Country – Page 8 – In Foreign Parts

August 3, 2008September 21, 2017

Melbourne – Adelaide

Arrived in Adelaide in one piece last night, after a packed 3 days with Oz Experience. It was a blast, not just because of the stunning landscapes of the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians, but also because we were an awesome group of people – 13 altogether, plus our guide Kate. We all got on like a house on fire, which made it all that much better.

But first I need to recap the last days in Melbourne: I spent some more time exploring the city, including the Botanical Gardens, the Queen Victoria Market and the Shrine of Remembrance (war memorial). I also took a tour of a lovely historical home, Como House, and looked at an impressive Art Deco exhibition at the National Museum.

Then the tour: The first day we drove along the Great Ocean Road to the famous 12 Apostles. On the way we saw wild koalas, cockatoos and parrots, took a walk among the tree tops at Otway (nothing for people with vertigo) and generally got to know each other. In the hostel in tiny little Princetown we met a tour going the other way (Adelaide – Melbourne), including a Swiss girl from the Valais (yay for Swiss German! *g*). The second day we left the coast (lots of wind and rain – and rainbows!) and drove to the Grampians, where we did a hike in the Wonderland, which was great but incredibly windy. That night we stayed at the best hostel EVER, in Halls Gap. The third day consisted of another hike (or rather, mountain climb, as we had to go on hands and knees for most of it) up Hollow Mountain and then a long drive to Adelaide, leaving Victoria behind for South Australia. We saw emus, wallabies, kangaroos (including albino ones) – and naked men… *g*

In Adelaide a bunch of us (Lauren, Layla, Mike and I) ended up at the YHA and we met up with a few others for dinner that night. Us three girls then proceeded to buy matching t-shirts to commemorate the tour and the almost-loss of four backpacks when Kate forgot to close the trailer!

Today we had to say goodbye to Layla and then Lauren and I met up with Tom, Sonja’s husband from Melbourne, in town for business, and we went to the Botanical Gardens and the South Australia Museum. We also bumped into three people from the tour – Alan & Jane from Scotland and Kim from Korea, and tonight we’ll meet up with our French girl Lucile for dinner. Altogether I’m having a simply marvelous time! Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, and in the meantime enjoy the photos on my Flickr…

July 30, 2008September 21, 2017

Goodbye Melbourne

Photos and details on what I’ve been doing the past couple of days will have to wait, because the bus tour to Adelaide will leave tomorrow morning at 6.30am from the town centre, so I should get packed and go to bed. But I’ve had a really good time here, thanks to Sonja and her family, and I’m sad to leave, although I’m looking forward to seeing the famous Great Ocean Road.

July 29, 2008September 21, 2017

First stop in Australia: Melbourne

I finally arrived on Saturday, after Rathy was nice enough to bring me to the airport at 4 in the morning. My friend Sonja came to pick me up, and since then I’ve been staying with her and her lovely family in a suburb of Melbourne, full with cute little Victorian worker’s cottages. Their house, for example, is only one room wide, built a little like a train. Sonja and her husband Tom both speak German, so we get to have secret conversations in front of the two boys (Sean and Yannik) a lot. *g*

I’ve also been exploring the city a bit, walking around the CBD (Central Business District), which is full of beautiful old buildings in between modern skyscrapers. There’s also trams going everywhere, so I feel right at home. 🙂 Another thing I like about Melbourne are the many, many parks – when they planned the city in the mid-1800s, they sure did a good job.

There are also some nice museums – on Sunday, when the weather was bad, we went to the Melbourne Museum, and yesterday I spent some time at the State Library, looking at a beautiful exhibition of old books. The family also took me to Williamstown on the sea, where I got a lovely look at the Melbourne skyline.

The new Flickr album can be found here. Now I have two more days here, which I intend to put to good use.

July 25, 2008September 21, 2017

A stolen day

Making the most of my surprise extra day in Wellington – even the weather is playing along, brightening up for an afternoon trip to the Botanical Garden. I even discovered something I hadn’t seen before: the old cemetery above Thorndon, between the gardens and the city centre, which makes for an interesting contrast. I’m so glad for this, it’s much nicer than leaving in the middle of a storm…

July 24, 2008September 21, 2017

Last night at the flat

So my time here is officially almost over. Here’s my last week in Wellington:

– Saturday: Dinner with friends at Southern Cross, then out to a bar and dancing.
– Sunday: Last time at church.
– Monday: Saying goodbye to Adeline and an evening at Strawberry Fare with my friends from church.
– Tuesday: Miriam and Charlotte come to Wellington and I give them a tour of Wellington.
– Wednesday: Birthday lunch for Jessica. Getting stuff done like waiting for the courier and closing my bank account.
– Thursday: Visit to Te Papa Tongarewa museum. The evening is spent hanging out with Jessica, Rathy, Michelle, Supriya and Celia, eating takeout and watching TV.

As always, all photos can be found here in my Flickr album. For Australia I’ll start a new one.

Tomorrow Rathy will take me to the airport at 4am, because my plane leaves for Melbourne at 6am. I seriously can’t really believe that I won’t be coming back here, not for a long time at least. But here’s the itinerary for Australia so far:

July 25-30: Melbourne, staying with my friend Sonja
July 31-August 2: bus tour to Adelaide
Aug 3-5: Adelaide
Aug 6-7: Ghan train to Alice Springs
Aug 8-10: tour to see Uluru/Ayers Rock
Aug 11-13: Ghan train to Darwin
Aug 14-24: travel down the west coast by Greyhound
Aug 25-September 1: Perth, staying with my friend Nancy
September 2: flying to Singapore, where I’ll stay with my friend Amy
September 6: arriving in Zurich

Kia ora from Aotearoa – I’ll talk to you from the land of kangaroos, folks! 🙂

Edit: My flight was canceled because of the strong wind and rain we’ve been having here. I was told to call tomorrow about a later flight, but in any case I’m booked for Saturday.

July 23, 2008September 21, 2017

Music: A Year in New Zealand

Spending the week saying goodbye is not fun, so I decided to cheer myself up by making a playlist to commemorate my time here. It’s a mix of kiwi artists (*), songs I listened to while here and/or that I found appropriate. Enjoy! 🙂

A Year in New Zealand

1. Elemeno P* – Baby Come On: www.sendspace.com/file/6ppyri
2. Discovery Channel – Boom de Yada: www.sendspace.com/file/57z8zd
3. Howard Shore – The Shire (Lord of the Rings): www.sendspace.com/file/myrb6u
4. Bic Runga* – Precious Things: www.sendspace.com/file/00rkdx
5. Opshop* – One Day: www.sendspace.com/file/vdxyom
6. XTC – Stupidly Happy: www.sendspace.com/file/5wy0np
7. Rhombus* – Scorching Bay: www.sendspace.com/file/vvn05c
8. Koop – Come to Me: www.sendspace.com/file/fw8xdq
9. Bright Eyes – First Day of My Life: www.sendspace.com/file/l8u9ur
10. Empires – Anywhere: www.sendspace.com/file/cru1f1
11. Fire Flies – Welcome to Our Neck of the Woods: www.sendspace.com/file/706at7
12. Anika Moa* – Good In My Head: www.sendspace.com/file/fkr9v4
13. Jason Mraz – Live High: www.sendspace.com/file/xlbwmb
14. The Hush Sound – Medicine Man: www.sendspace.com/file/nif9xh
15. Panic at the Disco – Northern Downpour: www.sendspace.com/file/5gprxf
16. Oh No! Oh My! – Walk in the Park: www.sendspace.com/file/zphjli
17. Fall Out Boy – Saturday: www.sendspace.com/file/0v53ew
18. Bon Jovi – Lost Highway: www.sendspace.com/file/e0q17l
19. Cracker – Been Around the World: www.sendspace.com/file/7uvz4g
20. Patrick Stump – Tom Traubert’s Blues (Tom Waits cover): www.sendspace.com/file/6pppn4
21. Regina Spektor – The Call (Narnia – Prince Caspian): www.sendspace.com/file/0c98ps

Bonus: Anika Moa* – Kotahitanga (“Oneness”): www.sendspace.com/file/60s1sk

Later today I’ll be posting some photos from this week’s series of goodbyes… My last day in Wellington, how strange is that?!

July 18, 2008September 21, 2017

Back in Wellington

The last few days on the South Island were absolutely lovely. The daytrip to Abel Tasman National Park was great – first a boattrip to Torrent Bay, then walking back along the Abel Tasman trail for about 4-5 hours. I ended up in a group of four for most of it, with Janneke from Holland, Daria from Germany and Bruno from Brazil. Janneke was at the YHA with me, so after a day of the great (and beautiful) outdoors, we ended up in the sauna at the hostel. 🙂

In the morning I left for Picton, which turned out to be a short but eventful busride, as we had to stop several times for a passenger with diarrhoe. I wasn’t feeling too great either, because I had really bad cramps. Thanks to painkillers they were mostly gone by the time we reached Picton and I decided to see Bruno again before he left on the ferry to Wellington that day. After that I went for a nice little walk along the coast in the Victoria Domain. The evening I spent reading in the dorm room that I had to myself – during the 3 weeks of travel I think I read 16 books in total, thanks to bookswap shelves in all the hostels!

The ferry trip back to Wellington today was nice, the weather couldn’t be better and, while I couldn’t read once we were out on the open sea, I was able to sit on the sundeck and didn’t get seasick at all. We even saw two schools of dolphins in Malborough Sounds! And in Wellington Supryia and Rathy picked me up and I’ve been chilling at my old place of residence with Rathy, Jessica and Meredith. It is good to be back, but also rather strange because I’m no longer living here, just staying for a visit… Anyway, got lots of plans for the next week, obviously, meeting people and seeing places one more time. But first, here’s the last photos I took on the South Island, as always to be found in full on Flickr:

July 15, 2008September 21, 2017

West coast photos / Nelson, part 1

Managed to get the pictures from Franz Josef (only two, because of the abysmal weather) and Punakaiki (a lot, including two short films, because of the stunning coast) as well as some from the bus trips (Queenstown – Franz Josef – Punakaiki – Nelson) and the pictures I took today. As always all photos can be found on Flickr. (But boy, the internet is quite slow here and I only had an hour’s internet time, so apologies for the unfinishedness of the titles/comments/tags.)

Mainly I hung around town today (Starbucks! I hadn’t had my mint hot chocolate in over a week – and they promptly raised the prices… *g*), walked along the river and went to see ‘Mamma Mia’ in the cinema. Tomorrow I’ll go to Abel Tasman National Park, which should be good for more photos. 🙂

July 14, 2008September 21, 2017

West coast (Franz Josef & Punakaiki)

I’ve arrived in Nelson tonight, where the YHA is lovely and where I plan to spend the next couple of days. Unfortunately the card reader on the computer isn’t working, however, so photos from the past few days will have to wait.

I had a good time in Franz Josef, although sadly the weather was really awful (warmer than on the east side of the mountains, but very wet – it even hailed one morning!). So instead of going up the glacier I just hung out with my friend Kevin. On Saturday evening we met up with Miriam and Charlotte and went to see the rugby (NZ vs. South Africa, which was fun although the All Blacks lost) and then took in a bit of the Franz Josef nightlife. All I’m saying is “pole dance competition”… *g*

Yesterday I took the bus to Punakaiki. I’d seen the famous pancake rocks there twice before, as the bus to Nelson always stops there, but this time, following Anna’s recommendation, I stayed one night at the YHA there. It was totally worth it, although without a car you’re pretty much stuck at the hostel. But I didn’t mind that in the least, because I was in a separate bungalow with five very nice backpackers from Ireland, Canada and South Africe, and the hostel is situated in the middle of the rain forest, only a short walk from a breathtaking beach. I can’t wait to share the dozens of photos I took there… The west coast of the South Island is truly one of the most spectacular places in the whole country!

Okay, enough for today, hopefully the next update will be with pictures… I don’t even want to think about the fact that in less than two weeks I’ll be in Australia!

July 9, 2008September 21, 2017

Queenstown

I spent the last three days here in Queenstown, which is pretty much New Zealand’s tourist capital. It feels almost like one of the Swiss resort towns, including the beautiful scenery – and the prices… I spent the first day wandering around the town and taking a gondola ride. Yesterday I went skiing in nearby Cadrona, big for kiwi standards but tiny for Europeans. Still, the weather was gorgeous and the snow good. Today I went on a Lord of the Rings location tour to Glenorchy at the end of Lake Waikatipu, which was very lovely as well. You can’t go much more beautiful than here, really…

I’ve also been quite the social butterfly, meeting up with people I’d met in Te Anau (Misato from the hostel and Charlotte and Miriam from the Doubtful Sound tour) as well as hanging out with people met here at the YHA (American sisters Ziba and Vija from my dorm room and Aussie Dave from the Cardrona tour).

As always, you can find more photos here on Flickr.

What I haven’t managed in 10 days of traveling yet is calling my parents. The next few days I’ll be in Franz Josef, staying with my friend Kevin, who’s a glacier guide there, then I’m heading further up the west coast, one of my favorite parts of New Zealand. We’ll see how the internet situation will be…