Sheep, Penguins and Mountains

Hello. We are safe and well in New Zealand now. We flew from Darwin down to Sydney with a brief stop in Adelaide. We then had to contemplate the nightmare of public transport to get us from Sydney airport south of the city, to Manly in the northern suburbs. After considering our options, we hired a car instead and drove across the Harbour Bridge. We tried to do this before but weren't as prepared for the dodgy Australian signage and missed the turning. This time, we got it.

From Manly we drove up the coast to visit Palm Beach, or as it's more commonly known, 'where they film Home and Away'. It is very nice up there although it all felt very busy after being in Darwin for so long. We ended our last night in Australia with a beautiful meal at an African restaurant, of all places.

We flew from Sydney with Air Emirates and that was a really good flight. The entertainment system they had was incredible, from watching live cameras at the front and underneath the plane to a massive list of on-demand music, TV and films. It kept us amused for a few hours until we approached Christchurch, New Zealand, and then the stunning mountains and Canterbury Plains took our attention to the plane windows.

We stopped in a 4 star hotel that night, without realising it, and then picked up our campervan the following day. We hit the road and headed down to Dunedin and the Otago peninsula. After the massive distances of Australia, it seemed strange that we covered almost half the length of the south island in just over four hours, but we did. We almost visited a castle before remembering that there are lots of those back home, and instead popped into a penguin reserve to see some of the world's rarest yellow-eyed penguins. Cute.

Our time here is short and there's a lot to see, so we drove most of yesterday evening to our camp for last night which was a place known as, 'the side of the road somewhere'. The beauty of the campervan is that aside from a toilet or shower, it's self-sufficient and in NZ there are loads of places you can pull over and kip for the night. Much cheaper than any campsite.

Today we arrived in Te Arnau further west at the foot of the Alpine mountains. We took the road up to Milford Sound as we'd been told it was spectacular. It was nice, but the clouds blocked most of the view. Thankfully, on our way back the cloud lifted and we were given the show we'd been hoping for. The stunning New Zealand scenery lived up to it's reputation.

It is hard not to think of Lord of the Rings every half an hour though.

Tomorrow we're doing a boat cruise all day to Doubtful Sound. According to a bloke in a petrol station, it's "the nicest scenery in New Zealand". That's endorsement enough for us.

It's a little intense travelling like this and far removed from the easy time we had in Darwin, but so far we're having a great time!

Oh, and the difference between and Aussie accent and a Kiwi one is the vowels. They're all mixed up for some reason. Or, they're ull muxed up for some risson.

Last day in Darwin

Well this day has come up on us so quick that it hasn't quite sunk in yet. We're just organising the last few things before we fly out to Sydney early tomorrow morning. We will be going to the northern beaches this time as we missed out on that when we first arrived in Oz, and we just have a couple of days there before we fly to New Zealand.

We finished work on Sunday and, although most of our mates had left weeks ago, we still had a couple of beers with everyone at the end of the day, including our replacements.

All our stuff has been sold and is being picked up tonight so we moved into a cabin yesterday. You wouldn't believe how luxurious it is to not have to walk 200 metres to go to the toilet, or the simple joys of having a sink!

We are a bit used to just throwing old water and crumbs onto the floor though so beware if we come to visit.

Last night we had a few people from the campsite and work round and we helped each other through several beers and a box of wine. We have an early flight tomorrow morning so that was our last chance to say goodbye.

It's hard to comprehend that this is now the beginning of the end of our trip. We're fully intent on having an absolute ball for the next few weeks before returning to the normality. Real jobs, bills and traffic jams.

We only have a short stay in Sydney so the next time you hear from us we'll probably be in the fourth country of our rather large trip - New Zealand.

Ta ta.

A summary of our last few weeks:

Getting the car ready for sale:


Lost four wheels, gained another four wheels:


Lost those four wheels:


Life at work - Charlotte off to show some customers how to drive cars:


Kev doing quite obviously the most important job in the company:


A few beers to say goodbye to the crew, from Charlotte going clockwise it's Kim, Warwick, Beth, Amanda, Jo, Ty, Sarah, Olivia, Maggy, Damien and two Korean blokes who'd just started:

Last Leg

Hello.

There has been a lack of updates recently but there is a reason; we've been quite busy. The situation now is that we are still working, we have booked our flights home, we've sold our car and fridge, and we are still living in a tent on a campsite in Darwin, where we shall stay until we fly out of here in a couple of weeks.

The car was sold so quickly that it totally threw us. We put posters up at about 3pm last week, a bloke came to see it that evening and he handed over the cash the next morning. We got a really good price for it and he didn't want any camping gear either, so it worked out perfectly.

We were chatting to a couple who were working with us about how we'd cope without having our own car, and it just so happened that they were going to work somewhere else and wouldn't need their bikes. So we have wheels, which is excellent for getting to and from work but not quite enough for shopping.

We're still working and a girl at work wanted our fridge, so that's also worked out really well. All in all, it's been a great week!

All that's left is to sell (or just throw away) the rest of our gear and it's back to the backpacks, something we're not looking forward to.

Anyway, the bottom line is that we'll see you all in a couple of months...