Round the world in a Year!

Hi All

We’ve been steadily making our way up from Adalaide to Darwin over the past week and a half. We took the train up to Alice Springs overnight, meeting a couple of people along the way and finally checking into our Backpackers Hostel at lunchtime, 20 hours after getting on the train. Annies Place, the hostel we stayed at did it’s own 3 day tour to Uluru (Ayres Rock), Kings Canyon & The Olga’s, which involved alot of Hiking, and Camping rough in “Swags” which are Aussie bush beds, basically like a large canvas sleeping bag with a thin matress in the bottom, which you get inside after you’ve got in your sleeping bag, and you sleep looking up at the stars!

On our return and after a good nights sleep, we decided we would travel to Darwin, a couple of people who we met on the Train, Amy and Dean we trying also get to Darwin, and like us they didn’t (or couldn’t afford) to wait a week for the next free train. We all went on the Uluru tour as well.

We all decided to rent a car for the week along with camping equipment, we also found a girl called Siohban who wanted to go, so the five of us set off for Darwin.

Passing through some excellent countryside, we stayed 5 nights on the road after passing through the Katherine and Kakadu National parks, and stopping an evening in the campside at Daly Waters, the oldest pub in the Northern Teritory.

We arrived in Darwin last night, and now have to look forward to the dubious pleasure of finding some work to do…

We’ve been in Oz a week now, we landed in Melbourne and we taken via a hostel shuttle to our hostel for the night. We were staying in the fashionable St Kilda area by the beach and close to the famous Luna Park. We decided to stay for 5 nights in Melbourne and had a few days in the city and a good wander round some of the gardens and parks in the the city.

A short (10 hour) train trip and we were in the city of Adelaide, which is even greener than Melbourne, though much smaller in scale.

Australia is a little warmer than New Zealand, though not much, as it is still their winter here!

We have each purchased a 6 month rail pass, which gives us unlimited use of the major routes from Adelaide to Sydney, Melboune to Adelaide, Adelaide to Perth and Adelaide to Darwin (via Alice Springs), and our next adventure will take us out into the outback for a look at the fabulous Ayres Rock!!! so keep an eye out for that one. Wonder if theres a David Jones store there? (that’s oz’s equivalent to our john lewis store).  Rats! knew i,d make a bad backpacker!

Its nearly time for us to start looking for work, Nik wants to try his hand at pulling pints i on the other hand would make a pretty good sales assistant preferably behind a Chanel counter! I,ve been told commission is generous and younger looking skin is essential!

Here i come!!!

Bye for now Chez and Nik

 

As promised, here are the Bungy piccies!!!!

 

Bungy!!!

it’s been a week since our last post and that was pretty big stuff, now on with some more!

We took a nice leisurly drive down from Lake Taupo, through some more stunning country and down the centre of the country to Wellington in the south, the capital of NZ. We had a wander through the city and happened to arrive during the victory celebrations for Wellington resident  Michael Campbell, just back from winning the US Open golf!

We booked on the 1.30am ferry accross to the South Island, arriving 3hours later, had a sleep and woke up to a stunning mountain view! well this island is where all the big ones are!

We spent 3-4 days touring round the north of the South Island, stopping down in Christchurch and then carried on down to Dunedin, where we celebrated Chez’s birthday with a Thai meal. From Dunedin, we started the cross-mountain trek to Queenstown, the birth place of the Bungy jumping craze. We were told in Christchurch that AJ Hackett bungy were the best as AJ himself pioneered the sport and Kawaru Bridge was where it all began… we had to give it a go, and we managed to get booked in at the bridge where it all began. We decided to do a Tandem jump (thats both of us tied together at the ankles folks, not on a bike!) Amazing rush! Its a great thrill, much more of a initial rush than Skydiving, though you don’t have time to appreciate it much before the bungy snaps you back up again!

When we get access to the pictures, I’ll post them on the blog! Whatever next?

Laterz

Nik and Chez

I said yesterday, here is the proof in pictures!

 

We’ve had a fun time in New Zealand so far, and we’ve only been here a week! as I speak we are both coming down from our most exciting adventure yet… skydiving, within 20 minutes of arriving at Lake Taupo, we were getting suited up for our tandem-skydive session… more of that later.

We stopped off in Auckland and visited the Sky Tower, which is the tallest in the southern hemisphere. After 3 days spent in NZ’s Northland region, and moved down through Waitapo, where we visited the glow-worm caves and then down to Rotorua, the “Thermal” capital of the region, with fantastic thermal parks of boiling mud and water, we visited a thermal park called “Hells Gate” and saw the water and mud right in front of us boil on the hot rocks. From Rotorua we decided to head down to Lake Taupo and although there were skydiving activities in other parts of the country , we felt the scenery in Taupo would be the most spectacular… we were not wrong!… there was no time for arguing, within minutes of entering reception we were getting suited up for the ride (we opted for a DVD of it… if anyone wants to see it, ask us when we get back) and up in the plane… just 15 minutes later we were in the drop zone of 12′000 ft and were (along with out trained tandem partners) suddenly out in mid air. Well it was the most amazing thing either of us have done, we get the photos back tomorrow, will try and post a few to the blog as soon as we can. Bye for Now Nik and Chez

Well, we’ve been in New Zealand for 3 days now and have decided to rent a Camper van to see the country better, we’re really enjoying New Zealand, the roads are good and all the people are really friendly

At the moment we are in an area of New Zealand called the Bay of Islands, which is in NZ’s Northland area, it’s really tranquil and beautiful

Hope to update soon with a few photos and more on what we’ve been up to

take care all

Nik and Chez

We had a great time on the island of MalaMala, the other day, a great uninhabited island with white sandy beaches, wonderful blue seas and fantastic coral reefs, we went snorkling and were given a BBQ dinner as part of our package, it was a day we were still talking about 3 days later.

We have had a really relaxing time here in Fiji, the locals are very friendly and the climate is great here… it’s warm enough for me, even though this is the Fijian winter!

Anyhows, we have decided, after being here a week and having a great relaxing time, to move onwards and cross the sea to New Zealand… a short (by our standards) 3 hour plane trip.

We hope to stay in NZ about 3 weeks before moving off to our mail stopover, Australia

Apoligies to anyone who has tried to send emails to me (Nik) , the email server I use seems to be down at the moment so you may have your messages returned to you… hopefully this will be sorted out by tuesday, when I hope to get to see my email!

Will try and update again in New Zealand!

Bye For Now

Nik and Chez

Wel we’re now in Fiji! doesn’t seem like a week and a half since we left but it has been, and in that time we’ve travelled all the way accross North America!

We landed in New York on the 30th and stopped there for 3 days, though most of the time the humidity and smell of the city made staying there unbearable. We decided to see america the scenic way and bought ourselves a cross-continent train ticket… a 3 day monster train ride, going from NY Penn station to Chicago then accross to Denver, Colarado at the base of the Rocky Mountains and then over the Rockies to Utah, Nevada finally crossing the Sierra Nevada mountain range and heading into California!

We then took a bus from the San Francisco Bay area all the way into San Francisco and got ourselves a hotel in the Fishermans Wharf area. We spent a couple of days in SF, seeing the sights of the city and the wharf area, taking in a Bay cruise under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz island… we also sampled some of the fantastic seafood, which SF is famous for, in fact we ate it 3 meals in a row!

A short (ish) 6 hour train ride to Bakersfield took us nearer to LA international airport and we were on the way to Fiji.

The flight took 10.5 hours and we arrived here about 3am local time, and were picked up directly by our hostal and taken there.

This morning, we walked around the town, and met some of the locals, who all seem to run their own shops and are very nice but very sales orientated! abit too much for us! we have tried the local drink Kava which tastes alittle like muddy water… we have decided to stick to Heinekins for the time being though!

Hopefully we’re gonna arrange a few island hops in the next few coming days and see about doing some of the exciting activities here.

Thats All for now

Chez and Nik

I have just done a new more personal header for the blog… showing our route round the globe, starting from our first port of call - New York and ending with our last stop - Shanghai!