I cannot do any links on this post because I can only open one instance of Internet Explorer at a time. I usually have one open to google to find the appropriate link sites. Sorry for the inconvenience and all that. Not that I really expect anyone to follow the links...
We are in a really beautiful town called Lake Tekapo on the shores of the lake of the same name. It is a glacier fed lake and cold (as both kids but neither parent can really attest to). Surrounded by mountainy hills. Nothing but nature out front of the hostel and not much town to speak of. Unfortunately there is a LOT of condominium building going on and I think it will not be nearly as nice in not very long. Right now it has some star observatories on a hill above the town, but I am sure they will suffer as the town expands and maybe puts in street lights, etc.
We have had relatively short days on the bus since Queenstown and tomorrow is the same. The day we left Queenstown (yesterday) we arrived in Dunedin at 1 pm. We booked and went on a wildlife tour from 3-9 pm. It was GREAT. It was called the Elm Wildlife Tour and it would be worth searching your own link for it. I will put one in next time I fix the blog. We saw a seal colony from about 50 ft above, then went down to a beach and saw Yellow Eyed Penquins and Seal lions (including a pup) really close up (problably about 5 meters). We then went and saw albatross. I would recommend it to anyone in this neck of the woods.
Today we headed north again and stopped at the Morekai Boulders (wierd round rocks in the ocean) on the way here to Tekapo. We didn't really do much else eventful. Tomorrow we do our last bus leg of New Zealand and head for Christchurch. We fly from there on the 15th.
P.S. mum you were wrong, 3 weeks is NOT long enough in New Zealand, I would have happily spent at least another week or two here. It is beautiful. They are really good at enticing money out of your pockets, though. Lots of really great activities. They apparently have 2 million visitors a year here and there are only 4 million New Zealanders, 1/3 of them living in Auckland.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Queenstown and Beyond...
We are now at Queenstown (middle of south island close to the bottom). We crossed on the ferry with a pleasant voyage. I was talking to some women from the bus and I suddenly thought I should go look for the dolphins. I walked to the front of the ship and looked out the window and presto! there they were. Four of them jumping toward us. They passed in front of the boat then along the side. I couldn't call Jacob over fast enough. Heather was on deck with Alan, he saw none and Heather saw the last one passing the side. Apparently they were the only dolphins spotted at all by anyone on the ferry, so I timed it PERFECTLY. Luckily we saw lots a day or two later between Nelson and Greymouth at a place called Punakaiki in the west We stopped at a hostel to let some people out and the bus was facing the ocean. There were about 20 dolphins playing in the surf just in front of the bus, thankfully the whole family saw them this time. Later we saw more of them from the lookout at the pancake rocks (see same link as Punakaiki above for info). Heather even saw one jumping in front of a lucky kayaker. We can now check the box marked DOLPHINS....
We were picked up at the ferry by another bus and driven to Nelson. We stayed two nights in Nelson and spent Sunday with a friend of Ruth's from Canada (now New Zealand) called Laura. She was VERY hospitable and took us to a beach with her partner and his 5 year old daughter. It was a day of fishing, swimming and frisbee enjoyed by all. After the beach we stopped by a Gypsy Fair. In New Zealand, old hippies live in flatbed trucks with elaborate houses on them and call themselves gypsies. There was one open for touring and it had a bedroom (the size of one on an 18 wheeler) as well as a kitchen area and a sitting area with a balcony off it. It had beautiful stained glass windows all over. The owner said he could do 90km/hr on a flat road and he got a whopping 8 miles/gallon. We saw a couple of the caravans on the road south and then we saw an advertisement for another Gypsy Fair in Greymouth, so presumably they do some sort of circuit.
It was a bit of a craft fair and a bit of a psychic fair. It was possible to have your tarot cards, palms or aura read. They photographed your aura for you, then analysed it. The aura reader had a computer and I noted it was probably a lot easier to catch the aura on digital "film" now that we have photoshop software available. We all enjoyed it a lot, even Laura said she was glad she went because she had seen them advertised and had never been before.
After Nelson we headed for the East coast and spent the night in Greymouth. We didn't do much there that I can think of. The next night was at Franz Josef, which is a world heritage site for natural beauty. We signed up for a heli-hike where they fly you up to the glacier in a helicopter and take you for a walk. Sadly, the cloud layer was too low so we couldn't fly. Instead we took the shuttle bus from town and walked an hour to almost the base of the glacier. We were worried about missing the next shuttle to town so we turned around. A narrow escape since it poured BUCKETS in the hour we would have had to wait in the open for the next bus. It was a fabulous walk and everyone was pleased with the day in the end. We saved over a thousand dollars ($300 a piece), but a woman on the bus next day said the heli-hike was fabulous. C'est la vie.
Today we headed over here to Queenstown which so far reminds me of Banff with smaller mountains around it. Let you know how it all turns out later.
We were picked up at the ferry by another bus and driven to Nelson. We stayed two nights in Nelson and spent Sunday with a friend of Ruth's from Canada (now New Zealand) called Laura. She was VERY hospitable and took us to a beach with her partner and his 5 year old daughter. It was a day of fishing, swimming and frisbee enjoyed by all. After the beach we stopped by a Gypsy Fair. In New Zealand, old hippies live in flatbed trucks with elaborate houses on them and call themselves gypsies. There was one open for touring and it had a bedroom (the size of one on an 18 wheeler) as well as a kitchen area and a sitting area with a balcony off it. It had beautiful stained glass windows all over. The owner said he could do 90km/hr on a flat road and he got a whopping 8 miles/gallon. We saw a couple of the caravans on the road south and then we saw an advertisement for another Gypsy Fair in Greymouth, so presumably they do some sort of circuit.
It was a bit of a craft fair and a bit of a psychic fair. It was possible to have your tarot cards, palms or aura read. They photographed your aura for you, then analysed it. The aura reader had a computer and I noted it was probably a lot easier to catch the aura on digital "film" now that we have photoshop software available. We all enjoyed it a lot, even Laura said she was glad she went because she had seen them advertised and had never been before.
After Nelson we headed for the East coast and spent the night in Greymouth. We didn't do much there that I can think of. The next night was at Franz Josef, which is a world heritage site for natural beauty. We signed up for a heli-hike where they fly you up to the glacier in a helicopter and take you for a walk. Sadly, the cloud layer was too low so we couldn't fly. Instead we took the shuttle bus from town and walked an hour to almost the base of the glacier. We were worried about missing the next shuttle to town so we turned around. A narrow escape since it poured BUCKETS in the hour we would have had to wait in the open for the next bus. It was a fabulous walk and everyone was pleased with the day in the end. We saved over a thousand dollars ($300 a piece), but a woman on the bus next day said the heli-hike was fabulous. C'est la vie.
Today we headed over here to Queenstown which so far reminds me of Banff with smaller mountains around it. Let you know how it all turns out later.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Curious facts
A curious fact about Cambodia is that, at least based on my observations, virtually all the cars in the country are Toyota Camrys. There are loads of non-car vehicles, of course -- land cruisery things, big Lexus SUVs, vans, pickups, tuk-tuks, vast numbers of motorbikes and bicycles -- but apart from a couple of Toyota Corollas, a couple of Diahatsus and a Mercedes, all the cars we saw were Camrys. Old and new and different colours, some left hand drive and some right hand drive.
The tuk-tuks in Cambodia, unlike the autorickshaw-like three-wheelers of Thailand, are motocycles pulling little trailers. The trailers have seating for four but the motorbikes, ranging in size from 90 to 125 cc's, don't really have the power to pull four big Canadians, or even two big and two little Canadians. For the most part we took taxis when we had to get any distance, such as to the temples of Angkor, but a couple of times we took tuk-tuks short distances. In Sihanoukville I feared we would run afoul of any society for the prevention of cruelty to tuk-tuks that existed. We were on our way to a restaurant that turned out to be farther away than anticipated and up (and down) some very big hills. The motorbike seemed to be on its last legs at several points, crawling uphill at a walking pace. Going downhill was even more alarming, with the heavily-laden trailer threatening to seize control of the whole operation and try to get past the motorbike. Judging by the number of roadside stands selling motorcycle shock absorbers and the stacks of brightly wrapped wheel rims at all the repair stands, motorcyles in Cambodia live a hard life. Large tourists aren't the only culprit. I saw one little bike carrying the rider and five 50 kg sacks of rice.
A curious fact about New Zealand is that the entire country seems to be devoted to hurling people off buildings, bridges, cliffs and other natural features or dropping then out of aeroplanes or down into deep holes in the earth. It's unclear whether the New Zealanders themselves fling themselves from great heights or whether they have just discovered that tourists will pay big money to be flung.
The tuk-tuks in Cambodia, unlike the autorickshaw-like three-wheelers of Thailand, are motocycles pulling little trailers. The trailers have seating for four but the motorbikes, ranging in size from 90 to 125 cc's, don't really have the power to pull four big Canadians, or even two big and two little Canadians. For the most part we took taxis when we had to get any distance, such as to the temples of Angkor, but a couple of times we took tuk-tuks short distances. In Sihanoukville I feared we would run afoul of any society for the prevention of cruelty to tuk-tuks that existed. We were on our way to a restaurant that turned out to be farther away than anticipated and up (and down) some very big hills. The motorbike seemed to be on its last legs at several points, crawling uphill at a walking pace. Going downhill was even more alarming, with the heavily-laden trailer threatening to seize control of the whole operation and try to get past the motorbike. Judging by the number of roadside stands selling motorcycle shock absorbers and the stacks of brightly wrapped wheel rims at all the repair stands, motorcyles in Cambodia live a hard life. Large tourists aren't the only culprit. I saw one little bike carrying the rider and five 50 kg sacks of rice.
A curious fact about New Zealand is that the entire country seems to be devoted to hurling people off buildings, bridges, cliffs and other natural features or dropping then out of aeroplanes or down into deep holes in the earth. It's unclear whether the New Zealanders themselves fling themselves from great heights or whether they have just discovered that tourists will pay big money to be flung.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Continuing South in New Zealand....
We are now in Wellington on the bottom of the North Island. Tomorrow morning we are catching a ferry (way too early I might add). We spent the last couple of days in the thermal wonderlands of Rotorua/Lake Taupo area in the middle of the bottom bit of the north island. I had forgotten to mention that in the park behind the hostel we were staying in in Rotorua, there were numerous thermal things. Some of them had boiling mud, others just steaming water. It is forbidden to walk in the park at night because they break through relatively randomly and you could fall into one that hadn't been cordoned off yet. Some are obviously old and have weathered wooden fences around them, others newer wooden fences and some just orange snow fences (these we took to be more recent additions to the thermal family...
Jacob was very impressed with the park the first time he saw it. On the bus the next day we went to a big pool of boiling mud with burps coming up all over it. It was about 50 feet in diameter. The kids were still impressed. In the afternoon we went to what Alan and I both thought was one of the coolest natural places either of us had ever been, Wai-o-tapu, but unfortunately the kids suddenly decided that they had come to the end of their geothermal ropes and refused to be impressed. They couldn't help but mention a few things were cool-- sulphur caves and lakes made of natural silica glass sheets built up over 700 years..., but generally they complained their way around the entire 3 km trail. At the end I was ready to hire a babysitter.... (none were available--sadly mum left us after Thailand). I must say that the web site link above doesn't even do most of the place justice.
We spent most of the day just on the bus today. The Magic Bus is pretty good usually for stopping every couple of hours at a scenic spot or a tall place for the crazy people to hurl themselves off. Today was more of a straight drive down from Taupo to Wellington. We did pass Mount Doom (or the mountain they used for it in the Lord of the Rings). Unfortunately there was some cloud around it and we couldn't see either of the two mountains beside it.
Tomorrow I am really hoping to see dolphins from the ferry, but I told the woman who said they would be there PLEASE not to mention it to the kids. They were totally bummed when we didn't see any of the promised dolphins on our Gulf of St. Lawrence ferry ride two years ago.
Jacob was very impressed with the park the first time he saw it. On the bus the next day we went to a big pool of boiling mud with burps coming up all over it. It was about 50 feet in diameter. The kids were still impressed. In the afternoon we went to what Alan and I both thought was one of the coolest natural places either of us had ever been, Wai-o-tapu, but unfortunately the kids suddenly decided that they had come to the end of their geothermal ropes and refused to be impressed. They couldn't help but mention a few things were cool-- sulphur caves and lakes made of natural silica glass sheets built up over 700 years..., but generally they complained their way around the entire 3 km trail. At the end I was ready to hire a babysitter.... (none were available--sadly mum left us after Thailand). I must say that the web site link above doesn't even do most of the place justice.
We spent most of the day just on the bus today. The Magic Bus is pretty good usually for stopping every couple of hours at a scenic spot or a tall place for the crazy people to hurl themselves off. Today was more of a straight drive down from Taupo to Wellington. We did pass Mount Doom (or the mountain they used for it in the Lord of the Rings). Unfortunately there was some cloud around it and we couldn't see either of the two mountains beside it.
Tomorrow I am really hoping to see dolphins from the ferry, but I told the woman who said they would be there PLEASE not to mention it to the kids. They were totally bummed when we didn't see any of the promised dolphins on our Gulf of St. Lawrence ferry ride two years ago.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Waitomo Caves and Rotorua
NOTE TO EVERYONE: I promise pictures again as soon as one of the computers has uploading capability.....
We are visiting Waitomo now and went into two caves with the Spellbound tour yesterday. The first was really cool and had glowworms all over the roof. It looked like constellations over the boat. We floated in a boat down a stream about 50m underneath the surface. We were floating along an underwater stream in a rubber dinghy. There were 9 people altogether, but no one talked hardly at all, and then in hushed tones. We had no lights and were travelling with only the glowworms lighting up the ceiling. It was just the kind of place where you are naturally quiet, I guess.
We then went into a second cave which had a much different feel. It was much more of a normal tourist cave with electric lights through and a man made walkway through the whole length. The interesting aspect was that there were three places where there were holes up the 50m to the surface where you could see the forest above. Apparently the whole area is riddled with 300 cave systems and there are these holes in the forest which would give little or no warning to any animal or human. There were several sets of old bones in the cave including one of an extinct Moa bird. There are other companies where you can repel down into caves then go on inner tubes. You have to be 12, so Heather being 10 saved us from that! There are also companies which take you into much more adveturous, actual spelunking caves -- for these you have to be 15. We enjoyed the ones we did, but you can't help thinking about all the other companies and whether they take you into better caves......
Today we are in Rotorua and we spent the day at the Agrodome. It was good for a spinner like me to see 19 different sheep breeds on stage at once. The commentator also sheared a sheep on stage. There was a hokey show to go with it that the kids lapped up. They also had a 100 year old carding machine from Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. We hung around and watched them fire it up. It could apparently process an average fleece every 15 minutes, 24/7 in it's youth.
The real highlight for the kids was the ZORB. It is basically a human sized hamster ball full of water that they roll you down the hill in for a mere $30 ($77 if three people go in together). Alan, Jacob and Heather went in. I am suffering (AGAIN) from dysentry so I didn't think my stomach could handle it. We paid for the photo CD for another ($25) -- another reason I would like to upload pictures to defray the cost by amusing some of my friends and family...
We are visiting Waitomo now and went into two caves with the Spellbound tour yesterday. The first was really cool and had glowworms all over the roof. It looked like constellations over the boat. We floated in a boat down a stream about 50m underneath the surface. We were floating along an underwater stream in a rubber dinghy. There were 9 people altogether, but no one talked hardly at all, and then in hushed tones. We had no lights and were travelling with only the glowworms lighting up the ceiling. It was just the kind of place where you are naturally quiet, I guess.
We then went into a second cave which had a much different feel. It was much more of a normal tourist cave with electric lights through and a man made walkway through the whole length. The interesting aspect was that there were three places where there were holes up the 50m to the surface where you could see the forest above. Apparently the whole area is riddled with 300 cave systems and there are these holes in the forest which would give little or no warning to any animal or human. There were several sets of old bones in the cave including one of an extinct Moa bird. There are other companies where you can repel down into caves then go on inner tubes. You have to be 12, so Heather being 10 saved us from that! There are also companies which take you into much more adveturous, actual spelunking caves -- for these you have to be 15. We enjoyed the ones we did, but you can't help thinking about all the other companies and whether they take you into better caves......
Today we are in Rotorua and we spent the day at the Agrodome. It was good for a spinner like me to see 19 different sheep breeds on stage at once. The commentator also sheared a sheep on stage. There was a hokey show to go with it that the kids lapped up. They also had a 100 year old carding machine from Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. We hung around and watched them fire it up. It could apparently process an average fleece every 15 minutes, 24/7 in it's youth.
The real highlight for the kids was the ZORB. It is basically a human sized hamster ball full of water that they roll you down the hill in for a mere $30 ($77 if three people go in together). Alan, Jacob and Heather went in. I am suffering (AGAIN) from dysentry so I didn't think my stomach could handle it. We paid for the photo CD for another ($25) -- another reason I would like to upload pictures to defray the cost by amusing some of my friends and family...
Friday, February 23, 2007
Auckland
We have been in Auckland for three days. The first day we were recovering from the 10 hour flight with a 5 hour time change. We switched from the airport hotel we had found at 2 in the morning to the youth hostel downtown. When we had settled into the hostel we walked down to the Skytower and watched crazy people do the skyjump. They jump off the tower and pass the observation deck on the way down. They have an option of braking and hamming in front of the amassed viewers. There is a little screen inside which tell you 5 minutes, 2 minutes and 30 seconds before each jumper. We whiled away a bit of time watching them go.
We got to the skytower at 4.30 but no one wanted to go and come back for sunset. Jacob and I stayed up for 4 hours (he played with his gameboy) and watched the sunset. It was actually a pleasant place to watch the city and plan our 3 days here. I read the guidebook and pamphlets and had a pretty good idea by sunset of the sights to visit yesterday and today. Apparently we missed feeling an earthquake because we were in the quake proof building. I don't think it was a big earthquake anyway....
My mission for yesterday was to get some wool to start knitting. I will be making either mittens or socks by the time I get on the MAGIC BUS tomorrow. We will be taking the bus around New Zealand for the next three weeks. It took about 2 hours to book each stage of the journey and the Youth Hostels along the way, but now we have it all organized. I had to take a ferry over to a suburb to get the wool. Heather came with me and I made a lucky escape from having to go to the maritime museum with Alan and Jacob. After 25 years with Alan, I have seen enough boat museums to last me.
Today we all went to a historical museum called Howick. It is like Upper Canada Village but it is on a much smaller scale. They have about 30 buildings but they are not all restored. The whole site only has 2 costumed interpretors at any one time. One day a month they have a lot of volunteers who come in costume for special theme days. Sadly, today was not one of those days.
It was very interesting to see the differences in approach between the two villages. I think visitors get much more out of a village with more interpretation. Apparently there are not very many open air museums in New Zealand, but there may be two more that we can see possibly. The kids liked it. It has been a while since we went to any except Upper Canada Village. They got really burned out on historical museums two summers ago in the maritimes where they are thick on the ground and we went to at least 5 that I can remember.
We got to the skytower at 4.30 but no one wanted to go and come back for sunset. Jacob and I stayed up for 4 hours (he played with his gameboy) and watched the sunset. It was actually a pleasant place to watch the city and plan our 3 days here. I read the guidebook and pamphlets and had a pretty good idea by sunset of the sights to visit yesterday and today. Apparently we missed feeling an earthquake because we were in the quake proof building. I don't think it was a big earthquake anyway....
My mission for yesterday was to get some wool to start knitting. I will be making either mittens or socks by the time I get on the MAGIC BUS tomorrow. We will be taking the bus around New Zealand for the next three weeks. It took about 2 hours to book each stage of the journey and the Youth Hostels along the way, but now we have it all organized. I had to take a ferry over to a suburb to get the wool. Heather came with me and I made a lucky escape from having to go to the maritime museum with Alan and Jacob. After 25 years with Alan, I have seen enough boat museums to last me.
Today we all went to a historical museum called Howick. It is like Upper Canada Village but it is on a much smaller scale. They have about 30 buildings but they are not all restored. The whole site only has 2 costumed interpretors at any one time. One day a month they have a lot of volunteers who come in costume for special theme days. Sadly, today was not one of those days.
It was very interesting to see the differences in approach between the two villages. I think visitors get much more out of a village with more interpretation. Apparently there are not very many open air museums in New Zealand, but there may be two more that we can see possibly. The kids liked it. It has been a while since we went to any except Upper Canada Village. They got really burned out on historical museums two summers ago in the maritimes where they are thick on the ground and we went to at least 5 that I can remember.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Flying to the land of the rockingest little flightless birds ever
We are at Changi Airport in Singapore (AGAIN!!!). The way our trip works is we are basically using Singapore as a hub and every time we change countries, we come back here and out again. It is sort of a pain because it is always two flights instead of one, and more often than not on separate days. Last time we came through we crashed on the floor of the airport. Jacob did not sleep at all and ended up throwing up. Not a pretty sight really. This time we have stumped up for the Transit Hotel inside the terminal. They rent rooms in 6 hour blocks, so it is costing us $156 for 12 hours. The upside is the room is HUGE. It is more like an apartment with the kids having 2 single beds in an alcove and Al and I having a king size in another part of the room. It is the first bathtub we have seen in two months, so Heather is soaking while I am enjoying one of the hundreds of free internet connections spread throughout the airport. We have a great view of the tarmac and they are unloading a plane right outside the window. I find the soldiers walking round the airport with knives, pistols AND machine guns disconcerting. They walk REALLY slowly which is what gets me most.
Tomorrow we are flying to Auckland and I am really looking forward to most is visiting a wool shop. It has been two months since I knit anything and it is driving me nuts. It's 3 weeks in the land of the rockingest little flightless birds ever, then off to Australia for another 3 weeks.
Tomorrow we are flying to Auckland and I am really looking forward to most is visiting a wool shop. It has been two months since I knit anything and it is driving me nuts. It's 3 weeks in the land of the rockingest little flightless birds ever, then off to Australia for another 3 weeks.
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