the other 50+ uninhabited islands belonging to Singapore)!

The area is great for a walk especially if you have a good day, ours was very hot and humid and very overcast. The highlight of the garden for both myself, though especially Jen, was the Bonsai garden, where I’m pretty sure she took more pictures than during our whole stay in KL.

As we were wondering around we met this… I want to say little fellow but he really wasn’t little nor did we want to stick around too long to await his return (the picture doesn’t do him/her justice).

We then headed over to the impressive seven storey Chinese pagoda and ascended to the top.

Back on the train to our Chinatown home where we once again ate at the food court on Smith Street, where I keep eying up all these peculiar foods though can’t quite bring myself to eat a whole squid quite yet- Jen just gives them disgusted looks as she walks past.

Day three and a day of getting around to things we had intended on doing much earlier. We started our day with a more in-depth look around Singapore’s Chinatown, shocking really considering it was located about 100m away from our hostel. Anyway we were once again both in agreement that it was better than that of KL. We then moved on to the ’Buddha’s Tooth Relic Temple’ which was again a building that we could see from our hostel. The temple seems to be built around the concept of educating visitors about Buddhism- after leaving we felt educated (sort of)! Unfortunately most of the temple was under a no photography ruling, so we obeyed… remember Singapore is a fine city.

We the decided to head down to the Raffles, we’re still undecided on our return as to whether or not we’re going to have the famous Singapore sling or the very British high tea- or whether our wallets will be able to sustain the Raffles strain at all. The Raffles Hotel by the way is the oldest building in Singapore and is named after the Brit who colonised Singapore- don’t quote me on the latter as I’m not entirely sure if I’m correct there. Anyway myself and Jen were both in agreement, and I think she was expecting something a lot more striking, that the Fullerton is much more grandeur both in design and location. The Fullerton nestled amongst the high rises:

We decided to carry on around the quay and take in some of Singapore’s well known buildings including the two theatres, both in the same style.

The Merlion is Singapore’s most famous statue and it’s purpose and meaning is to act as a welcome to all that enter Singapore.

We headed back for some shopping in the malls where Jen went to take another look at the Kimono fabric bag in the Japanese shop she had fallen in love with, though we decided to get it on our return to Singapore. Then we headed out to the food court at the Quay where we finally saw someone make Teh Tarik (which literally means ‘pulled tea‘) the way it’s supposed to be made, a process of ‘pulling’ the tea back and forth between two containers, to both cool the tea to drinking temperature and create a froth on the top. It’s made with condensed milk and is very sweet.

Up bright and early for our morning flight with Air Asia to Bali, Jen looking like she was going to pop with excitement.

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

2009-11-21T14:13:00.008Z

Our arrival in KL was greeted by the hustle and bustle of a large city again and definitely not the laid back atmosphere of Penang. The first thing Jen noted was how dirty the city is and it truly is, piled up heaps of garbage bags were a common sight.

First came a journey on what seems to be a very disjointed public transport system; there are three different lines which I believe are operated by individual companies, so unlike the London underground where if you need to change line you get off train A and walk to train B, still using the same ticket. You instead have to disembark from train A to walk to a different station and buy a separate ticket for train B. A system that is seemingly built for profit and less so for convenience. We arrived at our destination easily enough and it really isn’t as much hassle as I made it out to sound.

Thankfully the location of our hostel was brilliant, a few 100 metres from Berjaya Times Square- a new and modern mall that you could easily spend a whole day in, it also has and this came us a surprise to us: a theme park that takes up floors 7 through to 9 and an Imax screen that with the food court takes up the tenth floor. We took what remained of our first day to partake in some strolling around the mall before deciding on our very western dinner (it made a nice change) of Papa Johns pizza followed by Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Day two started in a rather negative manner with my sidekick (Jenny) feeling rather ill for the first time- it had to happen at some point. Though we hopped on the monorail and headed for the Dayumbi complex; a modern high rise building where the architecture has been influenced by the Malaysian Islamic beliefs.

Just so those of you who don’t know are aware in the many pictures that have been taken across Asia with very murky looking skies, it doesn’t necessarily mean the weather is bad in fact it is almost always mid 30’s even with grey skies and rain.

We then proceeded to Merdeka Square, an area renowned for it’s colonial buildings.

During our strolls around the immediate area we saw a sight that in my opinion showcased the contrast of Kuala Lumpur’s old and new and slightly eccentric.

We then headed for the famous Bintang street and KL’s Chinatown region, complete with all it’s food outlets and many hawker markets trying to convince you to buy their goods. We excitingly bought some pineapple and that was all- the adventurous people that we are. We found the whole area to be wholly overrated and not really that special, I guess once you’ve done Chatuchak market in Bangkok everything else pales in comparison, though we also came into agreement that Batu Feringhi’s markets in Penang were also a lot better than KL’s.

The smog and humidity of the late afternoon forced us back to Berjaya Times Square where we ate in 10th avenue food court and then headed for the Imax screen where for the costly sum of approximately £2 we saw a film- in the UK and Australia you can pay £10 - £20 for the same privilege.

Day three and our final full day was put aside for the Lake Gardens, an area of some 200 hectares of garden laid by the British during our colonisation of Malaysia. First of all we headed to the very impressive national monument and the sculpture gardens.

After that we headed to the second part of the gardens, including the bird/deer and butterfly parks- none of which we really got to see.

We found the gardens, in parts, to be very poorly maintained. Maybe we arrived at a bad time as I’ve heard nothing but positive comments on them previously. We unfortunately had a run in with a motorcyclist who seemed to be eying us up for what I can only presume would be too mug us (I shall not expand on it anymore). Fortunately we were both aware and made steps to get to a better place, which we did with no hassle. Unfortunately as you can imagine this left a bitter taste in our mouth, and it was a rather unnerving situation. Though we were fine and things like this happy everywhere in the world, probably more so in our home country.

After our day was cut short by the previous events we decided to head back to our safe haven in the form of Berjaya Times Square for a Subway- I know we’re in Asia we should be eating everything Asian but change is good.

We then headed to Low Phat centre which is the place you go for everything electrical; it’s a strange experience, six floors of laptops, mobiles, consoles, cameras and other cool gadgets. It’s an ideal place to get your electronics but with that much there, how do you choose?!

We then headed out for the evening to the one thing you can’t miss while in KL; the Petronas Towers, which were originally the tallest building(s) in the world until Taiwan’s Taipei 101 succeeded it. It is also soon to be relegated to third place with the arrival of Dubai’s Burj very soon, a building that hauntingly stands at twice the size of the Petronas- trust me seeing the towers makes you wonder how a building could be twice the size. The towers do look undeniably cool at night, once they’re lit up their glass and stainless steel structure really comes into their own.

We said goodbye to one of our many new friends and headed off to another new country, Singapore.

Malaysia - Penang Part 2

2009-11-10T15:19:00.009Z

Day five and another trip, I’d say down but in this case it was clearly up memory lane. Penang Hill is the place to go for the best views of the Georgetown area and the east coast. Unfortunately for Jen this involves going up a very steep train to the top.

Though once at the top you are greeted by some pretty striking views, also note the ridiculously long Penang bridge in the background.

At the top there is a selection of places to eat, ranging from very expensive (though not by UK standards) boutique restaurants to stands selling chickpeas, we went with the latter. There is also a series of walks, a Mosque and Hindu temple and some time to hang out with the wildlife.

Though they don’t seem to be very observant of the rules.

After getting off the train, which I think Jen was probably very relieved to do, we decided to walk (maybe not the brightest idea considering it was blisteringly hot) the short walk to Kek Lok Si- a large Buddhist temple built in 1890.

To get to the temple itself you have to walk through a series of winding alleyways with lots of locals trying to sell you their high quality fakes.

Once you reach the base of the temple, a long ascent with a lot of steps awaits.

Though Jen again in her element, stopped at every small detail and every new and interesting statue, so that she could savour the memories via photograph.

Again that night we ate at Georgetown’s Red Garden food court. This also gave us the chance to have our first experience with Thai (ironic I know) mango sticky rice, which is basically as it sounds. Rice cooked in coconut milk- hence the sticky and a mango thrown on the side, it may be simple but words cannot describe how good it tastes.

Day six in Penang was our first ‘expensive’ day, I use the term loosely because in comparison to a similar day in the UK it was not. We started our day with a series of events that resulted in us getting lost, two buses and taxi later we ended up at our destination- the butterfly park. The world’s first and largest butterfly sanctuary and free roaming aviary.

It’s a relatively expensive attraction and a fraction out of the way but definitely worth a visit. Beyond butterflies the aviary is home to turtles, scorpions, millipedes, praying mantises and they also have several insect/reptile shows throughout the day, which gave me the chance to hold a few of them and Jen to be very disturbed- I think she was much happier behind the camera in this instance.

We made a much easier return to Batu Feringhi on the way back, our first stop: a cold beer or a couple- I seem to have turned Jen into a lager drinker. After our few beers we took a stroll along Batu beach to watch the sunset.

Back to Batu food court for what would be our last dinner on this side of the island- yet again ridiculously good food at ridiculously good prices, just for those of you who aren’t familiar with a food court setup, this will give you a brief (though not very good) idea:

After our food we strolled the night markets; when I said we would be back with our money I wasn’t lying in fact we bought quite a few items, or I should probably say Jen bought quite a few- we seemed to go with the idea of buying for our home, probably forgetting that we don’t live together yet. We also had a successful stint at bartering.

After our exciting night we headed back to Georgetown - it seemed the buses to our destination had stopped so we had to get a slightly overpriced taxi back.

Day seven and our final full day in Penang and what an awful day it was, it rained from the moment we woke to the moment we went back to bed and it was oddly cold- I say cold it was 27 degrees which is still the equivalent of a British summer. Anyway not feeling in the mood to really challenge the weather we had a rather sedate day, where our only real events were based around food.

Penang island gave us a great experience- the food, the people, the general vibe of the place has given us great memories and from my personal perspective it was amazing to be able to share something I had previously seen with a girl who never thought she’d see this side of the world.

Hopping on board our luxurious executive coach, we began our journey through the heart of Malaysia to the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia - Penang Part 1

2009-11-07T15:41:00.008Z

I’m going to hand over to Jen now, giving a fresh change and probably a more interesting and personal view of our introduction to Penang.

Arriving in Penang was a breath of fresh air, literally. Finding our way from the train to the ferry was made very easy by following the friendly Malay man we met on the train. Sitting down on the very slow moving ferry from Butterworth to Penang set the pace for the next leg of our journey. After a free bus ride through the streets of Georgetown, complete with a commentary on all the passing sights from our newly found friend and guide, a short walk through the streets brought us to our guesthouse, a beautiful, if somewhat noisy, pre-war building.

Walking the streets of Georgetown is like stepping back in time. The buildings have a very rustic charm to them- wooden window shutters, colonial detail and peeling paint. If you took away the many modern cars that squeeze through the streets, the scene would be almost unchanged from the time the buildings were built. Incense burns from bricks on the side of the hazardous pavements, oranges are offered on shrines to the Gods, a temple appears on every street. I get distracted from looking out for very deep monsoon drains, the pavement suddenly ending without warning and motorbikes passing within a few inches of us. Here the rickshaw drivers offer their service and smile at your no thank you. Here you can walk down the street and get only curious glances. Here is where I start to really enjoy my Asian experience, and feel that I can really start to appreciate a life that is so different from ours.

For dinner that night we went to a little local Chinese place, recommended to us by the lovely girl at the desk of the hostel. Full of chattering locals on big tables surrounded by lots of interesting looking food, we sat down to realise we were the only Western people there, something we took delight in. The lady that served us saw we obviously had no clue what was going on, so whenever some food was placed in front of us she came over and showed us what to do- dishing out some bean curd onto mine and Rich’s plates, pouring sauce out of the two bottles on the table into little dishes and signalling that we should dip the spring roll in them. She understood that I was veggie, so when Rich’s fried chicken and onion came over, she put the chicken on his plate and spooned off the onion into a dish for me. When she asked if we wanted any desserts, and we said no, she brought us one to share anyway- a mixture of lychees and squares of some kind of milk-based dessert in juice. Sat on our white plastic chairs, in an open air restaurant and surrounded by locals, we felt we were finally getting a taste of real Asian life.

Now back over to Richard.

Our first day in Penang gave us chance to explore the higgledy piggledy streets of Georgetown, it’s an amazing place to find yourself getting lost in; a maze of small alleyways that seem to lead back into themselves.

Even though the streets are maze-like it’s a very easy city to get around- well signposted and if need be there’s always KOMTAR (Penang’s State Government building and the largest building on the island) to get your bearings from.

Our first stop was the Penang National Museum to get some information on the culture and history of the island. The museum is full of many intricate Chinese and Indian artefacts that display an unfathomable amount of detail- I’m pretty certain that Jen was spying out the security cameras so she could come back and loot the lot.

After our short walk around we strolled the streets with no real aim, but as said so poetically by Jenny Georgetown encapsulates times of old and you just can‘t help but stroll with no purpose. While strolling around we stumbled upon a few examples of great Chinese and Hindu temples; first of all ‘The Goddess Of Mercy Temple’ founded in 1800.

And then Mahamariamman (mouthful or what?!) which was built in 1883 and is the oldest Hindu temple in Georgetown.

It wasn’t until we found Khoo Kongsi, built in 1906 and home to one of the most notorious clans on Penang island that we decided to have a nose around inside. The temple is a wonderful example of Chinese architecture and Jenny was very happy to snap away. For 5 Ringgit each (approx 85p) you get two postcards, entry to the grounds and also a small museum which gives information about the clan and their arrival in Penang…. a bargain in my eyes.

As is the case with most days in Asia, a hot humid start is met by an epic downfall in the afternoon, though the heat never resides during this period, and then generally (though not always the case) after a very short time, under an hour the rain ceases. Today was no exception, so we scurried along the slippery surfaces in our flip-flops in the heavy downfall like a pair of Geisha (obviously myself in a more manly way) back to the hostel to wait for the rain to stop.

The weather brought no surprises and we headed out on the modern air conditioned buses that replaced the clapped out bangers I knew from my visits some 8 and 10 years ago to an area I was all too familiar with (being the place I resided in Penang on both previous occasions) Batu Feringhi. After a small stroll down memory lane we both came to the conclusion that bar the lure of the five star hotels and beachfront we were glad we were staying in Georgetown- mainly due to it being such an interesting, historical area, and also the amount of places to eat helps. We strolled through the night markets where hawkers all try to pedal their fake Rolexes and DVDS, we bought nothing on this occasion but they will see us again ready to throw money in their direction.

After some walking we decided to stop off at the brand new Hard Rock Hotel and Café for a drink- wow that was a mistake, if overpriced drinks and all too familiar western surroundings are your thing then it will probably suit you, however we were more at home having a beer and chapatti (though just to inflate his ego they are nowhere near as good as my dads) at the Batu food court.

Our third day was put by for exploring some more of the attractions around the Georgetown area, we set off first of all to one of the traditional fishing villages. The area is a series of wooden houses that are built on stilts over the sea, a series of interconnecting wooden walkways give off a maze effect when walking through them, in that sense they’re not dissimilar from the rest of Georgetown. It’s an interesting sight, though we felt a bit obtrusive strolling past and looking into people’s houses.

After here we decided to stroll around to Fort Cornwallis, the remains a British fort and the only one on Penang island. Inside you are hit with a lifetime’s worth of information to absorb, though it gives a great look into the history of the British colonisation. My photographer was unfortunately struggling with the heat, so no photos.

Our late afternoon/evening was spent dining once again al fresco at the Esplanade food court this time, where we were joined by a few of the locals.

After filling ourselves we walked down the esplanade to an outdoor cultural event (so we thought) called ‘Esplanade In Action’, which from what we were told by our Malay friend, is a free Penang culture event held every week. Unfortunately, we managed to be there on Halloween and we were treated to a variety of dances including a rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller… though good we left feeling bemused. We did however meet a friendly Indian guy who gave us a run through on where to get cheap things, how to haggle etc..

Day four was a series of interesting and amusing events. We started our day with a venture down to the mall attached to Komtar. After a bit of shopping Jen picked up a pair of shorts for RM10 (£1.80) and so begins misfortunate/amusing story number one; when Jen finally got the shorts home she proceeded to try them on- not a comfortable fit. She then decided to try and force them on, all was going reasonably well until she began to take them off and every piece of short she grabbed to pull down ripped off until she was left with, well…nothing. Moral of story one- £1.80 is far to cheap for a pair of shorts.

While walking round I decided now would be the ideal time to get the haircut I’d been talking about and I stumbled across a place that did haircuts for RM12 (£2.10) and so begins amusing story number two; myself and my Malay hairdresser came to a mutual agreement as to how my hair would be done. It went along the lines of; Me: Trim. Hairdresser: Oh! Trim! Me: Yes! As you can see it wasn’t a great deal of information but we understood each other. Anyway he got his tools of the trade and proceeded to cut my hair, Jenny looked on giggling uncontrollably in the background while I looked in fear. Fifteen minutes later and I had a short back and sides to which Jen decided a series of salutes amused her. In all fairness to the hairdresser he did a good job though I guess the moral of the story here is, never assume you have an agreement, especially when it comes to haircuts in Asia.

After our stressful day of shopping and getting my haircut we had dinner at the Red Garden food court in Georgetown, a surprise it had taken this long as it was literally down the road from us and did amazing food. This also brought forth the third and final amusing story of the day! Jen decided that she would try one of the more famous Malaysian desserts Ais Kacang, it had to be done. It was brought out to her and at the start it was all going well, a scoop of chocolate ice-cream on top of lychee flavoured ice shavings, like a sorbet. Anyhow she dug further into her mountain of dessert until she came to some black jelly, which turned out to be grass jelly- if you think that’s peculiar read on… Next she came to some small yellow things, they turned out to be sweetcorn, you’re probably looking as confused as we were at this point but she dug further in to find the final ingredient *drum roll please*, kidney beans- just your average dessert really. Moral of story three; never judge a book (or in this case dessert) by it's cover.

Bangkok to Butterworth by train

2009-11-03T02:04:00.004Z

I write this entry less as something to be viewed and followed by those who know us and more for those who are intending to do the trip. The reason being, when we tried to find information about the journey from Bangkok to Butterworth via the Special Express train we found there wasn’t much around- obviously excluding the amazing Seat61.com which does in fact give a great deal of information regarding times and other essential information, though leaves out the smaller things that we found can be very handy.

First of all obtaining tickets can be done in a variety of ways (again seat61 runs through this) either via the State Railway of Thailand (I hear they are aggravatingly slow to respond to e-mails), by buying tickets at the station while you are there or by using a third party. We used a third party ourselves just for piece of mind, feel free to check them out traveller2000.com, there is a small surcharge when using the service but they will deliver your tickets to your hostel/hotel and if you mention seat61.com you’ll get a small discount on the surcharge.

The train itself is to be honest a very pleasurable experience, seats are set out in what is essentially an open compartment where a maximum of two people sit facing each other.

As for luggage storage- we had two relatively big backpacks (though I’ve seen many people with much larger) and two smaller bags, we found that we could slot the larger backs under our chairs, there is also a large rack above… though get to it quick as it packs up very quickly. Our small bags were placed next to us, to be honest you could probably quite happily seat 4 people together in the booth!

At night a member of the train staff comes around and makes up the beds (for us this happened about 19:00 though I hear sometimes you have to wait until 22:00, it seemed to be only one person doing this and there are a lot of carriages), the two seats in the booth fold out to become the lower bunk, you pay a slight bit more for this bunk; this is for a variety of reasons, number one you have a window, number two the booth is much darker, number three you get a LOT more room (not lengthways) and finally number four it’s more comfortable. Above the lower bunk is a compartment which falls down to become the second bed. The upper bed is very bright, quite cramped and a nowhere near as comfortable as the lower deck.

Picture of the lower birth and upper birth, with curtains drawn:

Food is easily obtained on the train and can be obtained at the dining cart or a man comes around with a menu, in Thai and English and you can order dinner and breakfast to your booth (I believe it costs a small fraction more than the dining cart) we missed out on dinner but it seems to be a set menu i.e. soup, curry, coffee etc.. You can also order beer. We did have breakfast and it was a simple affair of two pieces of toast with spread, two small pieces of fruit, juice and a coffee. Incidentally, if you order breakfast you may get woken up early. I advise bringing snacks on just as a backup. Also at each stop locals come on to the train selling a variety of meats, rice dishes and beer.

At the border you take everything off the train to pass through Thai and Malay customs and then you board the same train, though it seems to be sit where you can/want from here on out. This process took us 30 minutes, though I hear if the train arrives on time you are waiting around for about an hour before you pass on through immigration.

We’d read other reviews about the toilets being bad, even by eastern standards, but we found them to be very clean, with plenty of toilet paper and lots of soap at the sinks. One was a squat toilet, the other a western. Also the train was cleaned on a regular basis and rubbish collections carried out. The train itself was quite noisy and bumpy, and there was quite a severe rocking motion when we were in bed- some might find this an aid to sleep!

The journey itself is rather repetitive but we both personally found it a great way to travel; it’s safe, the staff are very friendly, and it was very easy.

A couple of photos we took of the journey;

By the way if you’re getting off at Butterworth with the aim of getting to Penang it’s very easy. Signs are in English to the ferry, I believe they run every 17 minutes and the journey itself takes a mere 10 minutes at a very leisurely pace, costing 1.20 Ringgits or approximately 20 - 25p.

Any questions please ask.

Thailand - Bangkok

2009-11-01T13:19:00.007Z

So…. this is Bangkok- it’s a culture shock, it’s so hot and oppressively humid, there are people all over the place who you assume to be friendly but who are just out to try and scam you, you’ll be told attractions are closed so scam artists can transport you off to one of the famous fake gem stores; thankfully we were one step ahead and managed to stay clear of this. It’s noisy, overpopulated and ridiculously polluted. So is there anything good about Bangkok?! Well yes; the friendly smile you get from a passing local, the attitude of many shop/stall owners and friendly taxi drivers and also the place is undeniably interesting- though it’s probably an experience we wouldn’t be in a rush to repeat any time soon.

Our late arrival into the Survanabhumi airport gave us our first experience with BK weather, it was 30 degrees at 2am which is completely alien to us. It also gave us the chance to acquaint ourselves with a very friendly Taxi driver who serenaded us with the Thai version of Amazing Grace whilst speeding down the motorway.

Anyway our first day in BK was on the back of a mere couple of hours sleep after our 10 hour flight from Australia and we were understandably tired and maybe a fraction cranky, so our day was more a case of getting our bearings or in this instance getting obscenely lost, trying to find your way in this very foreign city is difficult when the road signs are meaningless to us. Though it was interesting to get lost down all the streets and see some of the real Thai markets and it seemed we were the only westerners in the whole part of this city. Anyway after tracking our way back and getting lost again and being very tired we decided the best bet would be to hail a taxi and head back to the hotel. It’s here in the hotel grounds we resided for dinner and for two amazing meals (probably better then anything we ate while in NZ) two beers and one juice it cost us the unheard of sum of £7.

Our second day was a day of shopping- we had landed in Bangkok in perfect time for Chatuchak’s Sunday market, Thailand’s largest and most popular market. Anything that’s made in Thailand can be found here. The market itself is amazing and also amazingly busy and easy to get lost in the small and claustrophobic alleyways.

It’s a great experience and one I would highly recommend, after spending a couple of hours walking round and of course Jen shopping away- though she struggled as there was so much to buy I’m not entirely sure she was knew what to do with herself. She tried her hand at bartering for the first time, and got the stall holder down by the vast sum of 20 baht from the marked price before parting with her money. But hey we all have to start somewhere.

A brief stop off for a coconut.

And then onwards to our next shopping experience for the day- this also gave us the chance to hop on to both Bangkok’s underground and Sky Train public transport, a good bet considering the rush hour was kicking in.

Our next stop was Siam (the former name of Thailand) Square and the MBK centre, which is a sharp contrast to our earlier experience; an air conditioned, ultra modern mall and a slight or in some cases steep increase in prices. Though it’s still definitely worth going, it’s interesting to see markets set up in a modern mall next to shops like McDonalds and Boots.

A view of Bangkok’s Sky Train system and the modern Siam area:

A slight difference from the older, more authentically Thai area we were staying in- Banglamphu:

Day three was one of our most anticipated days during our whole experience, though it unfortunately wasn’t as amazing as we were hoping- our visit to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha which was originally, up until the reign of King Rama VI, the palace grounds and home to many government buildings. I’ll start with the negative; unfortunately the heat was more oppressive than before and we were very hot so we were moving around the area at a very sluggish pace and not really soaking it all up. Secondly and more frustrating- as soon as we exited our taxi we were shepherded away from the entrance by a very official looking man who informed us the palace was closed until later, not really knowing what was happening we were led to a man who tried to get us to take a Tuk Tuk ride round Bangkok with him until the Palace opened. Clearly realising this was a scam we politely said no thank you and walked past the official looking man (who gave us a look of failure) and straight into the entrance to the ticket stand. Unfortunately this was a reoccurring theme for the rest of the day, by the end of which we had really had enough.

Anyway the buildings themselves are absolutely amazing and the architecture is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, though the grounds really don’t give much information about what everything is about, in retrospect we really should have done the audio tour but of course you don’t know about the lack of information until you’re in.

After our visit to the Grand Palace we stopped off at a small café not far away for a quick snack before the many scammers got us to the point where we begrudgingly headed back to the hotel. Looking back on the whole experience I believe our naiveness to the situation led us to overreact which led to the unfortunate dampening of our spirits; if we went through this again I’d like to think we’d be tougher and more resistant to it- though unfortunately at this moment in time we weren’t.

Our fourth and final day in Bangkok gave us the chance to recuperate with a late lie in and an afternoon spent relaxing at the hotel grounds/pool.

In the evening we decided to head for Khao San Road, famous for it’s eateries and well cheap beer (the equivalent of 3 pints cost about £2 as opposed to £7.50 in the UK). The street itself is very very small, so we did a return walk and sat down to eat our food for the evening. Jen had a Masaman curry (yellow curry) which she informed me was very nice, I however was struggling with my spicy pork salad… the key word being spicy WOW was it hot, I’ve never eaten anything with that sort of heat. Our evening ended with a very wet walk back to the hotel- when it rains in Asia it really rains.

This concludes our somewhat unsuccessful stay in Bangkok, there was so much we had wanted to do but for a variety of reasons we did not. Here’s hoping Malaysia is a degree more successful.

Onwards to Penang we head, of course we have our 24 hour train journey first.

Australia - Sydney

2009-10-28T06:13:00.010Z

Our evening arrival in Sydney gave us no chance to start our brief Australian adventure but we were looking forward to the following day with high expectations.

Anyway our first day in Sydney and what a difference a couple of thousand kilometres can make, the weather was approximately 10 degrees Celsius warmer than that of our whole NZ experience. We started with breakfast at Hyde park café- which was a great start to the day. Then the obvious first must do; Sydney harbour and of course the accompanying Opera House and Harbour bridge. We walked along the Sydney botanical gardens to Mrs Maquires Point- named so by the wife of the governor in 1810, who ordered a chair to be chiselled into the cliff so she could watch the harbour. Wonder what she would think of it now?!

We personally thought the views were pretty striking. Onwards from here we followed the harbour around to closer inspection of the Sydney opera house- noting along the way the amount of joggers in the harbour area.

After a short time wondering around the quay, complete with it’s expensive shops and restaurants, tacky tourist shops and an interesting array of buskers- the majority of whom were native aborigines, we decided a return stroll across the bridge was an idea. The bridge really is a great feat of engineering and of course gives great views of the Opera house (a building that seems will never look dated) and surrounding harbour areas. It was unfortunate that we weren’t there for the weekend, as they closed the bridge and we heard there were thousands of people eating their breakfast there as part of a food festival- quite a spectacle I imagine!

Day two was one of the days we had planned to do for a while; Sydney Zoo- which is supposedly amongst the top zoo’s in the world. We hopped on a ferry which took all of ten minutes and arrived at the zoo It really was a better zoo than many others, with larger areas for the animals which always goes down well with me and Jen. The zoo is also great value for money- just make sure you take food with you as that really isn’t. The highlights of the zoo I hear you ask?! Well clearly the Koalas which in all fairness are one of the cutest animals you will ever see.

Other than the Koalas there is a great deal to see including meerkats, snakes (including the most venomous snake in the world), spiders, elephants, giraffes and so on.

Time flew by exceptionally quick and before we knew the day was turning into evening- this did give us a chance to stroll around the Opera House at night, for a different view of the area.

After a short stroll around the area we really did not feel like the 30 minute walk back to our hostel so instead we hopped on Sydney’s underground/overground system; a system that really puts London’s to shame… three tiered underground trains- say goodbye to crowded underground journeys.

Day three and we were hit by the hottest weather we had witnessed on our travels so far, in fact it was the hottest weather we had ever witnessed as a couple together; to say it was warm would be a slight understatement. We jumped upon another of Sydney’s public transport systems- the monorail.

A few stops later and we arrived at Darling harbour, home to the biggest Imax cinema in the world- unfortunately nothing of great interest was on so no luck there, fortunately along the harbour was an air conditioned mall- a reprieve from the heat..

The evening brought the cool weather which gave us a chance to check out Sydney’s international food festival- a festival which took over Hyde park in the evenings bringing food from all different cultures though predominantly from the Asian countries. The food was quite good though very expensive for what it was.

Our final full day in Sydney was cooler than the previous day… a lot cooler. Our morning was spent doing well…. nothing bar relaxing. In the afternoon I got dragged to the Museum of Contemporary Art, located on the Harbour. It didn’t take us long to get round as most of the work was too bizarre for either of our likings, and Jen complained about the lack of photography again. The best part was the shop, which had a lot of interesting items for sale, but at steep prices. Our evening however was much more entertaining. Our first stop was the Minus 5 bar- any guesses on what the temperature of the bar is? Yes, you got it the temperature of the bar is minus 5- you have to wear a large coat and gloves to enter and you can only spend 30 minutes max in the bar and everything is made of ice; from the bar right down to the glasses.

After a few Vodka cocktails we decided the best bet was to hop on to the underground and head to Kings Cross- an area renowned for it’s bars and seedy goings-on; prostitutes lining the streets, doormen latching onto any single men that pass the strip clubs. Arm yourself with a girlfriend and you’ll be left alone! The area is such a shock as it has no resemblance to downtown Sydney at all- it’s as if you’re in a different city. We found a little place and sat down for a few beers before heading back for the night.

Our last day before our next long haul flight to another country and another continent, however before we went we had one more ‘must do’- Bondi beach. Sydney’s famous beach, and a popular retreat for many young surfers.

Unfortunately having to fly out that day our stuff was packed and locked away far from ourselves so we had no swimwear, so we spent some time relaxing- we probably looked odd as we were the only ones really wearing clothes. It’s a very alluring small beach and the weather was just right, giving us the chance to fully appreciate it.

Our time in Sydney has been short and most definitely sweet, the city itself has an allurement than many ‘big cities’ don’t have. It’s an expensive city- a very expensive city- mind you this does not take away from it’s charm; there is plenty to do/see if you wish and also plenty of places to take life at whatever pace you wish, unlike many other cities where you feel 3 to 4 days is enough, I think we could easily be happy with a week or so in Sydney.

New Zealand - Backtracking and conclusion

2009-10-23T00:18:00.004+01:00

The two days left before our flight onwards to Sydney were spent backtracking through Wellington and Auckland.

Our first night back in Wellington was spent walking some of the areas we hadn’t spent much time in and some essential if slightly unsuccessful souvenir shopping- by the time we actually got round to shopping the shops were closing, great planning on our part. This did however give us a chance to stroll around the Civic centre; an area that somehow we missed on our first time round. The Civic centre is an area surrounded by many forms of art and art related museums.

Being back in Wellington gave us the chance to go back to our new favourite little Japanese restaurant- Abashi. Once again the food was brilliant and if this place was in the UK I think we would spend a lot of money on their food.

We decided against another bus journey and took the Overlander- a 12 hour train from Wellington straight through to Auckland. To be honest our opinions on the journey were slightly mixed, overall I would say we enjoyed the journey but I don’t think we’d be in a hurry to do it again. Unfortunately we didn’t get a great deal of photographs due to the fact that my photographer managed to sleep for a large proportion of the trip- though she woke for the best views.

I don’t have much to say about our time in Auckland, I think more than anything we were killing time- though fortunately we managed to get some of those souvenirs we were searching for.

This concludes our New Zealand experience and what an experience it’s been, one that will live long in our memories and give us a wealth of events to talk about; from skydiving in Wanaka, to walking a glacier in Franz Josef, dolphin viewing in Picton to simply taking life at our pace and enjoying every minute. Our knowledge of New Zealand has developed from to be honest a complete lack of, bar maybe sheep, mountains and well sheep on mountains, to a competent understanding and intrigue of their young history. We’ll be sad to leave and I feel as if a part of us has been left behind with it, however our journey has not yet finished and we still have many discoveries that await us and our next comes in Sydney.

New Zealand - Waikanae

2009-10-17T11:44:00.004+01:00

This entry is probably more for those who know us personally. Our time in Waikanae was a complete change of pace for us and a very much appreciated one at that. A few days with which to catch up with family and a time that we both enjoyed thoroughly.

As for activities other than lots of conversation, lots of eating, a fair bit of drinking and a lot of remarking how cute the baby was we really didn’t do much else- oh and the family really turned the good weather on for us, it rained almost from the moment we arrived to the moment we left.

Our time wasn’t completely lazy and as a family we took a day out at Lindale, a small complex of shops and eateries and a small farm, which you can take a brief walk around for a small fee. It’s an interesting little area and gives you the chance to meet some of the friendliest farm animals you’ll ever meet- and greediest.

After that we stopped off for an ice cream, what was without a doubt the nicest ice cream we had in our time across NZ. What of little Will I hear you ask… well he slept through the whole thing.

Our next day we decided to take advantage of the rental car and drove down to Paraparaumu, a small beachside resort a short trip from Waikanae. Unfortunately being as useless as we are sometimes we forgot the camera, anyway we took a pleasant stroll along the black beach and then had a lunch at 180 degrees- which in all fairness was amazing. From here we took a drive up to Otaki in search of a walk we had heard about in the national park area, anyway 30 minutes later some very winding gravel roads with fords, unstable edges and sharp drops into the gorge below, we made a joint decision that it was time to head back…… that and the fact if was starting to rain.

Our time in Waikanae had sadly come to end, however positively only a few days before we head to Sydney and we still have the Overlander from Wellington to Auckland to look forward to.

New Zealand - Kaikoura

2009-10-17T11:01:00.007+01:00

Our early morning drive to Kaikoura not only brought the great weather back but it also added a nice amount of dramatic South Island scenery, making the journey feel a lot shorter than what it was.

As stated before Kaikoura is, bar a brief amount of time with family in the Waikanae and surrounding areas and a couple of nights in Wellington and Auckland, the unofficial ending to our NZ trip- though don’t worry we won’t stop writing about our NZ journeys quite yet.

On arrival in Kaikoura we stopped off for a quick breakfast, unfortunately our early start didn’t give us time for anything in Christchurch. We chose the first place we stumbled upon; the Crayfish restaurant, two fry ups later- well one and one vegetarian option, I have to say we weren’t impressed at all but the staff were undeniably friendly. Anyway with that hiccup out of the way we were looking forward to our stay in Kaikoura- a very unique place and amongst very few places in the world where you can surf and ski on the same day. One of my pointless facts but I read the only other places are in Scotland, France, Italy and another one in New Zealand, though you’d probably be better not to quote me on that one.

Having arrived early we took advantage of this rare situation and set out on a walk to the seal colony, the walk takes about 20 - 30 minutes from the centre of town and it’s definitely a must do, especially if you have a perfect day like we did. The area is constantly frequented by rather smelly fur seals sleeping on the beach; and in other much stranger areas.

After some time soaking up the views and laughing at the seals we began the 2 hour walk which loops around the peninsular into a small township, which I believe was called South Bay. From here you can take a short bush walk which leads you back to the centre of Kaikoura- or in our case right back at our hostel. This walk was easily one of our favourite walks across the whole of New Zealand and indisputably beautiful and gave Jen chance to take some wonderful photographs (as she has across the whole trip so far).

From our starting point in the centre of Kaikoura and back took us approximately 4 ½ hours, taking into account plenty of time exploring some of the bays along the walk, watching the seals, taking in some of the breathtaking views and of course some time to refuel our bodies- if you don’t do anything else in Kaikoura make sure you do this.

Day two was planned around an activity we had been looking forward to for sometime- whale watching. Unfortunately it was probably the one thing that I (Jen less so) regret spending the large amount of money that we did. However, before I hit on the negatives I’ll talk about the positives. We did get to see a sperm whale first and foremost, though it was a brief viewing and I didn’t really get many photos or many good ones I should say (again I’ll explain later).

The picture above is the whale’s fin before it’s descent. Other than that we also got to see a fully grown Wandering Albatross, we didn’t manage to get a photo but it’s wingspan was unbelievable. Other than the marine life we saw, I only have positives to say about the tour itself- bombarding you with interesting information about the area and the many different inhabitants. Now unfortunately for the reason I regret doing the trip so much; first of all we may have seen a whale but it was VERY brief and secondly and more to the point- Jen has a habit of feeling sea sick or having motion sickness and the swell was rough to say the least which did leave her feeling ill. However for some reason my body decided, and for the first time ever, it was going to get sea sick, to the point where I had to sleep for almost the entire trip. We came off the trip feeling very deflated and vowing never to do an excursion of that kind ever again- if you’re reading this and thinking of doing it please don’t be put off with my views, they do have a 98% success rate of seeing whales and from what I hear they regularly see more than the single whale. I think in hindsight we would have considered more the Wings over Whales (small plane) option as opposed to the boat- however they both have their pros and cons.

Our last late afternoon/evening was spent strolling around the beach and local area, again the weather really was fantastic for us- a sharp contrast from what we had in Christchurch. Just as the weather was perfect so was our time in Kaikoura and really the icing on the cake for us. As our last ‘new’ place in NZ we couldn’t have wanted more.

New Zealand - Christchurch

2009-10-12T10:34:00.004+01:00

Well Christchurch, what can I say?! I’m not really sure what happened in Christchurch- not really much to be honest. We didn’t dislike it by any means in fact as a city I think we both liked it, the blend of old and new in a similar way to London appeals to us a lot, however as a city to do things in- we really didn’t find much at all. With this said the weather was uncharacteristically bad- funny how the most English place we have come across to date is also reminiscent in terms of weather. Plus maybe we didn’t look as hard as we possibly could have done.

Anyway we arrived late on our first day and the awful weather forced us to hop into a taxi to our hostel, though we had the nicest taxi driver ever, so no real complaints there. Anyway too tired and equally lazy to cook we decided upon something cheap i.e. McDonalds (how very exciting of us), anyway after walking around for a while we decided McDonalds was a bad idea and Mexican food sounded so much more interesting- so we ate out at the Mexican Café. This choice worked out to be a great one as wow was it nice, being massive fans of Mexican food we come to expect a lot from any restaurant that specialises in it and thankfully in this case we were not disappointed. The place also comes with a menu of 40+ different Tequila’s- if that’s your thing, and live Latino guitarists on Thursdays, maybe a fraction noisy for some people mind you.

Anyway day two started in an equally lethargic way- we just didn’t want to rise from our comfortable haven. Anyway when we finally did we hopped on the tram for a 30 minute trip around Christchurch with commentary, greatest features of the tram a)You can use the ticket for 48 hours (ideal for us as the one stop wasn’t far from our accommodation) and b) The auditorium and shopping district the tram passes through are definite highlights.

After our short trip and obligatory coffee stop we headed on with our day, unfortunately the weather restricted our activities, thankfully the cinema came to the rescue and we spent our evening watching ‘The Soloist’.

Our final day in Christchurch and still no great improvement in the weather nor our motivation. However we started our day with a morning excursion to the Saturday arts and crafts market at the Arts Centre, we strolled around for a short time- Jen was determined to get a Maori carving and a Christmas decoration for our future tree; the idea is we have one from each country we visit, unfortunately no luck on either of these. Though fortunately we found a man selling crepes…. we’re on holiday!! Actually eating out was a reoccurring theme on this day. Anyhow after our crepe we headed on to the Christchurch art gallery, now a lot of the gallery was due to open soon so we only saw a fraction of what the gallery has to offer, but it’s free so no complaints on that part. A large amount of the collection was modern art, which without trying to offend I have absolutely no time for. The rest of the works equally bemused me especially those by Séraphine Pick, which I couldn’t relate to in any way or form, many others may be able to understand that on an artistic level, I however shall stick to photography- reassuringly the more artistic part of this duo also wasn’t highly impressed with the works, in her words it was all a bit too fine art and strange … such a way with words. She also complained about the very poor representation of photography and bias towards painting.

Then after the very stressful morning we headed home;

Well maybe not quite home, but the street named after our hometown. We settled down at Coffee House for a mocha and a plate of nachos- who knew nachos from a coffee house could be so good.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wasting time until our dinner reservation at The Bodhi Tree, a Burmese restaurant. Now every part of me wants to love this place; the staff were great, the food was presented well and the restaurant was unique. However, it just wasn’t as good as we expected it be- though in all fairness our expectations were high; the place was booked out every night and the smell when we walked in was fantastic, plus Lonely Planet hypes it up pretty well. The food however…. well it was good but that’s about all I can say, it just wasn’t brilliant, though I’d love to go back and give it another chance.

A very early departure before what is technically our last ‘new’ place- Kaikoura. Though we do have some backtracking to do, back up to Wellington and Auckland and the rental car for our stopover with family in Waikanae, which should hopefully give us the chance to explore a bit more, no need for the tears… yet!

New Zealand - Oamaru

2009-10-11T08:56:00.005+01:00

Arriving into Oamaru’s heritage section and main street has a similar if not more potent effect on you than Napier- the effect of stepping back in town.

Oamaru is probably one of the few places that can thank debt and depression for what it has now become- a true relic to it’s heritage and history. A town that is masked with an eccentric vibe, from the old Victorian dress you see people wearing to the horse and carts dotted around the historic part of town- even down to the main active railway line which cuts right through the centre of town and the odd penguin crossing street signs.

Oddly enough and the significance of this is for my family, it’s twinned with the UK city of Devizes.

Having arrived reasonably early we had the chance to check out the Blue Penguin colony on our first night, the main attraction of Oamaru. The penguins stand at a mere 16 inches tall and only weight in at 1kg, so very small. You pay about $20 (£9) which goes back into the blue penguin charity, the whole event is very peculiar- to sum up the evening you sit in a stand with many other tourists watching a cliff, some sea and a garden with lots of little huts inside it…Confused? We were! Anyway a couple of little penguins start heading out of the sea and very tentatively begin to head up the cliff onto land, as time goes by more and more (112 in total) of the little penguins come out of the sea. I found the whole experience to be very odd, though admittedly the little guys were very cute and wow can they make a noise and we were pumping money back into a conservation programme which I have no issue with at all.

Anyway after the late finish we headed back, walking past a few penguins waddling down the street- a strange experience. Unlike many of the other tourists we heeded the DOC (department of conservation) warning that taking photographs of the penguins can damage their eye sight and frighten them, clearly many people don’t understand simple rules.

Our second full day in Oamaru was planned around visiting the yellow penguin colony, a smaller and much rarer colony than that of the blues. However we started our morning with a trek around the Cape Wanbrow Reserve and a walk up to the lookout point, which looks onto the township of Oamaru and the south Pacific sea.

After a brief amount of time taking in the views, we began our walk to the yellow penguin colony. We decided against the boring walk along the road and on the tramp over the beach and through the scenic reserve, which in all fairness is definitely the more picturesque;

Unfortunately for us and not so unfortunate in other ways, a large group of seals blocked our path and to be honest I didn’t really feel like pushing them out of the way, though we did stop to get some photographs- without getting too close of course.

After turning back we took the not so scenic but still interesting walk along the road to the yellow penguin colony, once there we only stayed for 30 - 40 minutes and unfortunately didn’t get a glimpse of any, though we did catch one of a very lazy fur seal. We would have stayed around longer but the weather got very cold very quick and we were very under prepared.

Our last day before heading to Christchurch started out with ourselves being lost for what to actually do, being in very indecisive moods. Our natural flow took us for a stroll around the Oamaru botanical gardens- complete with an aviary, Chinese gardens and many other intricate little features- if you have a short while to spare I think we’d both recommend doing it.

Before we shot off we really thought we better check out the Whitestone cheese factory- considering Oamaru is quite famous for it’s regional cheese. We didn’t actually do the factory itself so can’t comment on that instead we decided upon a short visit to the café for a cheese platter between the two of us- definitely worth it.

New Zealand - Dunedin

2009-10-10T08:25:00.003+01:00

The drive from Queenstown to Dunedin was very British, long rolling sheep farms as far as the eye could see.

Unfortunately I was still feeling slightly worse for wear during our time in Dunedin so we were still taking things at a slower pace than usual.

Dunedin is not just Scottish in name it also has many similarities with cities in Scotland itself- namely Edinburgh. On arrival in Dunedin we took some time to get our bearings in New Zealand’s biggest city (in terms of actual ground as opposed to population). Our first port of call was the Chinese gardens, a stark contrast to their surrounding areas, the area itself is very small and literally takes 5-10 minutes but worth a look.

Our first full day in Dunedin began at the most photographed building in Dunedin

Our excursion out on the Taieri Gorge railway was a four and half hour return journey to Pukerangi- the journey itself was great and we were once again witness to great views, however personally I don’t think I could justify the price if we didn’t have the hostel members discount. Though again with that said we really did enjoy our day out and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Jen not fall asleep on public transport.

After our journey out on the Taieri planes we hopped on a bus from the Octagon and headed out on without a doubt the most touristy thing we had done over our entire NZ trip- Baldwin street. Baldwin street is according to the Guiness book of world records, the steepest residential street in the world, unsurprisingly enough it’s quite a tough walk to the top though some great views of the surrounding areas can be had.

Our stay in Dunedin was very short and sweet, really not a great deal to write about. Next on to the penguin orientated town of Oamaru.

New Zealand - Queenstown

2009-10-09T09:09:00.004+01:00

In advance our Queenstown report will probably be a little short, this is down to the unfortunate case of myself falling quite ill and Jen having to deal with me. With this said, we did make the effort to do as much as we could, though unfortunately our plan to go to Milford Sound had to be called off... a real shame.

Anyway we arrived in Queenstown and once again we felt drawn to the area immediately, probably because it looks a lot like Wanaka- just on a busier scale and wow was it busy when we arrived.
Our late arrival only gave us the chance to really get supplies, while we’re on that subject, the Fresh Choice brand of supermarket has quite an ironic name, considering both times we’ve been into one the food has been far from fresh (I complain too much). An evening stroll around the harbour area conjoined with meeting a lovely American girl- Paige, ended our night.

Our first full day and determined to get what I could out of the day and the good weather, though I only managed half a day, was spent on the Gondola to the Skyline resort- probably one of the steepest Gondola rides I’ve ever been on. Though well worth it as at the top we greeted with what we both agreed was the greatest view we had seen on our travels in New Zealand.

Postcard perfect or what?! This also gave us both the chance to have another go on the Luge, not quite as good as the one in Rotorua but none the less great fun. After spending some degree of time soaking up that amazing view and equally the perfect weather, we descended down to the base of the mountain and decided upon a game of mini-golf; Jen just wanted to get one back on me after losing in Taupo- she failed, evidently I’m just a better mini golfer. A quick walk around Queenstown park to discover the first European to inhabit Queenstown was a man from Jen’s dads hometown of Haverford West.

Also, we had the chance to watch the odd sport of Frisbee golf (no explanation needed it’s pretty much as it sounds)- which looked like it needed much more skill than me and Jenny possess.

The next day we decided with the weather still in our favour we would head down to Arrowtown. On arrival I mentioned to Jen that the little place reminded me of Hay On Wye in Wales, she agreed. In a sense it really does but then again on the other hand it couldn’t be any more opposite from Hay. Arrowtown is a preserved old gold mining town, complete with buildings of that period and a handful of little shops and quite a few cafés- even though I enjoyed the town I have to say it felt far too touristy (ironic I know).

We strolled around the town before picking one of the more modern café’s down the small backstreets, Snatch. I had the very American breakfast of bacon on spicy French toast with banana and maple syrup… a concoction that oddly enough does work and I’m sure will keep me pretty slim, I think even though she’s a vegetarian Jen was very envious of my dish.

After that hearty meal a walk was needed, so we walked along the old Chinese settlement- an area inhabited by Chinese immigrants during the gold mining Rush (a few of the buildings still stand) in Arrowtown, the walk is very easy; though informative and well worth a look.

Some time spent chilling out in the sun on the riverbank was on the cards next- or in my case falling asleep.
Our final full day in Queenstown brought another slow day, though greeted us with a fantastic surprise in the morning… snow.

Though this does have one drawback, that of course being the cold weather. We headed down for the obligatory warm up drink at Patagonia- who do an amazing Mexican chilli hot chocolate- it works but it’s ridiculously sickly. We had intended to look around the Saturday morning Art and Crafts market along the riverfront, though due to the morning snow it had been called off bar a few stalls. Enough may I add for Jen to go jewellery shopping. Our alternative plan was a short visit to a free observatory under the lake, letting you see the fish in their natural habitat- the highlights though clearly being New Zealand’s only true diving duck and the not so beautiful eel.

Having been told by a British guy in Wanaka, who was incidentally from Worcester (a short drive from our own city), that we can’t leave without trying the famous Fergburger, I felt no matter what state I was in it just had to be done- and I was glad it was done, though it was the most ridiculous sized burger we’ve both had.
So much for the short entry, anyway onto Dunedin next.

New Zealand - Wanaka

2009-10-07T07:20:00.007+01:00

Our journey from Franz Josef to Wanaka was again full of amazing and varied scenery and it gave us the chance to see one of those great rarities…. a Bison cleaning a lamb- we just couldn’t make these things up. As with our Franz Josef journey we were again given, on two occasions, some time to get off the bus and wonder around. This time we got off at Thunder Creeks fall for a short 10-15 minute bush walk.

And secondly (though I believe I’ve done this in the wrong order) a VERY small beachside resort that I unfortunately can’t recall the name of. Anyhow, the small township has become very famous for stone stacks (or pieces of art) that have been created across the beachfront- it was started by one man who made a few and then more people followed the trend; now the entire beachfront is covered.

Immediately on arrival in Wanaka we were very taken by the setting and surroundings, Lake Wanaka is covered on every side by mountainous regions including the very sought after skiing destination of Coronet Peak. The town itself is quite small though with plenty of shops and cafes etc.

Anyway our first evening we decided to splash out on a meal, we chose a little restaurant called ‘The White House’, the reason for our choice; it reminded of us of our time in Santorini, which to date remains one of, if not our favourite destination around the world. The white and blue villa looks like a replica of an Oia/Fira home. Our meal there was very good, serving a nice range of Mediterranean meals. It also gave me chance to sample some of Wanaka Beerwork’s own beer- which was very nice.

Our first full day in Wanaka started in such a slow manor, actually we have nothing of any real great interest to say about the first part of the day…. Perhaps maybe the very minor action of jumping out of a plane. Ok maybe it’s not that minor, in fact it was without a doubt the greatest thing we have ever done in our lives, a feeling that is near impossible to replicate through written verses. The views on our ten minute flight to 12,000ft were simply amazing and I think we both made the effort to take as much in as humanly possibly. Equally, the views on the way down are just as impressive, though falling through the sky at 120+ mph it’s quite hard to really concentrate on anything. It’s an experience that I cannot praise enough and an area that I rate extremely high. If anyone has ever considered doing it, do it, while you have the chance it really is amazing. Sorry but no photographs (if you read on you will see some of the views we saw), though for friends and family we have DVD’s that I’m sure we will bore both you and ourselves with many times when we get back.

Straight after our skydive and pumped full of adrenalin we decided to ascend the 549m Mt Iron, the walk was quite steep in places, though we did see lots of crazy people running it- the loop walk itself only takes about 1 ½ hours, though take some time to really appreciate the views at the top.

Still being left with a buzz all day we decided to treat ourselves with a trip to the most eccentric cinema we have ever been to, the Paradiso cinema. With only one screen and not a whole lot of seats it’s definitely not the most grandeur cinema we’ve ever been to- however what it lacks in size it definitely compensates for in character, being laid out with old but very comfortable couches and lounge chairs and even a little yellow car you can sit in. Attached to the cinema is a little café, where you can order curries, pizzas, wraps, beer, wine and may other things- the greatest thing is they bring your pizza/curry to you while you’re watching the film…. amazing. Unfortunately the lighting meant the pictures we took didn’t come out very well, but this should give you an idea.

Our final part day before leaving for Queenstown was spent on a kayak around Lake Wanaka- an experience that I don’t think either of us will replicate in a hurry, our teamwork skills were non existent and I think it may be wise if we have our own kayak next time. After that not so special experience we decided to reside in a little café for our short time left.

New Zealand - Franz Josef

2009-10-05T09:30:00.005+01:00

Back to Richard.
After a ten hour bus journey from Nelson down the west coast we arrived in the glacier town of Franz Josef- named so by the Austrian explorer Haast. He named it after the Austrian emperor of that period, which made a nice change considering he named most of the southern south island after himself- a modest man. The journey gave us a chance to get acquainted with some of the South Island scenery, which we had heard all the way through our North Island leg is much more superior. All we can say, with the highest regards to the North Island, is that the scenery was absolutely awe inspiring- seemingly a million miles away from expansive miles of mundane British motorways, granted they get you to your destination in a lot shorter time. It seems New Zealand roads are built to compliment their surroundings while giving the driver too much to look at around them (New Zealand bus drivers truly have the best offices in the world). On route we had chance for two quick stop offs in Punakaiki and Hokitika- Punakiki is famous for it’s pancake rocks and blowholes, a series of rocks that have been formed by weathering processes- a quick 15 minute walk around the park gives some spectacular views, though to be honest it was a nice day with relatively calm seas, so the blowholes weren’t quite as active as our driver informed us they could be.

From Punakiki we headed to Hokitika, a very small and sleepy seaside resort (though I hear it‘s bustling in the summer months). For some reason I felt as if we were in a modernised version of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Anyway we spent our time strolling along the expansive beachfront and in one of my wiser moments I decided to stand quite close to the sea- I may add the tide was quite far away from me at that time- the result was me getting wet which Jen found hilarious. A quick note waterproof shoes are great unless the water gets in from the top.

Anyway after a long and very tiring drive with a slightly erratic driver we arrived in Franz Josef, a town that markets itself on one thing, the glacier- even though it is one of 3000+ in NZ.

To get your bearings in Franz Josef takes a few minutes (it’s really that small), we decided as we hadn’t had the chance to see any gloworms yet, that we would take this FREE chance to see them. We headed out with our head torch to the 5-10 minute bush walk just outside town; the path was pitch black and Jen was a little frightened but as we got further in we found the overturned branch with about 20-30 little gloworms inside (no picture unfortunately), granted it probably wasn’t as exciting as the thousands you’d see in Waitoma, but it was still pretty cool.

Our first and last day in Franz Josef was a day we had been looking forward to for sometime now and probably one of the things we had already picked as being our highlight of our trip- the day we walked on the glacier. I think we were slightly concerned we’d miss things as we’d chosen to do the half day walk, mainly due to costs. A feeling that we really didn’t have after completing. The half day walk was well worth it and not half as difficult as we’d expected bar the original ascent onto the ice and the nimble rock climbing pieces, though there were many people older than us that managed it.

The walk itself lasted just over four hours with two hours spent on the glacier itself, the first and last hour is spent walking through the regenerated rainforest and the valley. Once out on the valley you get the first view of the glacier.

At first we were confused as they said the walk to the glacier from the car park would last an hour and the walk through the forest had only been 10 - 15 minutes, until a guide told us about what is the greatest optical illusion we have ever seen- due to the mass of ice on the glacier it seems much closer than it is (hopefully the picture does this justice); the point where we were stood to take the picture was approximately 45 minutes from the Glacier. When we got our gear on (the guides provide you with coats, hats, gloves, boats, socks and the essential Crampons) we began our walk along the glacier, taking in some great views while we were up there, both of the glacier and the surrounding areas.

On the way down we met one of the southern islands’ mischievous locals, known for tearing rubber of cars- the Kea (it looks like a Parrot).

After our not so stressful walk we decided to go and have a relaxing afternoon in the Glacier Mountain Pools in the 40 degree waters- Jen however preferred the Tauranga hot salt pools, though admittedly the Franz Josef setting of lush rainforest was nicer.

Next up Wanaka, an area we were equally excited about for a completely different reason, read on.

New Zealand - Nelson

2009-09-27T09:52:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately the weather seemed to follow us all the way to Nelson on our afternoon bus, with one slight alteration- it got a LOT colder. First stop in Nelson to get myself a hat; it really was that cold.

After that essential action we sorted out our next day trip to Abel Tamsen National Park, named after the Dutch explorer of similar name. We did however end up feeling slightly deflated, as we realised we weren’t going to have any chance to venture around Nelson and see what it’s like- another downfall to planning everything in advance.

Anyway from this point on you will be glad to know I have a guest writer for this entry- Jenny.

The day of our walk at the Abel Tamsen dawned misty but dry. Thankfully it wasn’t too cold; after an unsuccessful frantic search for a cheap fleece the afternoon before, I had nothing warm but my 6 layers + waterproof. We had a very informative 1 - 2 hour long bus journey to Kaiteriteri, during which I tried desperately to stay awake to listen to the driver- a very interesting, knowledgeable and passionate Kiwi. On arrival at Kaiteriteri the boat took us to Anchorage Bay. A little stomach lurching for us both but there was a cute dog to distract us. By this point it was raining, and it was with some trepidation that I stepped onto the yellow sand. The walk took us through the bush and up to the hills, this being the hardest section of the path, though giving great views of the surrounding area. A little breathless after trying to keep up with Richard (as usual) we hit level ground and the path continued this way for the remainder of the walk.

The time passed quickly with the stimulating conversation I kept up with Rich. Joke. Communication was difficult with him half a mile in front of me, and with our matching waterproof hoods up. The only challenging parts were when we left the main path to Marahua for a couple of the bays that line the track, the kind which on a beautiful summer day you could easily lose hours on. In the drizzle, we lost probably only about 10 minutes on each. Having only seen a few other walkers, the beaches felt very remote and very wild, and very beautiful. We sat on the rocks on one to eat our hummus and lettuce sandwiches (again), whilst being watched by a very big seagull.

Near the end of the walk we bumped into a bunny. The cute, cuddy kind. It was happily munching on grass on a path, and had no problem with our presence, even when we stood right next to it. It didn’t seem to be blind or deaf, it was fully grown, plump, with glossy black fur and I’m sure I could have picked it up. So. Either NZ has very tame, fluffy wild black rabbits, or we walked away from someone’s long lost pet.

Four and a half hours and approximately 13km later we were still feeling good, if a little wet and cold. Being such an easy walk the time passed very quick. We had passed through thick, lush bush and over beautiful waterfalls. The only sounds were the sea, the rain dripping through the leaves and the very occasional bird. The end of the walk brought us out into the open and over a couple of long wooden bridges over shallow water. We had about an hour or so to kill before the bus picked us up. A quick walk through an interesting sculpture and carving garden, opposite which was a warm looking café for a much needed hot chocolate..

Back to the cosy hostel for yet more (but free) hot chocolate and cake for our last night in Nelson. Shame about not being able to spend more time here, but up early tomorrow for the long, long journey to Franz Josef.

New Zealand - Picton

2009-09-27T08:06:00.003+01:00

A short and thankfully calm trip over by ferry from Wellington landed us at our base for the next two nights- Picton. A town that markets itself or is referred to as ‘The Gateway To The South Island’ and Picton is exactly that, a small town that is mostly used as a port and that’s about it. The town itself is a quaint little harbour town that is definitely in our opinion worth a stopover, if only a short one.

We arrived with plenty of the day to spare and our plan was to rent a car for the next day, so we could explore Picton, Blenheim and the surrounding areas. Being only a day the prices ranged from $80 to $120 (£36 to £54) prices that we decided to not go with. We didn’t have much of our day left as we had spent a large proportion of our time contemplating what to do over a drink at the Waterfront Café; which does the best Strawberry smoothie I have ever had, though Jen informs me that in contrast they also do the worst coffee she’s ever had, clearly they just like me more than her.

What we time we did have left we spent discovering the pleasures of having a swimming pool at our hostel, that’s right a pool at a hostel- has to be a first, and for our evening meal we went to Oxley’s on London Quay, coincidentally once again my dinner was better than Jen’s- something tells me she’s just getting picky in her old age, though I did agree her pizza was pretty poor.

Our second day in Picton was a beautiful day though we were sort of lost as to what to do, having originally planned our day around the car. We did decide to walk the Snout bay via Queen Charlotte’s View track, which took us about four and a half hours including many photo opportunities and lunch at the end of the Snout Track, watching the world go by. The walk is very scenic, though quite challenging in parts.

Our final day in Picton and oh how the weather changes quickly in New Zealand, overnight we were witness to our first storm- though it wasn’t a massive storm by any means and we woke to heavy downfall. Having to carry our backpacks around with us, we decided against doing anything strenuous in the awful weather. Instead, we stopped by Gusto’s for a Hot Chocolate… such a hard life.

Onto Nelson next.

New Zealand - Wellington

2009-09-26T10:42:00.006+01:00

We probably chose the busiest time to arrive in a city ever. Saturday Evening at 19:00 and incidentally the same day the All Blacks play the Wallabies- Wow was it busy.

On arrival we decided to take the chance, being in a big city, to splash out on a nice meal for the first time. So we strolled back and forth down Courtenay place to the point our feet were about to fall off- though we did work up an appetite. We finally decided upon a Japanese restaurant which I believe was called Arashi Japanese Restaurant, though don’t quote me on that, it wasn’t too far from the Courtenay Place/Cambridge Terrace intersection. Anyway it was our first experience with a Japanese restaurant and all I can say was it was brilliant, the presentation and taste of the food was amazing- in hindsight we really should have taken a picture. Jen even managed to eat her whole meal with chopsticks and didn’t need to ask for a knife and fork- granted not using anything more graceful than a shovelling action. We also had our first great bottle of NZ wine, a Saints Gisborne Gewürztraminer. Anyway a bottle of wine and quite a few shots of Sake later we were merrily done for the evening.

To start breakfast at Plums on Cuba Street- the Mini Vege Plumster isn’t joking about being mini.
Our first full day involved a visit to the obligatory cable car, via everywhere else in Wellington; Jen’s map reading got us very lost…she says it was me but I blame her. Anyway thankfully we made it there the same day and it was turning out to be such a beautiful day- not a cloud in the sky. The cable car takes a matter of minutes and offers great views of the city from the top.

From the top we noted how small Wellington looks for a capital city. While there we decided to go into true holiday mode and spend some time soaking up some of the sun and work on our tans- or lack of.
After our lazy early afternoon we spent the rest of the time walking around the botanical gardens. Clearly the rest of Wellington had the same idea, not that I really blame them.

Our second full day in Wellington was much cooler than the previous day, which seems to be a pattern in NZ- one warm day is always seemingly followed by a colder or much cooler day. Two words could explain our second full day; Free and Museum. Our first free museum for the day was the Weta Caves museum, officially the smallest museum in the history of museums.

The Weta Caves are responsible for much of the figurines, armour, weapons, clothing and miniatures for many Hollywood blockbusters including Hellboy, Chronicles Of Narnia, Braindead, King Kong and most notably the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. The museum itself is more a shop with mini museum attached, the mini museum is probably smaller than the majority of peoples sitting rooms. There is also a 15-20 minute really interesting video that gives you a little behind the scenes information on the artists behind the work you see on the big screen.

Next on the list the Te Papa museum of New Zealand. The museum is great, especially if you have younger ones or a Richard. The museum includes a lot of interactive artefacts and covers a wide variety of subjects not too dissimilar to the Auckland Museum. The museums main attraction is the female colossal squid on display (obviously not living), which is the only Colossal squid on display in any museum in the world. Excluding the squid there is much more to keep you entertained, maybe too much for one day. The museum spans six floors including some outside exhibits and is definitely worth a visit, especially considering it’s free.

Our morning ferry crossing to the South Island and destination for the next couple of days; Picton.

New Zealand - Napier

2009-09-24T09:49:00.005+01:00

Before I crack on with the Napier trip report, the journey between Taupo and Napier started with my first mistake of the trip, I booked the right bus, right day but wrong month…… woops. However it did put forth some cracking scenery and this will probably be the only time you will ever hear me say this; the rain added to the great mysticism of the whole journey. The scenery also looked very much like that from middle earth (Lord Of The Rings reference for those of you who don‘t know).

Arriving early evening in Napier, we only really had the chance to stroll around and give into our current obsession- the cinema, we yet again went to see a film.

Next day we were greeted by the wonderful sunshine, so our first port of call was breakfast; using the philosophy of eat wherever the locals eat, we choose café Ujazi. Which was absolutely amazing, a cooked breakfast on traditional Maori bread (not too dissimilar to soda bread). From the café a visit to the Art Deco shop- which offers a free short film into the history of the art deco style and how it was implemented into Napier’s streets. Then taking what we received from the video we headed for the streets and gardens of Napier and I can tell you Jen really was in her element, photographs galore.

Along the seafront Marine Parade is the National Aquarium of New Zealand, at $16 (approx £6
.80) it may seem like quite a reasonable price- however both myself and Jen really did not deem it worthwhile, when compared to other aquariums we have been to. Plus myself and Jen are not fans of animals confined to small environments and when it came to the crocodile and giant turtle- the areas they were confined to were way too small. Our evening was spent with a couple of beers in yet another Irish bar- the New Zealanders really like their Irish bars.

Our leaving day in Napier didn’t greet us with quite such a positive start in terms of weather. However it still left Jen feeling like she could have quite easily spent a few more days in Napier if not longer; the disadvantage of not having a car and working to a set plan. What short amount of time we had left we decided to first of all explore Bluff Hill- which is approximately a 30 minute walk from Napier’s CBD and past the historic prison.. Once up the hill, you get good views of the surrounding area- definitely better on a clear summers day. Back in town and we went for a quick latte and chai latte (plus cakes) at café Ujazi- it’s really that good. Anyway we had to move on and our final North Island stop and capital of New Zealand awaits- Wellington.

New Zealand - Taupo

2009-09-20T07:12:00.005+01:00

A short and somewhat uninteresting 1 hour drive from Rotorua brought us to Taupo our destination for the next couple of nights. Our first opinion of Taupo was very positive and it gave us a chance to get our first glimpse of snow on the mountains- granted they weren’t exactly close but hey we still saw them. If you have a good eye there is a small possibility you may be able to see it yourself, we did get a better unclouded view ourselves but for some unknown reason didn’t take a picture.

Instead of sampling all of the fine NZ dishes on our first evening in Taupo, we chose to eat at the cheap alternative of Pizza Hut- how exciting of us! Though this neatly leads me into a question that has been playing on my mind; why is it that a lot of restaurants across the country seem to be closed on a Tuesday? Anyway, continuing our very non New Zealand themed day we headed to the Irish bar, Mulligan’s. However this did lead to me having my first pint of Tui, which was incidentally my first NZ beer- though no worries Jen carried on the non NZ theme with a couple of Amaretto and cokes.

Day two in Taupo was a day we had both been equally as excited about for some time, the day we went out on the Huka Falls Jet. For those of you who don’t know what that is, I’ll try and give a quick explanation; the Huka Falls Jet tears around the Huka Falls at about 50+ mph, the engine is run by the intake of water which is ejected out of the back, it swings past a variety of objects coming within a matter of inches (not exaggerating) and every so often doing 360 degree turns- resulting in getting a little wet, though in Jen’s case this was less a little and more a substantial amount, in my case however; very little. Unfortunately neither of us could take any pictures, as you can imagine it probably wouldn’t have been the most sensible thing to have a camera with you. However despair not, friends and family will see some proof on our return.

After our very exciting beginning to the day, the pace slowed down. From the Jet we headed to the Huka Falls track taking about ¾ of an hour - 1 hour. At the end of track you are greeted by the falls- granted we had just seen them via the boat but it was nice to be able to take some photographs and chill out.

From here we took the 1 hour - 1 hour 30 minute trek back to Taupo, this did include some time taking photographs and watching people bungy jump. Jen was completely against the idea, I was however considering it- by considering of course I mean a brief thought went through my mind… I mean come on;

Screw loose comes to mind! Anyway I digressed from the walk. The walk itself is an amazing path along the Waikato river. Which is definitely the clearest and cleanest river we have ever seen, Jen was completely in awe of it- taking into consideration she absolutely hates water, I think she was contemplating swimming in it.

I don’t think a picture can ever really do justice to the river, unfortunately we didn’t have any swimming gear and it was way too cold to go skinny dipping.

Our final day in Taupo was a very chilled out event and gave us a chance to soak up Taupo’s atmosphere and to reflect on a place I personally very much enjoyed, though Jen has Coromandel firmly in top place at the moment. This also gave me the chance to prove my male superiority at a game of mini golf. I did thankfully manage to prove this, though it was a close affair and I didn’t gloat at all…well maybe a little bit. In reflection Taupo is a place I definately rate quite highly and an area that I would love to visit again.

Next up and an area that I foresee rating very high in Jen’s books; Napier.

New Zealand - Rotorua

2009-09-15T10:24:00.008+01:00

On arrival in Rotorua, we were greeted by the sulphur rich air- you have to love the smell of rotten egg. This is due to the fact that Rotorua has the highest geo thermal activity in the whole of NZ, thus bringing millions of excited tourists every year, two of which being myself and Jen.

We arrived quite late in the evening, so as with most first days our evening was spent wondering around getting used to the area, Rotorua is a city that is similar size to that of our own hometown and yet it’s expansive amounts of shops and restaurants completely puts our hometown to shame. The city or township as they are generally referred to in NZ is set out much in the same way as towns in the states. For our evening meal we were highly adventurous and chose Nando’s - it’s cheap, which also gave us the chance to watch the All Blacks play for the first time. I must admit when it comes to Rugby I’m pretty clueless (more of a football/soccer man) and Jen had no idea what was going on AT ALL.

On our first full day we realised how much there is to do in Rotorua and also the fact that we were inevitably going to spend a lot of money- oh well we’re on holiday. So our day started with a sightseeing tour of the area and the three lakes; Lake Rotorua and the originally named Green and Blue lakes. It was however a tour with a difference, on a 60 year old American amphibious truck aptly named the Duck.

The tour was unique, interesting and ridiculously funny. After our tour we jumped on one of the city buses and headed out to Skyline sky adventures, where due to some mechanical issues we couldn’t go up the gondola (cable car) though this worked to our advantage as it saved us a significant amount of money and we were offered the alternative free bus journey up the hill- bargain. When at the top we hopped on the luge, for those of you unfamiliar with the luge, basically you sit in a sledge with wheels with a bar in front of you that you push forward to go and back to brake, you then hurtle down a mile and a half downhill track round sharp bends that in this case sit on the edge of quite dramatic drops at whatever speed you choose; which in my case was very fast and a lot slower in Jen’s. After the thrill you head back up in a ski lift to the top to do it again, the ski lift was worst part of the whole thing- I dislike heights especially when you’re sitting in a small metal seat dangling over open air.

Jen decided from here the best bet would be to walk back to Kuirau Park, which is a volcanic park you can wonder around completely free of charge. Anyway Jen’s short walk turned out to be about 40 minutes away, I knew I shouldn’t have believed her. The park itself is complete with a crater like lake, sulphur pools, boiling mud with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Celsius and a lot of very unpleasant smells, however it’s definitely worth a visit.

After our (not so) hard day we decided to get a bottle of wine and we finally found a wine that we liked while in New Zealand- our sweet tooth isn’t catered for much by the looks of it, unfortunately the wine was from Australia… sacrilege.

Our second day was based around the main thing we wanted to while in Rotorua, which was Wai-O-Tapu and the Lady Knox Geyser. The Lady Knox Geyser erupts everyday around 10:15am with the help of a little bit of soap to induce the explosion.

From the geyser we headed out to the main park, unfortunately our allotted tour time wasn’t as much as we would have wanted, though we did manage to do the entire walk (75 minutes return) and time to photograph- though we were both in agreement we could have spent a lot more time strolling around. Having said that we were glad to be smelling reasonably normal air after an hour and a half. The area is great for photograph opportunities, and the effects of the chemical deposits give off some amazingly surreal colours. The park also comes complete with many craters, a waterfall and a massive champagne pool (named so because of the bubbling effect).

As the weather was so nice we decided to spend our afternoon chilling at Lake Rotorua, this soon changed as I decided to become the captain of my own ship… a scary thought for those of you who know me. We rented a Pontoon boat for the afternoon and went tearing around the lake- well, maybe more like a leisurely stroll but it did seem pretty quick. Jen had no trust in my driving skills and I think she was glad to see the sight of land on return, though she did get some pictures of our nautical adventure.

From here we were in desperate need of an ice cream due to the great weather, we found a little place called Lady Jane’s ice cream parlour and the ice cream was AMAZING, so many flavours- Jen was in heaven and it was pretty good value.

Our final day before departed to Lake Taupo was a short one so we spent the day walking around the government gardens and walking around the Rotoura museum of art and history. The museum is quite small and unfortunately there was a lot of construction walk going on, however the exhibitions were informative and interesting- especially the history of the bath houses.

New Zealand - Tauranga

2009-09-15T10:03:00.004+01:00

On arrival in Tauranga, we were met by a bout of poor weather. Unfortunately this wasn’t the only negative thing about our time in Tauranga. When arriving in every new place it has taken some time for us to adapt to the difference- settling in an area we enjoy and then moving on leaves us judging the new town/city on the strengths of the last area but given a short amount of time we begin to accept the new area for whatever it is and what it has to offer. However we never received a positive vibe from Tauranga, the city itself (no offence to the inhabitants of Tauranga) was very bland and I kept striking similarities with Gloucester in the UK, which is incidentally one of the areas of my home country I really do not like. We also found the city to be the most unclean area we had found along our travels in NZ to date.

Anyhow I don’t want to sound like we are complaining too much, so I shall move onto the actual trip report.

We arrived mid afternoon from Coromandel town, we spent the majority of the afternoon getting our bearings and sipping coffee in a café along the strand; a long strip in Tauranga packed with cafés, restaurants and bars. Our evening went by pretty fast and feeling completely unmotivated to cook anything we decided to take the chance to pop out for a meal, we headed down to Zeytin- a modern Turkish restaurant who use original clay ovens to cook the food… unfortunately and here come’s another complaint, our food sounded much better on the menu than it actually was.

Our second day and only full day in Tauranga started in a much similar way to that of the first- very dreary weather. Our first port of call was Mt Managuanui, the walk up the mountain takes approximately an hour return but then we did take the difficult track, I believe the intermediate track adds another 20 minutes or so to the walk and I would presume it’s a lot easier. The walk was quite hard, obviously all uphill and a lot of steps. Once at the top you are rewarded with panoramas of the surrounding areas; cue pictures (shame it wasn’t a clear day)!

After our trek we decided to head down to the hot salt water pools at the bottom; this is a great thing to do after the walk. The pools are outdoors and temperatures range from 37 to 40 degrees Celsius, which bestows a very strange feeling in you, especially when it’s drizzling and the prevailing winds are quite cold and yet your amazingly warm. Our evening was spent with a visit to a cinema that I cannot remember the name of; though it officially had the most comfortable seats I have ever sat on. Oh, an we watched Up! Which to anyone is interested is without a doubt the best Pixar film to date.

Hoping the weather will get better, our next destination involves heading south to Rotorua.

New Zealand - Coromandel

2009-09-10T06:22:00.007+01:00

Once again we depart Auckland, though this time our destination was different and this would be the last time we would see Auckland for a month and half. However we had a quick chance to pop into Santos for a breakfast, again confirming that this is probably the best breakfast we have ever ate- at that point Jen interrupted me to state there is no probably about it and I have to admit she’s probably right.

Our destination this time; Coromandel town. The drive between Auckland and Thames wasn’t at all interesting to be honest, mostly factories, warehouses and motorway as scenery. However, as soon as we left Thames towards Coromandel town we were witness to one, if not the, best drives I have ever been on. The coastal road was equally jaw dropping as it was frighteningly scary, some of the corners were ridiculous and Jen was quite happy she wasn‘t driving.

On arrival in Coromandel Town we were shocked at just how quiet it was, but then what do you expect from a town with a population of under 2,000?! Anyhow the whole place has such a relaxed feel to it and yet again some amazing backdrops. Our once again late arrival just gave us chance to get our bearings and check out what we were going to do, though we had already decided that we could use our time in Coromandel to do a bit of walking.

The next day and our first full day we rose nice and early and decided to ride the 4km track from our hostel to the Driving Creek Railway. If you’re in Coromandel for a day or more I highly suggest checking this out, it costs $20 (£8.75) each and all money gets put back into the conservation of the site, which is now a heritage site. To describe everything would take me too long, but I will say it really shows what one man (with help) can achieve. Also the railway takes you to the aptly name Eyefull tower, which has great panoramas of the Coromandel peninsular.

Just down the road is a small café, called the Driving Creek Café. It’s a little organic vegetarian/vegan place and they do some phenomenal cakes, oh and the mint hot chocolate is worth your hard earned cash.

Our afternoon was spent doing some of the local walks, first of all we headed to the Kauri Block Pa Track, (anyone heading to NZ can get a local walk map from the I - Site for $1) this track was about a 30-40 minute walk from our hostel.

Once there the walk itself takes approximately 40 minutes and takes you through some of the new Kauri plantations and up to the Pa point, which again offers some great panoramas of the surrounding areas. Would you believe it, once we reached the top the camera battery ran out… great timing. I did however manage to get a picture halfway up, unfortunately it wasn’t the greatest. The walk itself was reasonably easy, though definitely easier from the Harbour View road side. Next up and I apologise for boring whoever is reading, was the Taumatawahine Reserve walk, try saying that after a few beers, scrap that try saying that before a few beers. It took about another 30 minutes to get to from the Kauri Block track, though the walk itself only took 15 minutes and doesn’t really have anything of great interest to offer; well nothing that can’t be found on any other bush walk.

Just to undo all the good we had done, we decided to have a bottle of wine and our first New Zealand fish and chips experience. I had Tarakihi, which was the first time I had ever heard of the fish let alone ate it, though my dictionary helpfully tells me it’s an edible fish- that’s always nice to know. It kind of reminded me of Tuna, though this could be me and my ignorance when it comes to fish. Both myself and Jen, even though we had enjoyed our meal, slightly missed the greasy mush we have for fish and chips back at home- god knows why!

Our last day on the Coromandel started in a very lazy way. The complete silence of the area, excluding the sounds of the Tui (a native bird that has a very unique song), made us not want to rise from our comfortable abode. When we did finally rise, we were bit bemused as to what we could do; not having a car really limits the possibilities as to what you can do on the peninsular. Thankfully, our hosts Rae and Tuck came to our rescue in the form of a lift up to the Kauri Grove walk, which only takes about 15 - 20 minutes but factoring in some good photographing time is essential - needless to say this is what we did.

These were the oldest Kauri trees we had seen to date and clocked in at the young age of 600 years just a baby in comparison to the oldest, which lasted an impressive 4000 years old. From there we headed along the 309 Road (they call it a road, however to us Brits it was just a gravel track) to the Waiau Falls.

Our next stop was a rather unique day out- the Waiau Waterworks, a sort of gardens with many water powered contraptions and attractions. Odd to describe and even odder to experience, though I again would highly recommend it; a regression to our younger years for both of us. We didn’t capture many images as we were trying to keep the camera dry.

Next destination; Tauranga.

New Zealand - Paihia

2009-09-10T03:48:00.009+01:00

Leaving Auckland on a very sunny morning our destination was Paihia. The bus journey to Paihia was our first introduction into New Zealand’s scenery and the northlands scenery definitely met our expectations; it was unsurprising not that indifferent to that of our own, though on a much more dramatic scale, maybe sharing more in common with that of the Scottish highlands. Also you can tell the Romans never conquered NZ as it doesn’t seem to know what a straight road is!

On arrival in Paihia we were greeted with the worst weather we had seen in NZ to date, it was so cold and the skies looked unpromising- slight dent in a happy outlook. We did however have to chance to take in the seemingly reoccurring theme of amazing views.

Due to our late(ish) arrival we took what we had left of the evening and decided to go out for a meal. We ate at Al Fresco’s restaurant- to be honest all I can really say about the place was it was alright, nothing really to write home about. Also it was freezing in that restaurant, question to the New Zealanders who may be reading this, are you immune to the cold?

Moving on to our first and last full day in Paihia and we woke to a beautiful day, the sun was shining and we were raring to go. Our first port of call (no pun intended) was Paihia’s harbour for our Explore NZ ‘Hole in the Rock’ and dolphin cruise. First of all there is a couple of operators who run this service but from personal experience both myself and Jen highly recommend Explore NZ. With that said on to our cruise; the first part took us around some of the 140+ islands that make up the Bay of Plenty and giving us some history into said islands, also leading to some phenomenal views (I’m starting to wonder how many times we’re going to talk about these views).

Then we moved onto the dolphin seeking section. Now at the beginning I have to admit as much as we were quite looking forward to seeing dolphins, I think a part of both of us didn’t really understand the mass hysteria about seeing them. How we were wrong. It seems as soon as we saw them we were like two excited kids at Christmas; dolphins seem to have this affect on both people young and old that really can’t be explained, but I can say it’s definitely worth doing at least once in your life.

We then went onto the ‘Hole In The Rock’ which is the largest passing under any island… I believe. Anyway the seas were rough at this point and as you do I was out on the bow enjoying the trip, I should have probably heeded the captain’s warning, though of course me being me and male I didn’t, we clearly know better, and I got soaked and as a result very cold. Jen was also looking very pale due to the rough seas. Unfortunately we couldn’t pass through the rock but we did however get some photo opportunities.

Back on land, we decided to head up to the Opatu forest. The walk is approximately an hour return, not taking into account time spent at the top. The walk is moderately easy, though it is all uphill and offers some striking vistas at the top.

What was technically our third day in Paihia, though it was to be a short day due to our journey back to Auckland, was greeted by, in contrast to the first day, probably the best weather we had seen in NZ. However, due to poor organisation on our behalf we missed out on what we had originally planned to do. So instead we went for a long walk along the beach, I chilled and Jen went into photographer mode; unfortunately I became her target for the day- this is one of the more pleasent pictures of me.

Our evening in Auckland was spent eating at the food court directly under Sky City cinemas on Queen Street- very average food but cheap prices. After the not so great dinner we headed upstairs and watched District 9.

New Zealand - Auckland

2009-09-03T10:10:00.020+01:00

So at last we can finally write about something of interest (well interest to us anyway).

Our first day in Auckland came on the back of 30 hours plus in transit with next to no sleep, so as you can imagine we really were not feeling in top condition. On arrival at our hostel our first stop was the shower and how we had missed it. Anyhow what we had left on our first day was spent getting our bearings, or in our case losing our bearings and discovering together we make awful map readers, fortunately the Sky tower was at hand, giving as our first invaluable Auckland lesson 'If your lost follow the Sky Tower', which can pretty much be seen from any point.

This was the summary of our first day however in our tired states we did begin to make some observations about Auckland and New Zealand. The first thing we noticed is that there are many similarities to America, in small things like the roads and the traffic lights, through to the lorries/juggernauts and houses to which Jen kept making comparisons to Hocus Pocus. The second thing is Aucklanders really like to keep fit, down every street was someone jogging, which is in impressive in it’s own right because I am pretty certain there is not one flat road in Auckland and every gym we went past was packed. The third observation being this is a city that has really taken steps to embody the ‘go green for a better future’ policy, with simple things like hybrid taxis, carbon neutral couriers. Finally and I promise to stop boring you with pointless facts, but this one of things that impressed myself (next to the friendliness of the Kiwi’s) and Jen most about Auckland, this being the public services on offer, simple things like; Drinking Fountains dotted around many areas of the city, plenty of public toilets, free city bus (not that we used it) and free dog litter bags that us poor Brits have to pay for.

Moving on, finally, to day two and unfortunately our day was mired by the fact that I was suffering from jet lag. Anyway determined to better the situation, we set off and our first port of call was breakfast, we headed down Ponsonby road which rapidly became one of our favourite areas in Auckland, full of boutique shops, small cafes, stylish restaurants and chic bars. We chose to eat at Santos cafe, which I cannot praise enough. The cappuchino and latte that me and Jen had were definitely amongst the best I have ever had, I had a simple poached eggs on toast, which considering it's just eggs on toast was so tasty and Jen had vege eggs bennedict, which as she said was probably the best breakfast she's ever eaten. From Ponsonby we walked to Mount Eden and started our ascent of Auckland's biggest volcanic cone, unfortunately as we reached the top it started to rain though we still had the chance to take in some of the wonderful views and the massive crater.

We were also giving a friendly reminder of just how far we were away from home.

The descent down from Mt Eden gave me the chance to rest and Jen to get artsy with the camera and surroundings.

We spent some time walking in the gardens at the bottom of Eden before walking back to Ponsonby, on our way back we stumbled across Western Park, which gave us the time to get familiar with some of New Zealand's famed Flora and Fauna.

From Western Park we decided to finally get our first New Zealand grocery shop done. We headed down to the New World supermarket on Franklin road. Our first experience with NZ supermarkets was, well oddly pleasurable. The selection of fruit and veg was amazing and Jen was in awe of the dried fruit pic and mix- we live entertaining lives you see. We also found the staff to be ridiculously friendly and helpful; a sharp contrast to some of our supermarkets at home. Also the cadburys chocolate selection was ridiculous; Tirimasu, black forest and chocolate fudge brownie.... amazing and also cookies and cream kitkat chunkie, truly a gift from above :-) The only two faults I found was 1) Why are cherry tomatoes so expensive? and 2) Where are the vegetarian/magherita pizza's hiding?!

Our evening was spent strolling down the CBD, thinking to ourselves how dead it was in contrast to London for example, we found a Belgian bar and sat down to a couple of beers, though in Jen's case a hot chocolate as they had no Kwak, shame on you Belgian cafe.

Day 3 in Auckland was our most active day, in fact I’m pretty sure we did more walking in this single day than we do in a week in the UK. We set off bright and early towards the Viaduct Harbour where we spent a short amount of time strolling around, watching the world go by. I pounced on the situation and decided to challenge Jen’s photography prowess with one of my own shots, a proud moment for me (though I have to admit my shot wasn’t exactly straight!).

From the Viaduct Harbour we set off for Parnell, which is another district not that dissimilar to Ponsonby. Streets lined with Boutique shops and cafes. After strolling through the streets we decided to walk right around Parnell road and head towards the Auckland Museum, which is an impressive building.

The Auckland museum is impressively laid out, interesting and somewhere where you could easily lose track of time, something we did. Our first stop at the museum was the Maori cultural show, which lasts 30 minutes and gives you a brief look into some Maori pastimes, dances (including the world renowned Haka) and some other brief facts. The show was interesting, however we did feel it would be good if they went a bit further into Maori history, especially for the $20 fee per person (roughly £8). On the other hand the Museum, which has an entrance fee of $5 (£2.10), and this is only a suggested donation, is well worth every penny. The museum is broken down into three floors covering topics ranging from the prehistoric period right through to New Zealand’s history of war including the Boer War and the two World Wars. Though the highlight for me and Jen was the Maori artefacts collection, in particular the carved Maori meeting house.

From the museum we walked back to Parnell where we decided to have dinner at a little pizza place called La Porchetta, here we had a large vegetarian pizza between the two of us for the costly sum of $12 (£5), you would struggle to get a large pizza in the UK for £10 ($23.50). Our evening was then just a simple affair of strolling down Queens Street in the centre of Auckland and window shopping.

Day 4 and our last day in Auckland for now was believe it or not the first day we would use public transport in Auckland, odd for a city that seems to have such good transport links. Anyhow, Devonport was our destination for today. A short 5 - 10 minute ride from Auckland’s ferry port. Devonport is a quaint little town, with not a great deal to do but stop at a café, which of course we did, check some of the heritage sights out or walk down the beach and even though the sun was out it was unbelievably windy, so our beach walking was restricted to just a few minutes.

Onto Mount Victoria, an old navy embankment, once we reached the top, which is only a very short walk, we witnessed some of the best views we had seen in Auckland, especially of Rangitoto island.

Oh, and we found this guy sitting around looking sad, no idea why he’s looking sad, must be the wind.

After our visit to Devonport we wondered around the city and headed up to Albert Park, this gave Jen more chance to wonder around being trigger happy with her camera and myself a chance to soak up the scenery.

Our evening was spent knocking back a few Mojito’s at Whiskey just along Ponsonby road, a nice suave bar with a classic rock soundtrack, you can’t go wrong with a Mojito and Guns N’ Roses. On to Paihia.

Long Haul Flights = Boring

2009-08-30T05:26:00.002+01:00

Well first post and unfortunately nothing of any great interest to report, in fact quite the opposite. We're currently sat in Dubai's new terminal 3, which I shall quickly say is a wonderful building and very modern, as with the rest of Dubai I presume, anyhow I digress as I was saying we are currently enjoying a 10 Dirham Hampshire's finest bottle of water which roughly converts to £1.67.... bargain!! And eating a Banana cake that we sneakily smuggled off the plane, terrible hey! Anyway a short one for now as we're eagerly anticipating (this is me being very sarcastic) our 19hr 10 minute flight to Auckland which we've just found out goes via Brisbane, wonderful.

We'll update you soon, though looking at the both of us at this moment in time it may be sometime before we recover from the lack of sleep. Anyway Auckland here we come!!!!