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.
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.
posted by Kev & Charlotte at
9:17 PM
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