Just to Whet Your Appetite

We just got back from our three day/two night cruise around the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, Australia. We were much luckier with the weather than we thought we would be, though the diving was not so great. I do not have time to write out a long post right now because we need to get back on the road to make it down to Hervey Bay for our Fraser Island tour on Thursday (busy, busy, busy!). A longer post will follow soon, but here are some pictures to enjoy for now!

Jucing in Australia, Part II: Waterfalls and Wallabies

"I'm sorry about the weather," the travel agent said as soon as we walked into her office.  That wasn't what we wanted to hear.  Following the disappointment of the muddy Capricorn Coast, we pushed all the way up to Airlie Beach to get on a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands.  We were over halfway to Cairns, and still hadn't seen as much as we had wanted, and now the sailing trip wasn't looking likely either.  Maybe we could go straight up to Cairns, go diving up there and come back to Airlie on the way back to Brisbane?  "The weather's just as bad in Cairns," warned the travel agent.  Dejected, Lorena, Magge and I took some brochures and ate lunch on a windy beach as we strategized.  Different plans were discussed, including a crazy one that would have us backtrack nine hours, and in the end we decided to continue north to Paluma National Park, and decide in a few days whether to go up to Cairns or back to Airlie Beach.  The plan sounded fine, but all three of us were still discouraged and we had to remind ourselves that we were traveling around Australia while everyone else we know is working.

Jucing in Australia

We haven't posted much about our time in Australia because we haven't really done much yet here.  We spent our first two nights with CouchSurfers Tereasa and Charles, a very friendly couple that helped us plan our time in Australia.  The rest of the week, we stayed with Lorena, a friend from college and New York, and her roommate, who have been living in Sydney since October.  During the day, we just walked around Sydney and took in the usual Sydney sites like the Opera House (including seeing the Sydney Symphony perform with the cheapest tickets we could find), the Harbor Bridge, and Bondi and Manly beaches.  No bungy jumping, jet boating or glacier hiking this week.

Our time in Sydney was lazy by design because we've been constantly on the move since leaving Santiago at the beginning of March, not staying in any one place longer than three nights during that span, and had a two week, 2,000 mile road trip planned from Brisbane to Cairns and back.  To add to the fun, we're bringing along Lorena as a third wheel, and all three of us are staying in a Jucy Choppa.  What's a Jucy Choppa?  A conspicuously painted camper van with a hip name (you know it's hip because it's spelled incorrectly) that likely belonged to a soccer mom (or rugby mom, or whatever the equivalent is down here) in its previous life.  If you're curious about the sleeping arrangement, the photograph below should explain everything.  Lorena is sleeping on the roof.

French Polynesia & New Zealand Wrap Up

Our stay in French Polynesia wasn't long enough to warrant its own wrap-up, so we are lumping it with New Zealand. New Zealand is technically within the Polynesian Triangle, so we feel justified in doing this.

Facts and Figures
Length of Stay:  Twenty-two days
Miles Traveled to Enter:  2,600 by plane
Miles Traveled:  2,050 by car + 2,500 by plane + 75 by ferry = 4,625 total (17,571 since landing in Quito)
Places Visited: Papeete, island of Moorea, Faa'a, Auckland, Rotorua, Waitomo, Wellington, Christchurch, Lake Tekapo, Hikotika, Fox Glacier, Lake Manapouri, Milford Sound, Queenstown
Intercity Buses Taken:  Just 1!
Ferries Taken:  3
Flights Taken:  1
Rides given to other travelers: 4

Rankings in the full post.

Tahiti: Part Deux

Though the visual beauty of Moorea was stunning, it was the beauty of the Tahitian spirit that really made Jeff and me fall in love with this area of the world. 

So Many Animals to Take Pictures Of!

Jeff loves talking about my obsession with taking pictures of animals. Australia is proving to be a wonderland of interesting animals to serve as photo subjects. This of course annoys Jeff greatly, which only adds to my pleasure of snapping picture after picture.

These birds are all over Sydney. Their population is clearly being monitored, as they all had tags around their legs. I still need to figure out what kind of bird they are though.

Another Universal Constant: kids love chasing birds

So many times I have wished I had a zoom lense! These bats were incredible. They are the biggest bats I have ever seen in my life and they were all over the place. They are also referred to as "flying foxes". Don't worry, they aren't carnivorous.

They also made terrible sounds. They damage the trees and so the government is taking measures to eradicate them in some areas.

Pretty scary spider, huh? Apparently Australia has more animals that can kill you than any other place in the world. I'm not sure if these are amongst the deadly ones. I would think not though since they're everywhere.

Kind of looks like they're floating in air

Again wishing I had a zoom lense (hint, hint, mom!). The colors of these birds were spectacular.

Shotover Jet

Let me start off by saying that I am in no way embarrassed or ashamed of the fact that I did not bungy jump.  It's simply not something I am interested in doing and I do not see the point in spending a lot of money to do something I don't want to do.  I rappelled 100m, I think I proved I can handle heights when necessary.

I do, however, enjoy a little adrenaline rush and wanted to partake in at least one of the many crazy activities that are abundant in Queenstown (you cannot walk down the street without seeing at least a few people paragliding overhead.)

Due to time constraints, rafting and river sledging really weren't options.  So I decided to go with Queenstown's original adrenaline rush: jetboating.  These types of boats were invented in New Zealand in the '50s to explore the shallow, braided rivers that are common here.  They can reach speeds of 80km/h in water only four inches deep, and can turn on a dime.  Watch the video to get a taste of what Jeff and I experienced during our thrilling ride on the Shotover River.  And yes, we did come as close to the rocks as it looks.

Photographs from New Zealand's Roadsides

Following the theme I started in the Life on the Road in New Zealand's South Island post, here are pictures taken from New Zealand's highways.  Most of them were taken off the shoulder or from lookout points, and the longest we walked to get any of these was fifteen minutes.

Drive from Fox Glacier to Lake Manapouri

Sorry, Mom, but I Had to Try It

More in the full post, including pictures

Pining for the Fjords

Throughout our time in New Zealand, we had repeatedly heard and read that the Fiordland (part of the enormous Te Wahipounamu UNESCO World Heritage Site) is the prettiest area of the country.  Given how stunning the rest of New Zealand is, we've been excited about getting to the Fiordland, but we still wanted to temper our expectations to avoid being let down.

Queenstown at Dusk

We should have a number of posts coming up over the next few days (including Magge's long awaited second post on Tahiti). In the meantime, here are pictures of Queenstown taken tonight from our hostel.  The mountains in this picture have the very cool name of "The Remarkables".

Hiking on Fox Glacier

We wanted to go on a guided hike on Grey Glacier in Torres del Paine in Chile, but the logistics of getting to the meeting point at 7am when we were a five hour hike away didn't allow us.  I promised Magge we would would do a glacier hike at some point, and the opportunity quickly presented itself in New Zealand.  Fox and Franz Josef, two of the many glaciers in this country, are among the most accessible in the world, with tours getting on the ice every day.  Only 20km from each other in Westland National Park, part of the Te Wahipounamu UNESCO World Heritage Site*, the glaciers are unique in that they descend into a rain forest only 300m above sea level and that they have actually been advancing for most of the last twenty-five years while most of the world's glaciers have been retreating.  I could go on and on about Fox and Franz Josef facts (the ice at the top of the glacier can move as much as 5m in one day, while the ice in the middle can move as much as 2m, about ten times more than the average glacier's speed), but you probably want to hear about the hike.

More on Hokitika Gorge

For the first time on this website, I'm posting a video.  We'll try to this more going forward if we get video of interesting things, but for this first time, I'm just trying to break the ice.  We took this video of the Hokitika Gorge because of the bird calls, which you can still hear, but don't sound as pretty as they did in person.

Life on the Road in New Zealand's South Island

We racked up more miles on buses in four months in South America than anyone should in a lifetime. Nevertheless, we were planning on tackling New Zealand in the same manner before being convinced by a number of travelers that getting our own car was the way to go. It’s the best decision we’ve made in this country. Just being freed from the Traveling Problem Child Corollary to Murphy’s Law validates the decision, let alone the added scheduling flexibility and ability to get to places the buses do not travel.  But our favorite feature is that we can pull over whenever we see something interesting.  New Zealand is incredibly beautiful, and much of that beauty is easily accessible from the road.  Aside from the picture from the ferry, every picture in this post was taken within an hour's walk from the road, and most were within much shorter walks than that.