Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Katie and Taylor
Ok, so I'm not going to bore you with our movements of our first week in New Zealand, it involved flat hunting, job hunting and numerous visits to immigration to sort out our visas (which have finally been approved). We would add photos but to be honest the immigration office and medical centre isn't exciting!
The second week was much more exciting, heading from Auckland to Tauranga to visit fellow Odysseyers Barry and Pauline. They have been in the UK for the last 10 years and have travelled back home to start New Zealand life again. Since we were waiting for our work visas we decided to head there for a few days, which ended up being a week, to keep us busy. Tauranga is about 3-4 hours from Auckland so we jumped on the bus after a long week of visa related problems.
Barry and Pauline took us all around their local area including a tunnel and gorge walk at Karangahake which used to be an active gold mine. It was so nice to be outdoors again and the scenery was stunning. New Zealand is very similar to the UK but with the added bonus of hot weather! We also headed to an open cast gold mine which was huge followed by a kiwi orchard. Barry has been working a few days a week in his friends Kiwi orchard so we paid them a visit and got a detailed explanation of the kiwi fruit, really interesting and surprisingly complicated. The day was topped off with a bottle of wine and a few beers watching the sun go down, bliss. Also we visited/spied on Richard O'Briens house as he is now resident here, very stalkerish but interesting none the less. Barry and Pauline kept us busy and healthy with lots of walks. We visited Mount Maunganui a few times, walked round it and up it. It's a stunning area and we even managed to catch an international beach volleyball tournament and some speed boat racing on the harbour.
We had an amazing time at Barry and Paulines and we even managed to celebrate recieving our visas whilst there with a few glasses of bubbly. We will definitely be back in the future (not only to return Barry's shoes) and hope to see them in Auckland too.
We're now back in Auckland living with some friends and having various trial shifts and interviews which will all be discussed when we have jobs to talk about. And just in case people are worried, Taylor's spider bite from Oz is healed and there's no need to worry.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Katie and Taylor
We spent our last 2 nights in Australia in the city centre of Melbourne to sight see and catch up with a few friends. The centre of Melbourne is very compact so we wandered the streets most of the day doing a few bits of shopping to prepare ourselves for the colder climates of New Zealand. There is also a street which is set aside for graffiti artists to practice their art, and is even home to a few Banksys’ artworks.
Neills work is in the city centre, so we popped in for a drink, and he treated us to some amazing food matched with equally tasty cocktails. Who would have thought a chilli infused cocktail would be so addictive! The food is based on Asian street food with a twist, we will definitely return here for some grub in the future.
After being spoiled (again) we met up with 2 members of the Odyssey Overland London to Oz 2011 trip - Susan and Zoe. Was great to see a different side of Melbourne, particularly the drinking den, tucked up a side alley. Very kitsch! Its great to be able to catch up with them and reminded us of all the same questions we had in our heads this time last year, when we were on countdown mode for the trip.
After our afternoon of soap stalking, we headed to St Kilda for a spot of lunch and wander in the sun. St Kilda is based on the beach and is particularly famous for its cakes, most of which looked stunning apart from the appropriately named “Snot Blocks” or Vanilla Slices as we knew them.
Our Australian adventure has ended as we spend our last night in Melbourne watching the sunset from South Bank. We head to New Zealand tomorrow morning to hopefully work for a while and replenish the funds for future travels.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Katie and Taylor
We left behind South Australia and hopped forward 30 minutes into Victoria, the last state on our tour of Australia. One of the most scenic and famous roads in the world is the Great Ocean road which we chose as our route to Melbourne. Which we sped along as Shelly had her first viewing that evening.
The Great Ocean road is a 243 km coastal drive along the south east of Australia starting in Warrnambool and ending in Torquay. It was built to commemorate those who fought in World War One and winds around limestone rocks, beaches, rain forests as well as little towns and hills. Scenic photo stops are dotted along the route which include the 12 Apostles, London Bridge, Loch Ard Gorge and the Grotto. These are all limestone rock formations which have been created from the waves and the weather, the so called London Bridge actually party collapsed in the 90s so the amazing rocks are subtly (and not so subtly) changing over time. Luckily we were travelling east against the traffic along the road as the sun was out and day trippers from Melbourne were out in force, sections were queued back about 5-6 kilometres.
We arrived in Torquay where someone awaited Shelly for a test drive which proved pointless as they didn't think she was worth the money (shocking! Luckily we had an e-mail waiting for us that night in Geelong and Shelly was booked in for her second viewing the next day, this time with some Dutch backpackers in Melbourne which was a little more promising.
Neill and Kylie from our Odyssey trip live in Melbourne and kindly offered us a place to stay while we were visiting Victoria's capital so after a quick shopping trip in Geelong we headed into town for Shellys viewing before heading on to Kylies mums. The viewing went really well and the guys decided to buy her and asked if we could keep her until Jan 2nd, which was perfect as we needed a car to get to Kylies anyway. We had a few nice relaxing days at Kylies, headed into Melbourne for some sightseeing on the 30th, booked our flights to New Zealand and had a pool party/BBQ at her friends for New Year. Unfortunately Neill was working but he treated us to some nice cocktails and food in his work which was great, well worth a visit for its cocktails!
On New Years day we had a BBQ and went to the movies and went to Philip Island the next day after dropping Shelly off in town. We are so happy the car has sold as it was stopping us from making our next plans for New Zealand, I'm sure she will do fine with the Dutch guys even though they have never driven on the left side of the road before!
Philip Island is a small island just outside Melbourne which is home to little/fairy penguins. At night they can be seen coming home after a few days fishing at sea, while dodging the many seals. They stand in the water being taunted by the sea gulls before making a mad dash to the rocks to get to their burrows. It was very cute but also very funny to watch. They get scared off and run back to sea a few times before getting the courage to cross the beach. A viewing platform has been created for tourists so we enjoyed the view with hundreds of people from all over the world. Definitely an experience worth doing!
We've had a great time with Kylie and Neill, we've had a chance to stop and sort stuff out as well as catch up with them and their new life in Australia. We've been spoiled rotten and tonight we get to enjoy our first roast dinner in 9 months! Tomorrow we are heading into the city for a few days before catching our flight to our new life in New Zealand on the 7th - can't wait!!
