One Year On….”Status Update”

Monday, April 18, 2011 Katie and Taylor

First of all apologies for the lack of updates but we are back in working life and regular updates would consist of the below routine:

7am : Get up

8am : Go to work

12pm : Lunch

5pm: Get back from work

6pm: Gym/football/dinner

10pm: Bed

Now is the time for an update ; one year on from leaving the motherland for pastures new. It has just flown by and what we have done still hasn’t sunk in. Anyway we have settled very well into Kiwi life, I started working for JBWere Private Wealth Management in the city at the start of February.  The office is on the 38th floor of the Vero Centre (known locally as the toilet due to its toilet seat shaped top.) View is stunning from there looking over the Haurakii Gulf, surrounding city all the way to Manakau Harbour. Katie worked for a while in a restaurant/bar in Takapuna on the North Shore but this was just something to fill in time whilst looking for something 9-5.Auckland - North Shore (1)Auckland - North Shore (12)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We lived with some mates in the North Shore which is renowned for its beaches, bars and general laid backedness (if that's even a word) The house had a stunning view over the Hauraki Gulf onto Rangitoto Island which is an extinct volcano, we often just sat with a drink while admiring the view from the pool. Infact its surprising the amount of volcanoes around the city…..fingers crossed they don’t go off! (Don’t worry Mum they’re extinct)

 

We stayed “on the other side for 2 months and I won’t bore you with everything we done but highlights include seeing Train in Takapuna, somehow landing seats 2 rows from the front causing “Hey Soul Sister”to be lodged into the depths of our brains for about a week.Auckland - Lantern Festival (12)  Also managed to sneak in seeing the Blues vs Crusaders Super 15 rugby game with all the Americanisms like side entertainment and cheerleaders, luckily the rain held off for us.

 

Auckland hosts a yearly Lantern Festival to celebrate Chinese New Year, in the midst of the Auckland Skyline. Very much like stepping back into South East Asia with food markets, spectacular lanterns and a smattering of Asian music. Saying that, there is a huge Asian community in Auckland so if there was a lantern festival every weekend I’m sure it would be packed.

 

One event which has overshadowed our stay has been the natural disasters which have hit Christchurch and Japan. Unbelievable and so sad to know  people who have been affected directly  by these events. Was quite a shock actually being warned about a Tsunami, even though it is just part of life down here having earthquakes and tsunami alerts……being from calm Scotland where the occurrence of such disasters are about as likely as a Scotsman Morris Dancing while enjoying a spot of cricket!

 

Katie has recently started a new office job involved with the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which works out much better for us, as working opposite shifts from each other just doesn’t suit the Taylors. We upped stix from North Shore and moved to Parnell in the city centre, which has a very Scottish village kind of feel to the place full of pubs, restaurants and cafes. Most importantly its about a 20 minute walk for both of us to our works and is conveniently close to Rangers Supporters Club….oh yes!

Auckland - City (3)Auckland - City (4)Auckland - City (12)Auckland - City (14)Auckland - City (8)

First weekend in our new digs I managed to snap my finger playing football for my new team (Celtic Supporters Club…..who’d of guessed that!), not just a simple injury though. Oh no I never do injuries by half and I needed 3 screws and a plate to fix my finger. I did however get a tour of Auckland Hospitals and not many people can say that! Luckily it will heal in time for our visit to Rotorua, Lake Taupo and Waitomo Caves this Easter Weekend closely followed by the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

 

As we hit our one year anniversary of leaving the UK, and the next London to Oz trip departs…..we hope all the Odyssey Overlanders Year 2011 have a blast and feel free to give us a shout if you end up over here for the Rugby World Cup.

Auckland - City (17)

PS. Photo Album has been updated for your perusal.

0 comments | edit post

Kia Ora Kiwi Land

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.
0 comments | edit post

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours……..

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.


We rented a car on our last day in Melbourne (seeing as Shelly is now on a new adventure) picked up Elaine from back home and headed on a hunt for Ramsay Street. I know we’re sad but it was well worth it. Wandering around Ramsay Street (or Pin Oak Court as its really called) is very surreal taking photos of peoples houses. The show is filmed on the street but the interiors are in the shows studios just up the road, which we tried in vain to see. The studios were closed for filming so we all stalked around the perimeter managing to spot Grease Monkeys, Lous Car Sales, the Garage, Lassiters, Charlies and the lake. The Neighbours tour costs around $65 whereas our was free, who says the Scottish are tight?!






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.


  
0 comments | edit post

Goodbye Shelly!

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!!


0 comments | edit post

G’Day Santa

Thursday, December 30, 2010 Katie and Taylor

A visit to South Australia wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Barossa Valley, theBarossa Valley (6) famous wine region and home to Jacobs Creek and Penfolds wines. We had an objective to find a bottle of wine for our Christmas dinner. The winner was a bottle of Moscato from Jacobs Creek after much free tastings and dodging the plague of locusts which have hit the region just as we arrived. Shelly has been painted red with the blood of insects a fair bit on her travels but nothing prepared her for having locusts committing suicide on her face! We’ll clean her soon.

 

Adelaide is quite a modern city with the CBD being surrounded by parklands and the centre being full of grand buildings and churches. Weirdly enough the shops were quiet, compared to what Christmas shopping is like back home. Adelaide is known as the city of churches, and they ain’t lying as almost every corner has a church on it. Quite a strange sight to see was Santa driving around in a mini-moke and wearing shorts. I don’t see it catching on to be honest……big red jacket, full beard, santa hat and a nice tight pair of khaki shorts, mmm festive!

Adelaide (2)Adelaide (12)

Adelaide (9)We originally planned to be in Coober Pedy for Xmas but luckily we ended up ahead of schedule and lucked out on a 4 star apartment in the centre of Adelaide, complete with swimming pool, balcony, Sky TV and most importantly our own kitchen. After 9 months on the road, all we craved was to be able to cook our own food so it was great to be able to cook proper food and even a batch of Chocolate Balls (thanks mum for the recipe.)

To be honest it never really felt like Christmas, as being used to snow from back home it felt weird being in 36 degree heat. It was great though to settle down for a few days as after being on the road for the best part of a year, we are ready now to settle down for a while.

 

We are currently on our last leg of our Australian adventure, via the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne, where hopefully Shelly will gain a new owner to continue her travels. We shall then be flying onto Auckland and hope to get a job for a while and sample a bit of Kiwi life.

0 comments | edit post

The Red Centre to Civilisation

Monday, December 20, 2010 Katie and Taylor
A tour of the centre of Australia isn’t complete without a visit to Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park, home of the infamous Ayers Rock, so we headed there from Alice. After 450kms, a night stop with a friendly emu and lots of desert we made it to the Ayers Rock Resort. A purpose built holiday village just outside the National Park which offers accommodation for the budget traveller right through to the multi-millionaires there’s something for everyone, we opted for a campsite and slept in the car - for a change. There’s a bank, post office, supermarket and it even has it’s own airport!  The resort was built as motels and campsites built beside Ayers Rock in the 70s were ruining the landscape so everything was moved 20kms away.

The day we arrived we set off in sight of the Olgas, not as famous as Uluru/Ayers Rock but just as stunning. Also known as Kata Tjuta, so called by the Aboriginals meaning many heads, the spectacular orangy red domes stand 200 metres higher than Uluru. There’s 36 of them packed together and there are a couple of walks to do around them. We opted for the gorge walk which took us through the middle, very cool if a bit windy.

Next we headed to the sunset carpark at Uluru for our fist proper close up of the huge rock. We made ourselves comfy and prepared dinner whilst watching the sunset. A bit of an anti-climax to be honest, it was a very cloudy. Ayers rock lit up beautifully though and we did get some lovely photos!


Sunrise was much the same, but worth getting up at 5am for. We picked up a Japanese hitch hiker who missed his bus into the NP. At 5am we were both a little dozed and offered the guy a lift thinking we were going to the same place.. we weren’t. Toshi wanted to go to the Olgas 45Kms away from Uluru, oops. So we dropped him off at the buses at Uluru hoping he would make it to the Olgas after sunrise (he was to late to catch it at the Olgas anyway). Ben....... I mean Toshi then left his camera in our car and came running back, very confused and said he couldn’t get on any buses. Luckily he found some willing backpackers to take him. The national park is so huge that you can’t go off walking very easy and he probably would have tried to walk to the Olgas and get lost in the process, so we were glad he was no longer our responsibility.

After an early morning cuppa and some breakfast we headed off on the 10km base walk around Uluru. It was strange seeing the rock so close, it was absolutely massive and not smooth like it looks in all the pictures. There were lots of bumps and holes in it, some of which were sacred sites, so photos were prohibited in many areas. This was slightly frustrating as there was no explanation to the sacred sights, just that they were there and not to take photos. Climbing Uluru is not advised as the Aboriginal people don’t want tourists up there as it is sacred to their culture , so we didn’t climb up.

Our visit to Uluru was short and sweet and after our walk we set off south in search of opals in the 4th state of our visit, South Australia. Coober Pedy was our first destination, meaning hole of white man in Aboriginal, basically because 90% of the worlds opals are mined here and people from all over the world wanted a piece of it so moved there to mine. Temperatures in Coober Pedy can be excessive (50 degrees plus) which has drawn many of its occupants into underground houses where the temperature stays the same all year round. When we heard this we thought the whole place would be underground, but it was only a handful of shops and accommodation and since we arrived on Saturday afternoon nearly everything was closed so the only underground place we could see was the Catholic church, which was really small but really pretty. There was a drive in movie theatre here too which was closed for Christmas so we missed out on that too. Taylor did a bit of noodling (looking for Opals) and found a little piece. Unfortunately after all my hints for a new (not green-turning) wedding ring made from opal we left empty handed and continued our drive south. This started with miles and miles of nothing and ended in the third largest city in South Australia, Port Augusta.

We have now left the Outback, nothing can prepare you for the vast amount of nothingness in between roadhouses and mining towns. We are glad though to leave behind the multitude of flies, chance of mowing down a roo or breaking down in the middle of a desert.
0 comments | edit post

Reef to the Outback

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Katie and Taylor
The Overlander's Highway spans 896 km and 2 states, not to mention linking the tropics of Queensland and the sparse wilderness of the Northern Territory.  It was the first real taste of our road trip towards the red centre and we had our fingers crossed that Shelly would last the marathon from Townsville to Tennants Creek, then joining the Explorers Highway to Alice Springs.

The landscape changed from mountain ranges and 99% humidity to the more bearable dry heat that we last encountered on the Silk Road in Central Asia. Our first pit stop was Charters Towers which was briefly the 2nd largest city in Queensland after Brisbane during a gold rush in the 19th century with around 30,000 people chancing their luck to pan for gold. It even had its own stock exchange but we found out that it involved a guy in a house who had a call twice a day, not quite what its like now! Our next stop was Hughenden and Richmond which is billed as the dinosaur capital of Australia as this area was a great sea millions of years ago and is home to the best specimens of fossils in Oz. We met another typically Australian dinosaur from Hughenden called Hughie!

We docked into a rest area after weaving our way through a bad storm which stopped half way through and the wind changed direction and hit us all over again. In the middle of the outback (which had the highest recorded temperature ever recorded in Oz at 53.2 degrees) we met a group of travellers and had a bit of a party with warm white wine and goon, very bizarre and I even fell asleep on the bonnet during the night as it was ridiculously hot inside the car only to be woken up by a road train pulling up. These road train can be as long as 55 metres and are particularly terrifying when the overtake you at 130 kmph.

We arrived into Mount Isa with a small hangover and docked in for a night, which to my surprise is one of the largest cities in the world. Yep honestly, as the the main street is 180 km long, not a place you want to traipse along shopping. The main street links the town with an even smaller village 180 km away near the border. It was nice to fill up on some supplies in the middle of nowhere and true to form, being the nations home of rodeo, most of the residents have matching stetson hat and boots.

The other end of the "main street" ends in Camoweal which doesn't have much in it apart from expensive fuel and very tasty cookies and warned us that the clocks go back 30 minutes and 5 years! But seriously why change the clocks by 30 minutes.....very confusing! So we crossed into the Northern Territory and the scenery changed very quickly to red ochre mud and bright blue skies. It was nice to leave the floods behind which have battered much of Australia as we have been here. 

The drive form the border to Tennant Creek took most of the day to cross, passing some of the largest cattle stations in the world and some lovely examples on what a road train can do the local wildlife.....very colourful!

Tennant Creek is another gold mining town but only seems to be home to locals wandering the streets so we didn't hang around too long and we started heading south on the Explorers Highway/Stuart Highway towards Alice Springs. 

First stop off while heading south was the Devils Marbles or Karlu Karlu by the local Aboriginals have many balancing rocks, quite spectacular! We also passed the UFO capital of Australia which homes a few people who have apparently been abducted by aliens and probed?! Interesting! Sightings are guaranteed if you stay the night but we moved on. We just found out today that the backpacker, Peter Falconio who went missing a few years ago was found here while we were visiting. Also stumbled upon a Hollywood stylee sign for a small aboriginal village of Aileron, with its very own large naked man and woman.


After 3 days driving we arrived in Alice Springs, the centre of Australia and surprisingly enough it is very hot (39 degrees today) We chose to stay here for 2 nights as Shelly is in for her first service and we are glad to report after having 2 new front tyres, she is ready to hit the road again.

Alice Springs can swelter to temperatures of 45 degrees in the summer and shiver to near freezing in the winter. We wandered the dry Todd river which hosts a yearly regatta with a difference, the bottoms of the boats are cut out and the teams run on the river bed. Alice is also home to the largest school in the world, as children all over the outback tune into the School of the Air and they are taught online/radio by a teacher in Alice Springs. Also the operational centre of the flying doctors is based in Alice which tends to the medical needs of the outback by flying to the remotest regions of Oz. 

Well now we have reached the centre, we are heading to Ayers Rock/Uluru tomorrow for a few days before heading through more of the outback southbound towards Adelaide for Christmas.. can't really believe it's Christmas and it's kinda hard to get in the Christmas spirit in this heat - I think this picture sums it up.. 

0 comments | edit post