Hollywood!

On our first full day in LA we did a trip to Universal Studios through our hostel. We had a great day there especially on the Jurassic Park and Mummy rides. There was also a cool Simpson’s ride and a Shrek 4D movie. Some of the stuff was a bit dated, especially the Terminator show as I think there have been 2 films and a TV show made since the ride was built but it was all good fun. We also did the studio tour which was entertaining although all our favourite films have now been ruined!

We met Spongebob!

We picked up our car a few days into the trip (should have got it at the airport but thought we could get a better deal locally) and ended up with a Pontiac, a real American Veehickle. Unfortunately I think it was probably made in China and unlike the 20 ft long classics it was a little hatchback but it was still great to have a car, you really can’t get very far here without one.

On our first drive out we explored the Beverly Hills area looking for celebrities, unfortunately we didn’t see very much except for a lot of big (expensive looking) gates and Leonardo Di Caprio’s security guard who stared at us until we drove away. I didn’t see a single Red Hot Chili Pepper!

The next morning we went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This was a very strange place as its tourist central yet full of Hoodlums, Scallywags and Ne’er do wells. We parked at the dodgy end of the walk (where it’s free parking) and headed towards the Chinese Theatre in the centre. It’s funny to see which stars ended up with stars at the crappy end of town; somebody had even had their brass star nicked from the paving slab! Outside the theatre is where all the stars have left their footprints and handprints. All the greats are there but I was a little surprised to find that they’d let Steven Seagal have a space. We paid a quick visit to the theatre where they hold the Oscars which was very posh and then had lunch in a McDonalds and made a sharp exit when we felt outnumbered by crazies (it didn’t take long).

Next to Christopher Walken's square

We did an afternoon trip to Santa Monica to see the sea and found that it was what we had imagined LA to be. There was a great beach and nice shops and unlike LA we didn’t feel like we were about to be mugged at any moment!

On our final night in LA we were joined in our dorm by 4 New Zealanders. Just as we were about to get an early night ready for the long drive the next day they suggested a few drinks out. Can you guess what happened next? We started off at the Viper Rooms which was formally owned by Johnny Depp and outside of which child star River Phoenix died of an overdose. It was tiny but probably the coolest place I’ll ever get into for the reasons mentioned above. There was a band playing there but they were too loud for the Kiwi’s so we moved on. We ended up in a very scary gay bar where the Kiwi’s almost ended up in a fight with a policeman (he said he was in the police but I think he just liked to dress up in the uniform). After that we decided to save some money, get some beers and go back to the hostel. It was a fun night but the next day we were less than prepared for our drive up the coast to Santa Cruz!

Can you tell they're from New Zealand?

The Pacific Highway was a great drive full of spectacular scenery, unfortunately it also had many corners which totally confused all the Americans in front so we spent a lot of the time staring at peoples bumpers while they crawled along at 10mph. We pulled over a few times to admire the view and spotted a colony of Elephant Seals near Hearst Castle.

Pacific Highway

After about 8 hours driving we made it to Santa Cruz and not a minute too late as I had started driving like an American in my tired state. We checked into a Motel which was one of the nicest places we’d stayed on the whole trip, not at all like the Norman Bates place in Psycho!

Our main reason for visiting Santa Cruz was to the Roaring Camp steam train and redwood forest trip. This was great fun and we saw the kind of North American redwood forest that I’ve always wanted to visit since watching the X Files episode with Bigfoot in. The guide was a great bloke who really knew his stuff, we could tell we were getting close to San Francisco though as he was a bit of a tree hugging hippy.

Roaring Camp Railroad!

Santa Cruz itself was quite nice in places although still had a really weird atmosphere about it. There were homeless people everywhere and we were getting really weird looks for walking through town. It seems that in the US if you’re walking it either means you’re too poor to have a car or you’re just crazy. We ended up at a funfair on the seafront boardwalk. It was a proper 1920’s style thing with wooden rollercoaster’s but a lot of it was shut as it isn’t quite summer yet. In general it seemed like a nice town but we were glad we only spent a couple of days there.

On our way out of town we visited the Mystery Spot. This is a really old school tourist attraction set up years ago. Basically they claim that the laws of gravity don’t apply in this little area in the woods outside Santa Cruz. There are all sorts of tricks and optical illusions to convince people that they’ve shrunk or are leaning at a weird angle. It’s really hard to explain but is great fun and we did feel very dizzy when we left so maybe there is some truth to it!

Ooh the Mystery!

After a short drive up the coast we arrived in San Francisco. We stayed in a 24 bed dorm which sounds awful but as we knew it would be our last shared room we really didn’t mind that much. The only problem was that there were at least 3 snorers in the room every night so we got a lot of use out of our ear plugs whilst there.

San Francisco!

On our first day we did a walking tour of San Fran which included a cable car ride, china town (including a fortune cookie factory), enjoying the views from a big tower I have forgotten the name of, Union Square and Fishermans Wharf. We ended the day at Pier 39 which is home to some more Elephant Seals and more tourist crap than we had ever seen. It was a great day and for once we didn’t get any weird looks for walking around. We really got a good impression of San Francisco; it’s a proper city and is really easy to get around unlike LA. Plus everyone is a Prius driving vegan too so they’re less likely to mug you!

While we were in town we did a night tour of Alcatraz which was awesome. The place was really creepy at night, not to mention freezing cold! We had an audio tour which featured the original prison guards and prisoners which was really well done. We also heard some of the legends surrounding Al Capone and other infamous prisoners.

Alcatraz aka 'The Rock'

On our last day in San Fran we walked over the golden gate bridge which was fun, although clearly not fun for everyone as they have ‘Crisis Counselling’ phone boxes strategically placed for people planning to jump, only in America! That night we went to the Big Foot Lodge for a few drinks (the LA branch features in the film Yes Man) where I enjoyed a Sasquatch cocktail and Rachel had something which was served on fire. On our way back we both got authentic New York pizza slices which were amazing!

Golden Gate Bridge

Next stop was Yosemite National Park. It was extremely cold here and we stayed in a tent so sleeping required all 10 of the blankets they gave us. We realised we had arrived at the wrong time of year when we found out that most of the roads were still closed because of the snow. Apparently there can still be around 9 ft of snow in July around here. We did get to see some amazing views of the valley and various waterfalls. It was spectacular but we just spent a month in New Zealand so we weren’t as impressed as everyone around us! Also there isn’t a lot to do when you get there, if it was New Zealand we’d have been able to walk up the mountain, jump off the cliff and then ride the rapids back to the car but here it’s mostly about taking photos, we couldn’t even find a proper walk which was disappointing. We did see some wildlife including deer, loads of squirrels and a bear!

Yosemite

After Yosemite our next stop was LAS VEGAS!!! We were so excited about this and had hoped it would be a great way to end the trip (and win back some of the money we’d spent). We stayed in the Sahara which is on the top end of the strip. Its claim to fame is that Elvis stayed there whilst he was filming Viva Las Vegas. To be honest he wouldn’t stay there now, it’s a bit dilapidated but we didn’t care as it was cheap and on the strip (albeit a good hours walk from the best casinos).

During our time there we got to see all the evening shows outside the casinos including the Treasure Island pirate show, the Mirage’s random volcano and the awesome Bellagio water fountains which dance to different pieces of music every 15 minutes through the night.

New York, New York

The Bellagio

Our favourite casino by far was Paris. It has a cool theme which continues inside the casino unlike some of the others which look like Blackpool bingo halls when you get inside (I’d imagine). We also had our biggest success in Paris and thanks to a bit of luck on the Roulette table came out $135 up at the end of our 4 nights! Hopefully one day we can afford to come back and stay there!

Paris

We had a great time in Vegas but wouldn’t recommend building it up by watching the Ocean’s Eleven and Hangover films cos it’s really nothing like that. We even bought smart clothes to go out in but everyone else was wearing shorts and ‘fanny packs’, bloody Americans, don’t go expecting Monte Carlo!

From Vegas we had an epic drive down to San Diego. It shouldn’t have been that long but we got stuck in horrendous traffic, we should have guessed it would be bad in a Sunday afternoon really!

In San Diego we went straight to the nearest Mexican place and gorged ourselves on Burritos and cheap beer, it was great!

San Diego is home to Sea World so we paid a visit to see Shamu the Killer Whale. We were really disappointed at first as it seemed like the place was full of shops and the Shamu show was a real let down. The show itself was set against some horribly sentimental music and videos. I’m not sure if they had to change the show after a trainer died recently but they no longer get anywhere near the pool. Shamu just splashes around a bit while the trainers do a dance routine by the side, I was almost sick! Still, it’s not Shamu’s fault, he is still cool.

Not the only beached whale in America

The rest of the park was a big improvement. There were some fun rides and the highlight for me was the arctic zone which had some interesting whales and polar bears. There was also an enormous Walrus, I’ve seriously never seen anything as big in my life, I thought they were just fat Seals but this thing was at least the size of a London Taxi, maybe a quarter of a double decker bus and I expect he could cover a football pitch in some amount of time…

We spent an afternoon walking around Balboa Park which was nice, there are some museums and other things to see and it was another nice town to walk around without any hassle, maybe it was just LA that was weird!

That night we went to a Baseball game for an authentic American sporting experience. I don’t mean to sound negative but this is the biggest waste of time in history. It says a lot when you get in the stadium and realise nobody is actually watching the game, they’re just chatting amongst themselves. I was also under the impression that this was a place to get progressively more drunk on cheap beer while stuffing yourself on fast food but it was so expensive we had to nurse one ‘lite beer’ for the whole game. After a couple of hours of NOBODY HITTING THE BALL we left with everyone else when they realised it was 4-4 and extra innings would have to be played, dragging the thing on into the night while the crowd curse the bloke who invented floodlights. We were in such a state that we even agreed to go to a cricket game when we got home. I think that says it all!

Baseball - never again!

We spent our last full day at Disneyland which was so much fun! We started off in California Park which has some old fashioned rollercoaster’s and a cool Ferris wheel that swings around while you go round. One of the best attractions was a Toy Story 3D game where you put on 3D glasses and shoot at virtual targets as your car swings around a little indoor course.

Disneyland!

We moved over to the main Disney Park and did all the classics including Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Star Tours and my favourite Space Mountain. It was a great day which also makes a good argument for never having children!

After our last night’s accommodation of the trip we drove up to LA and did a few of the things we missed first time round. We went to the Griffith Observatory and learnt some stuff about space! There is a great view of the Hollywood sign and the city from the top. We drove to Santa Monica via a posh Beverly Hills cupcake shop and spent an hour on the beach enjoying the sun. When it was time we dropped the car off at the rental place and got our bus to the airport. We found we had a delayed flight so spent a few hours playing card games and drinking a few Budweiser’s. We were both quite excited to get home and see everybody so it wasn’t a really depressing flight as we thought it might have been!

Thank you for reading about our trip through the blog, your comments have been appreciated! We hope you have enjoyed our reviews of places and our little adventures, please under no circumstances attempt to follow any of our advice as we have found the only way to do a trip like this is make all the cock-ups you can and maybe one day you’ll be able to laugh about them!  Hopefully one day we’ll do another trip worth writing home about. We will see you all very soon!

We spent a few days on the main island in a cheap backpackers resort. It was fine but there isn’t a lot to do there, it’s where most of the population live and is very far removed from the white sandy beaches in the brochures.

We decided to spend some time on one of the smaller islands and ended up on Malolo in a place called Funky Fish. The place was pretty isolated, you really had to eat all your meals at their resort but luckily the food was great and we had a nice hut by the pool. The staff and in particular the manager were all really friendly which was nice as we hadn’t really seen that on the mainland.

This is what the taxi service on Malolo looked like

It was also really quiet whilst we were there, partly because of a recent cyclone and further weather warnings, and also because of political problems in the capital. I’d like to say we didn’t experience any of those problems while we were there but we did get caught in a nasty storm on our second night. We had to get up at around 3am when we started to get dripped on in our bed. We got dressed and moved everything off the floor just before the hut flooded! For a minute we thought the sea was lapping at the door but it was just the horizontal rain coming under the door and under the roof. It died down after an hour or so and the next day we had really sunny weather which lasted the whole time we were there.

It got a little damp in our hut during the storm

The beach wasn’t that great where we stayed but we were only a short distance from a nearby sandbank which was a great place to go. We took a couple of trips out there, first by boat on a snorkelling trip where we found loads of sea life and then a few days later we kayaked out there ourselves where we saw a manta ray leap out of the water in front of our boat!

Just after we got beached on some coral at low tide, I'm smiling because we didn't rip a hole in the boat!

Just a small selection of what we saw under the sea (better than Australia)

Even the Starfish are colourful here!

We spent a lot of time looking at the sea life and amazingly our most successful trip was when we waded out about knee deep at a rocky beach around the bay from our resort. We spotted rays, reef sharks and loads of fish and we didn’t even have to get our hair wet.

Trying to find nemo

Sting Ray!

Little Reef Shark

The best find in my opinion was a baby turtle as we were kayaking around the same bay a day later. He was bobbing around on the surface and we were really lucky to spot him (he was also lucky not to have a kayak paddle smack him in the head). We spoke to an Aussie couple who said they caught a glimpse of an adult turtle and loads of sea snakes so there was definitely a lot more to see if we’d had more time there.

Grumpy looking turtle

We loved Fiji and were really surprised how little sunbathing we ended up doing as there was so much to see! We’re glad our flight tickets took us there as we really wouldn’t have thought of going before that but now it’s definitely top of my list of places to go back to.

On our last day we managed to find Nemo!

On our first night in the capital we paid a visit to Mac’s brew bar. We tried their beers down south and decided we had to visit the brewery when we got chance. It was a really great set up, the bar was round the back of the brewery so they had everything on tap, and when I say everything I mean stouts, lagers, bitters, wheat beer and cider. It was dirt cheap too and the food was amazing, if only there were places like this back home!

Looks like Guinness, tastes a lot better

The biggest tourist attraction in ‘Windy Welly’ is the cable car. It runs up the side of the hill and has great views from the gardens at the top. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as the one in Penang Malaysia but we realise there probably weren’t many other people making that comparison when we did the trip! There was an interesting museum at the top; apparently lots of people have their own cable cars running up to their houses in the city. When I’m 75 and can actually afford a house I’m going to make sure it has a cable car!

Actually its a fernicular railway...(Rachel is a trainspotter)

We paid a short visit to the maritime museum in the city centre which was actually really interesting, although we only had 45minutes due to some bad planning (and a small hangover from the beer) we managed to learn a lot about the history of Wellington and New Zealand, including the import of MacDonald’s in the 70’s which apparently gave New Zealand a choice in their takeaways ( and they can’t figure out where the obesity is coming from!). We also got to see an awesome vintage Peugeot owned by the Mayor as a gift from France, bless them!

One of the highlights of our time in Wellington was paying a visit (and watching a film) at the biggest cinema screen in the southern hemisphere, this was also the cinema that hosted the world premiere from the final Lord of the Rings film after being restored to its original glory. We didn’t know what to expect from the cinema but it was really brought to life with a small bar and a jazz trio performing. The building itself was an art deco design and a lovely place to be on a Friday night, you can even sit in the chairs that the stars of Lord of the Rings sat in on the premier night (it cost a little extra so we were sat in the lighting crews seats). Unfortunately we saw the Clash of the Titans remake that night, not such a great film!

We moved on from Wellington and drove up to Lake Taupo in the centre of the North Island, this is the biggest lake in the country and where we would make the biggest mistake of the trip…

Not far from Taupo is the Tongariro National park, which houses two big active volcanoes and if you are as crazy as we are you can walk the 18.5 kilometre path between them. It’s not as dangerous as it seemed though, the the last time either volcanoes blew their tops was in 1995, and there are signs to show you which way to run! The other volcano is still the centre of attention as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. Almost everywhere is New Zealand at some point has a claim to those films! One of the highlights of the hike was reaching the highest point of near 2500ft at red crater; this is like something from another world with steam escaping from the red coloured rocks around the top of the crater. From here you can see the Emerald and Blue lakes which are exactly what they say they are and the colours are so vivid.

The ground was pretty warm at this point!

The next day we woke up with a sense of trepidation…why? Well blame Rachel! She managed to convince me to sign up for a tandem bungee jump at Taupo Bungee. It seemed like such a good idea when we were booking it online back in Wellington, but now we weren’t so sure! We arrived at the site early and spent about 20 minutes watching people jump while we tried to decide whether we could do a runner. In the end though we decided to bite the bullet and get on with it (good job too as we’d already paid for it). The jump is from a platform hanging over the edge of a cliff above the Taupo River. It’s famous for being the highest water touch jump in New Zealand (meaning you can get wet at the bottom if you want to). We were both attached to the same bungee and were told to hold on to each other in a waltz kind of pose, then we waddled to the edge and got the ‘three, two, one, bungee!’ count and jumped. I say jumped but really we just leaned over and fell (Rachel says she wasn’t planning on going on the first count but I think I took us both over). I can tell you that it was the worst few seconds of my life, I’ll never do it again and even typing this is making me feel queasy! It has been funny meeting other people who did a jump on their trip because none of them seem to have the same reaction as we did, they all loved it. Having said that I’m glad we did it and we even ended up doing the bungee swing afterwards which is similar but you’re strapped into a harness and after the fall you end up swinging towards the cliff face. We have videos of both and maybe one day I’ll put them on YouTube!

This makes me want to puke!

After the jump we headed up to Roturua which is a town built around a thermal area and therefore the whole place stinks of sulphur! While we were there we visited a ‘thermal wonderland’ which was full of bubbling mud, steamy lakes and stinking holes. The main attraction was a geyser which goes off every morning at 11am (with a little help from a bloke pouring a bag of soap power down the top).

Diamond geezer!

We didn’t stay in Roturua too long as we had lots more miles to cover heading north. We spent a night in a place called Turanga but for us it was just a stopover, although we did get to climb our third mountain of the trip Mt Unpronounceable Maori legend says that the mountain was sad and wanted to die so he asked the fairies to drag him out to sea to drown but halfway through (and we still can’t work out why fairies don’t work in daylight-slackers) the sun rose and they left him by the sea, ahh lovely!

Next stop was Thames, originally this place was the centre of a New Zealand gold rush but now the gold has gone and it’s a bit dilapidated. However there is a great mining museum here which we visited. It’s run by a group of enthusiasts (I suppose you could also call them old farts) who were really friendly. We walked down into the side of the mountain and saw some of the old mines and had a wander round some old equipment that they’re restoring. We also got to see a stamp in action and got a sample of some of the product to take home (mostly rubbish but there’s definitely some gold sparkling in there!).

Looking like the typical New Zealand tourist in the mine

We continued north and stayed in Paihai which is part of the bay of islands. We couldn’t afford an expensive cruise around so made do with the view from the mainland. We did meet a woman here who was stuck in NZ because of the volcanic ash cloud. She kept going on about it but neither of us had a lot of sympathy, we could think of worse places to be stranded!

The next day we began the long journey to Cape Reinga right at the northernmost point of New Zealand. It was a long journey but eventually we made it to the lighthouse at the Cape. The Maori legend says that this is the place the dead travel to the underworld and it’s a really spectacular view of the pacific if you stared for long enough you start to think you can see land on the horizon, crazy! We managed to time our visits between coach loads of tourist so it was pretty quite but as soon as the next load of dithering Japanese arrived we moved on.

Cape Reinga lighthouse

Nearby we visited some giant sand dunes which were incredible. After a bit of walking we found ourselves in the middle of a desert, it was just what I’d imagine the Sahara to look like (but colder). We also watched a few people sliding down the dunes on body boards, it looked like great fun but we made our own take of things and instead of boarding we decided to roll down them (the cheaper option) but after a few rolls and the feeling of disorientation and nausea had passed, we had plenty more driving to do so we carried on.

I'm sure its not this cloudy in the Sahara

On our way back down the coast we stopped to have a look at 90 mile beach. It’s a big beach! It’s also a highway but not for rental cars like ours which is a shame because it would be fun to see what land speed record we could have set in our Sunny.

90 mile beach

After our epic drive we spent the night at Ahipara which is a little town at the bottom of the peninsular. We stayed in an historic house which was really nice, although run by hippies so no locks on the doors! We only spent a night here before travelling down to Auckland the next day.

On our way there we stopped off to see the giant Kauri trees on the west coast which were pretty impressive. They dwarfed anything else we’d seen in New Zealand, there was a kid there who said they looked like the tree in the movie Avatar which was a pretty good description.

This group is called the 4 sisters

Auckland was a mixture of inactive volcanoes and aquariums. The aquarium was like no other we had been to because it’s really a tribute to Antarctica and has a penguin enclosure that is kept at 1°c which you get to see close up from a real exploration snow cat (Antarctic tractor) that rides into the enclosure and around a massive tank and various ice embankments. They also have a replica of Scott’s hut from which he made his final attempt to reach the South Pole. It was full of interesting facts (you didn’t want to be a dog or pony on one of these trips, they all ended up in the pot) and the authentic wind noises made us feel pretty cold.

Pingu!

The aquarium itself was pretty standard but it turns out that the walk through Perspex tunnel idea originated here. They did have some big sting rays which we got to see up close and we asked the keeper how angry they had to be to sting you. It turns out Steve Irwin must have REALLY been pissing them off when he got killed as she reckoned they would never normally use their sting.

Whilst in Auckland we visited two of the many extinct volcanoes in the city. We drove up to the peak of both (can you tell we had gotten a bit lazy by this point) and got some great views of the city. We also explored the downtown area and bought a few things for warmer climates over the next month (here’s hoping!).

Auckland skyline

We also went to an Irish pub and did a pub quiz under the name ‘Rule Britannia – The Empire Strikes Back’ which some of the locals found funny (as opposed to beating us up) but we didn’t do too well in the end. We didn’t quite come last which would have won us a booby prize, but we were nowhere near first. Mainly because half the questions were on national rugby teams and the other half about Shortland Street, New Zealand only TV show apparently!

New Zealand had been great fun and we’d seen so much that we never knew was here. It was also exhausting as we visited 16 places and never stopped for more than a couple of nights. We found the Kiwi’s to be really friendly and welcoming, probably more than anywhere else, but by the end of it their accents were driving us mad, stop murdering all of our vowels! Next stop Fiji!

The hostel really was the best organised we had been in, and because we could get a lot more New Zealand Dollars for our Pound we could afford to stay in a twin room which had proper prison bunk beds to add to the effect.

I thought I was taller than that...

We spent a lot of our time here organising the rest of our trip round the south island but we still managed to see a few sights. We explored the city centre on a Sunday morning and went to the museum where we saw our first, and what turned out to be our only, Kiwi (which was stuffed).

Harder to spot than Koalas apparently!

When we came out there was a magician performing to a big crowd in the street, his name was Hefty Geoff and he was really good. While we were in town we also picked up some warmer clothes as it was FREEZING here, by freezing of course I mean around 14˚c, but it was cold enough for us.

After a few nights in Christchurch we began our road trip by heading inland to Lake Tekapo. It was a really picturesque journey and a great way to start the trip. It also introduced us to the horrors of the New Zealand driver, the worst driving we’d seen since…anywhere actually. Including an old fart who actually swerved to stop us from overtaking him. Luckily though we didn’t see too many drivers at all, it seems most of the 4 million residents live up on the North Island so we had the roads to ourselves for a lot of the time.

The main attraction at Lake Tekapo is Mount John which towers over it (other attractions include a statue of a sheep dog, and a church the size of a shoe box). It was a steep climb to the top but the views were well worth it, the scenery is really spectacular and you can really see the Lord of the Rings landscape around here. We stayed here one night before continuing down south to Dunedin.

King of the castle!

Here we stayed in a place called Hogwartz. No idea why it had that name, except that it was across the road from a gothic looking church which might look like something from Harry Potter…maybe. Nevertheless it was a really nice place and our room was massive, like a bedsit with steps up to a sitting area with cool (or crap, depending on your point of view) 70’s sofa.

Dunedin is a University city and there is plenty to see and do. Our first stop was the Cadbury factory tour, which was AWESOME! There was plenty of free chocolate for everyone on the tour and I feel that I learnt a lot about chocolate. We plan to do this tour when we get home, in Birmingham, so we can compare and contrast (and eat more chocolate).

FATTY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The other thing we wanted to do whilst in Dunedin was a trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway.  This scenic railway was a fun day out and much better than the one we’d been to in Cairns. The ride took us up north past an alpaca farm and into the mountains on some very narrow passes which gave great views off the cliff face. We were allowed to get off the train to view a couple of the iconic areas which include an old shed which was ironically called the Reef Hotel (typical Kiwi humour, take the piss out of everyone including yourselves).

Even a fat sea lion couldn't stop this monster!

After we returned to the very pretty Dunedin train station (apparently the second most photographed building in the southern hemisphere after the Sydney Opera House) we walked across town to find Baldwin Street, the Guinness World Record holding ‘Steepest Street in the World’. We walked all the way up the 1.341 gradient street (over small stints) and watched other tourist’s automatic cars struggling to make it to the top. It was an odd tourist attraction but seemed to work as there was a bus load of Japanese who were just leaving as we arrived. You can also buy a certificate to say that you climbed it, but we didn’t, if you don’t believe I walked to the top of the steepest street in the world I think I can live with that!

Much steeper than it looks!

On our way out of Dunedin we stopped off at the Otago Peninsula. We had read that there was a lot of wildlife around here and we weren’t disappointed. We managed to find a beach (completely by accident) which had a big colony of Sea lions. At first, from a distance, we thought they we washed up seaweed but when they started moving we thought otherwise. We walked down a sand dune which gave Baldwin Street a run for its money, and went for a closer look. You’re advised to stay at least 20 meters away from the sea lions, judging by their size we also thought this wise. We found a mum and 2 pups on the beach but on our way back to the car we saw a big one come out of the sea, he was pretty funny to watch as he would walk a few feet and then collapse for a while, roll around in the sand then walk a little further and collapse.

Too lazy to run away

There were also Penguins living in the dunes but we didn’t get to see any, just some footprints. There is also a nesting site for Albatross but we didn’t have time to get up there and they only fly when it’s really windy, maybe next time!

Our next stopover was a place called Te Anau. Not much there apart from a big lake but it is the perfect place to stay for a day trip to Milford Sound. We had to drive to Milford sound very early in the morning which was an experience on its own. We left at 6am when it was still dark and mainly had the road to ourselves. We began to understand New Zealand’s distain for possums as we dodged may of the silly animals that just wander into the road irrespective of the big metal objects moving at 70mph, that and they were a present from the Aussies!! But the strangest part having to drive through a tunnel that goes down through the side of a mountain, the tunnel had an eerie feel to it in the dark as there were no lights inside and the low lying cloud had created a thick fog inside. Although constructed in 1930 it hadn’t been changed at all, but needless to say we made it out alive and have decided to stop watching horror movies.

We did a boat trip through the sound, past some spectacular waterfalls and mountains then out to sea where we saw it as Captain Cook would have done (although he didn’t name this one, some Welsh bloke did, after Milford Haven).  There were only 4 other people on this boat so we pretty much had a deck to ourselves to watch the low lying clouds between the valleys. There was plenty of wildlife in the sound; we saw a pod of dolphins, one of which was cocky enough to ride to waves from beneath the bow of the boat. We also saw seal pups which were nothing in comparison to the sea lions but incredibly cute as they were only 3 weeks old.

We got very wet shortly after this was taken

There are lots of similar stretches of water in the area and loads of walking tracks, but we didn’t have time to hang around so headed straight up to Queenstown. This is supposed to be the adventure sports capital of New Zealand so we planned to do something stupid here. We had read about a trip you could do down the Shotover river rapids where you are fully submerged in the water, clinging on to a modified body board. It sounded like great fun and we were booked to go but at the last minute we found out they weren’t running the trip because we were the only two who wanted to go, bastards!

So instead we ended up on a jet boat trip which is really popular here. It’s supposed to be a white knuckle ride through some river rapids but we were really disappointed with it. I don’t know if it was because we were spoilt with the ocean rafting trip we did in Australia but the jet boat was really tame and unbelievably slow. There were also no rapids on the river we went up so it was a pretty boring trip, I was drifting off to sleep at one point.

The view from the top

After Queenstown we headed north to the Franz Josef Glacier, this is apparently one of three glaciers of this type in the world (there’s another one just down the road too). We spent Easter Monday evening there and the next day joined a hiking group and walked up on to the glacier. It was a good trip and we spent roughly two hours on the ice with crampons on our boots which was really cool. It was pretty slow going as our guide had to cut a new path with a pick axe as we went. The glacier is always moving and as it’s relatively warm in the valley the ice melts pretty fast so new paths have to be cut every day.

Cooler than cooler than cool

As soon as our hike was over we got in the car and continued up to Hanmer Springs. This was just a stopover on our way to the north of the island but we did have chance to have a dip in the hot springs spa the next morning. This was a series of manmade pools that were heated to various temperatures by the hot springs. We even went in one that was 41°C, it doesn’t sound that hot but after 5 minutes you look like a well done prawn! It was very relaxing thought and we stayed for as long as we could cope with the smell of sulphur!

Our final stop on the south island was Blenheim, wine country! We hired bikes from our hostel and armed with a map of the wineries headed out for some serious wine tasting. It was a great day and we met some really nice people, including lots of ex-pats trying to get us to move out to NZ. We also got to taste a lot of wine and were even persuaded to buy a couple of bottles as they were so cheap, by the way, we bought wine from the same winery as Gordon Ramsey – not sure what that says about his taste. The only problem with cycling the route was that by the end, after half a dozen ‘tastings’ (more than enough), we started to lose the energy needed to cycle the 8km back to our hostel!

Amazingly we could still function the camera at the end of our tastings!

After leaving Blenheim we made the short trip up to Picton to drop off our beloved Mazda and catch the ferry over to Wellington on the north island. The south island had been amazing but we were quite looking forward to getting to the north to see what difference it would make having so many more people up there.

Cape Byron Lighthouse

The main sight in the area is the Cape Byron Lighthouse which is accessible by a long uphill walk through a forested area full of wild turkeys and goats, of which we saw both. Let me tell you wild turkeys are the most dull animals in Australia and yes that is including the coma induced Koala!!!

The most easterly point in Australia

After a 45minute, near vertical (nobody said anything about that!!), walk we reached the summit of Cape Byron, this was the most easterly point of Australia so we got an amazing view of the coastline including a pod of Dolphins that were swimming near to the rocks. We were thinking of going on a kayaking trip to see the dolphins but this worked out a lot cheaper and we were limited by time (can you tell the budget is running out??).

Can you see the Dolphins!?

On the way back we had fish and chips on the beach, which was possibly the most gourmet take away as it came with both a wedge of lemon AND a pot of tartar sauce! Posh or what!? as you may have guessed after our walk they didnt last very long!

Yum!

The next day we hired body boards as a cheap alternative to learning to surf and spent the day on the beach. We had a great time catching waves (and more often than not getting wiped out by them) and then recovered by sunbathing on the beach. In case you hadn’t guessed this was one of the first times we didn’t have man-eating crocs, jellyfish or rain to spoil our beach fun! Shame we forgot the sun cream though, we were looking rather pink before the night was out! We would love to do this again but as you can tell from the pictures Newquay and Byron Bay aren’t quite the same, maybe with full head to toe wet suits on!

Surf's up dude

From Byron we got our final overnight greyhound to Sydney. It was a really long journey and we certainly won’t miss them. We also finally realised that although spending the night on a bus saves money for accommodation, the fact you end up sleeping all day when you get there kind of ruins any benefits. Still we arrived in Sydney on a Sunday morning in (sleep deprived) style by crossing the harbour bridge, which was the closest we would get to it.

Can you guess what it is yet?

We were staying in the red light district of Sydney (although we didn’t realise until we took a wrong turn down a nearby road) in a really good backpacker’s place where we treated ourselves to a private room. Our first day out was a trip to see the opera house and harbour bridge which is the main attraction in the city. It made a place to nice stroll around the harbour and into the neighbouring Botanic Gardens, but there is only so long you can look at a building before it loses its appeal!!haha

Sydney Opera House

Later we walked into the Rocks, which is a posh area that is where it all began for Sydney and with lots small cobbled streets and tall rickety buildings you can guess which Europeans got there first. And as with most small English villages it even had that pub that claims to be the oldest or the original! Very authentic!! We noticed that although it was a few days after St Patricks Day, they were still celebrating here not sure if that was the whole upside down thing or that there is a large population of Irish residents in Sydney, the one thing we leart is that the Aussies love a piss up!

We did a day trip out to Bondi Beach which was good, definitely not as tacky as we had imagined, just like a British seaside resort really, but better weather. We also did a ferry trip to nearby Manly beach, and from there up to Palm Beach where they film Home and Away.

"Famous" stars!!

I’m proud to say I’ve never watched it but Rachel and our friend Harriett (who we had been bumping into since Uluru) were desperate to go. We were actually pretty lucky to see some scenes being filmed and to be fair it was quite interesting to watch, we got to see a lot more than we did on the Neighbours tour!

Sat outside the Surf Club!

One our final day in the city we went out to Paddy’s market. It was really strange to be here as it was just like an Asian market and reminded us of the first part of our trip. It just made me think how different it would be to do this trip the other way round, we would have bought everything in sight in Asia if we’d realised how cheap it was at the time!

We were sad to be leaving Australia but at the same time looking forward to New Zealand, especially as we were hiring a car there and we were keen to travel a bit differently from all the endless bus journeys we’d had in the last 4 months.

In Cairns we decided to do a trip up to Kuranda which is a little village up in the tropical rainforest. We went up by cable car and had a return ticket booked on the scenic railway. We had a little wander around the village and then headed to the Koala Wildlife Park which was really good fun. The best bit was getting to hand feed the wallabies and kangaroos who were all really tame, this a bit funny as we went to a Koala Park but they aren’t the most entertaining species.

Skippy loves being fed

Greedy Kangaroos!

The train trip back down was fun and we got to see some spectacular waterfalls and also learnt a lot about logging!

Choo Choo...but it was a diesel, rubbish!

From Cairns we got our first greyhound bus down the coast to Townsville, and then we caught the ferry over to Magnetic Island. We stayed in a really quiet backpacker’s place which was great but the kitchen did have a funny smell. One morning at breakfast the owner said to me, ‘smells like something crawled in here and died…can’t find it though’. I thought it he was joking but we found out a few days later from a friend who was staying there that he found a dead possum after we left.

There were plenty of walks to do on the island, including one around a group of forts built during the Second World War. This one was most interesting to us as it was supposed to be the one with the best chance of spotting Koalas in the wild. We didn’t see much at first but luckily one of the other walkers pointed out our first wild Koala to us. We had been sat next to it for at least 10 minutes but in our defence they are quite well camouflaged! I had read somewhere that Koalas have evolved to shrink their brains to reduce the amount of water they need. They definitely do look a little bit distant! The leaves they eat also don’t give them many nutrients to they are only active for around 4 hours a day. The 2 koalas we saw barely moved except to scratch themselves before settling back down to sleep, what a life!

Lazy, retarded little bear

On our last night on the island we walked down to the beach in the pouring rain (we had already seen a lot more rain than we expected in Australia). I decided to test out my boomerang on the beach until the wind took it into the sea, it did come back…eventually, unfortunately I had to wait until the tide went out the next day to retrieve it.

Our next stop down the coast was Airlie Beach. We arrived late afternoon and were given our keys and told that there were two guys in our room who had been there a while, but they were really friendly. When we saw the room it was shocking, and it really stank. One of the guys was there, he had ginger dreadlocks (don’t get me started) and didn’t seem too bad but there was nowhere to put our bags and both spare beds were covered with their clothes. We decided to just get on with it and went to join in with a quiz nights they were putting on for new guests to get to know each other. We met two English blokes who were driving up the coast so we shared some stories and got some good advice. It was then that we saw our other roommate. He had drunk a whole 3 litre box of wine to himself and by around 8pm was sitting by himself gurning and pulling faces because he was incapable of doing anything else. We knew then that it was going to be a long night. Needless to say we didn’t get the best night’s sleep so we moved on to a different hostel the next day which was much nicer and had double rooms for the same price we had paid the night before.

At Airlie beach we did a trip around the Whitsunday Islands which was one of the best trips we’ve done. It was called Ocean Rafting and was the only company going out on that particular day because of bad weather. The reason we got to go was that, unlike the other groups, this one uses the sort of high powered twin engine boats that you might see the RNLI using to rescue people in a storm. It was incredible fun with waves up to 3 metres high and our driver was great, constantly showing off with the boat and generally soaking everyone with sea water.

Our boat

We had lunch at Whitehaven beach which is said to be the nicest stretch of beach in the whole of Australia. It was hard to argue as it was pretty perfect white sand and clear blue waters. Whilst eating our lunch we got a visit from a big monitor lizard. Everyone else was taking photos but we had seen so many in Asia that we were a bit blasé about it, until he started coming after our lunch!

What you can't see is the big black cloud behind us!!

After lunch we all went for a swim in the sea, but not before putting on our ‘stinger suits’ which are lightweight wet suits designed to stop you getting stung by the local jellyfish. Not very flattering but they did the job!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No its a stinger suit!

After our swim we got back on the boat and headed to our snorkel sight. Because the sea was so rough it took a while to find somewhere safe enough to go in but eventually we did and although it wasn’t 100% visibility we still had fun and saw lots of marine life.

Nemo was washing his hair this day!

After Airlie beach we got on an overnight greyhound to Hervey Bay. This was one of the most uncomfortable bus rides we had been on. It was impossible to rest your head back against the seat so nobody got much sleep on it. Our main reason for visiting Hervey Bay was to do a trip to Fraser Island. We only had time for a day trip to the island so we went with a fairly large tour group. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, supposedly it has more sand than the Sahara but I didn’t bother to count. We got the ferry over with our group and then boarded a big 4 wheel drive bus which took us all over the island. There are no proper roads so access is only by 4×4 vehicles. The main route up the island is along the beach and it was pretty good fun bouncing over the hidden bumps and crashing through the waves. The sea here was definitely a no go as the currents are so strong, something that was starting to sound familiar, we didn’t realise how dangerous this country was going to be, hopefully further down the coast we’ll be able to go in the sea!

We were lucky enough to see 2 dingoes on the beach. Our guide was very keen to point out that we shouldn’t feed them because they can be very dangerous. They are descended from the Asian Wolf and were brought over by the aboriginal people but they really just look like hungry mongrel dogs so it’s easy to see why people do approach them.

The highlight of Fraser Island was Lake Mackenzie. This is a big fresh water lake that sits in the middle of the island. The water is crystal clear and we had a really refreshing swim in there.  We were told by our guide that because of the slight acidity of the lake a swim will make you feel 10 years younger, turns out its not true we still felt and looked the same as we did before.

What you can't see is the big black cloud behind the camera!!!

Brisbane was our next stop; we arrived in the afternoon and headed straight for the XXXX brewery for a tour. If you’d asked me to name the worst beer on the planet before we came out here I’d probably have picked either XXXX or Fosters but, as with the neighbours tour, we were here so it had to be done!

Looking like a proper Queensland Sheila!

There were only 5 of us on the tour and we were the oldest people there which was weird. We learnt about how beer is made, and then they showed us all the extra steps they put in to make sure their beer tastes of nothing. They say that the people of Queensland want a lighter tasting beer because of the heat, but I think it’s just because they’re just a bunch of girls. Having said that, they were quite generous and gave us 4 of their 5 beers to try after the tour (that’s 3 more than Guinness give you).

Our main reason for stopping in Brisbane was to visit Australia Zoo. It’s owned by Steve Irwin’s family so we knew it would be a fun day out. I’ve lost track of how many zoo’s we’ve been to on this trip but this was by far the best. The main attraction is the talk they put on twice a day in the ‘crocoseum’ where the keepers bring out their crocs and snakes and try their best not to get eaten. It’s made all the more interesting by the advice the give you in case you meet a saltwater crocodile in the wild (which basically boils down to, ‘run away!’).

Don't feed the ducks!

We also saw some other talks and feeding including a very hyperactive pair of otters, some less active giant tortoises and a really entertaining elephant talk.

They'll do anything for a peanut

The staff really made the shows worth seeing as they were all so enthusiastic and clearly loved their jobs. I think they took more photos of the elephants taking a bath than most of the visitors.

The most active animals in the zoo!

Rachel managed to secure her place on Attenborough’s next project by filming some very rare footage of a Koala actually moving. Not only did it get off its perch and crawl down to the floor, it actually ran across the ground and climbed up another tree (before falling asleep again), pretty impressive stuff.

It doesn't get much cooler than seeing a Wombat in a jacket

The day after our visit to the zoo was St Paddy’s day. We had a quick wander around the shops in the morning before we had to catch our bus; needless to say the Irish pubs were already very merry by this point, we were already looking forward to a pint of the black stuff at our next stop in Byron Bay.

Unfortunately we spent much of our first day in Melbourne asleep but we did get to see the city museum which displayed a ‘famous’ race horse (strangely born in New Zealand and died in California so what its connection with Melbourne is we are still unsure) and a dinosaur exhibit of locally found remains, awesome. Nearby was a park which contains Captain Cook’s original Yorkshire residence, shipped over and rebuilt as a little museum. Unfortunately it wasn’t the only thing that reminded us of the north of England while we were there as the weather was pretty chilly to say the least. It turns out that Melbourne enjoys overcast grey skies for much of the year, not what we had expected! Apparently when they film neighbours all the cast have to wear summer clothes even when it’s freezing cold, in order to promote the Australian dream to us back in the UK.

We had been told by lots of other travellers that Australia was going to be really expensive for us as the dollar is particularly strong at the moment and they weren’t wrong. It was a shock at first but we realised that we had better just get used to paying more for things rather than worry about the money for the whole month we’re here! No more would we recoil in horror at the idea of paying more than £2 for a meal, we had been spoilt by how cheap Asia was.

We spent a morning doing the Neighbours tour which was fun but hugely embarrassing to be driven around in a minivan with the neighbours logo printed on the side. We got to see Ramsay Street and some other areas including Lassiters and the school they use for filming. Unfortunately we both realised that we hadn’t watched the show in years so neither of us really knew what we were looking at. Everyone else on the bus seemed to be hardcore fans but I just wanted to meet Harold Bishop and see where Bouncer got run over. The star we actually got to meet was the woman who played Janelle a few years ago, who I remembered from my brief relapse into neighbours at Uni. She didn’t exactly ooze star quality, and when asked what she was up to now could only list a couple of episodes of some Aussie cop show, although she was very nice to us so I shouldn’t be too harsh. To be honest it was all a bit sad, but it had to be done as we were in the area!

Ramsay Street!!!

We spent our last afternoon in Melbourne walking around the Albert Park grand prix circuit which was over the road from our hostel. As it isn’t a permanent track the whole area is open to runners, cyclists and black swans and most of the track is public road. Now I can tick another track off my list, Abu Dhabi might be a little more difficult to get to.

Freezing cold Melbourne weather

We spent our final evening sat on the beach at St Kilda which was fun. It seemed like a really British kind of beach, I think it was the smell of fish and chips and all the seagulls which gave that impression. We walked out on to a rocky little pier and were amazed to find a group of penguins living amongst the rocks! Unfortunately when trying to get a photo of one the flash accidentally went off on the camera, apparently this is not acceptable and one of the women that was down there with ‘I love penguins’ or something similar on her T shirt started shining her torch at us and telling me off. The annoying thing is I didn’t even get the photo!

From Melbourne we had to fly back to Sydney to catch our flight to Alice Springs which was booked 6 months earlier (one of 5 flights we took in little over a week, a plan one fellow traveller quite fairly described as ‘retarded’, but at least we got to see everything we wanted to!).

We were both unsure what to expect of our Uluru trip as we had booked it back in Portsmouth STA office and neither of us could really remember what it involved. It turned out to be the highlight of our trip so far! We got picked up from our hostel by a bloke called Reg (part Ray Mears, part tree hugging hippy, 100% beer loving Australian bloke).

Our first roo

Our first stop was a Camel farm in the outback, Camels were brought over from Afghanistan as a way of crossing the desert but after the railways were completed they were let loose and now are a big problem in the outback. This place offered short rides but after our 5.45am pick up time we chose to spend our money on a bacon sandwich and cup of tea instead. This was our first encounter with the outback flies. If you ever wondered where the hats with the corks dangling off came from, you need to come here. They are evil little things that go straight for your eyes, nose and mouth. A day earlier we were laughing at how stupid you would look wearing the fly net masks we saw for sale in Alice, now we wished we’d bought one! There were quite a lot of flies around as they had just had a lot of rainfall, the heaviest in 2 ½ years, so they were all breeding. Reg made sure to tell us that we shouldn’t complain as it can get much worse than we saw.

Our next stop was our first camp site near The Olgas, a mountain range created in the same process as Uluru (Ayers Rock). It was a permanent camp site so we weren’t exactly roughing it; in fact it was better than the hostels we had seen so far! After a quick lunch we went for a walk through the range which was spectacular. Reg turned out to be a really good guide with a very dry sense of humour. Well, he was either developing a new technique of joke delivery or he really did just hate life. Personally I preferred to think he was some sort of comedy genius but he must be used to getting a lot of blank looks from the non-English speaking tourists! One of his favourites was telling us how many turns in the road we’d have to make on our trips. On average there would be a left or right turn once every 500km, some very big distances.

Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas)

After the walk we drove to a viewpoint to watch the sunset at Uluru where we saw the colours of the rock change with the fading light. We also enjoyed champagne and nibbles which Reg dug out from the trailer, quite unexpectedly.

Uluru at sunset

That night Reg cooked up a great BBQ where we got to have our first steak in 3 months and also got to try Kangaroo which is really nice. It was almost all you could eat so we ate all we could, it made a welcome change from rice, especially as we had realised we’d probably be living off beans on toast for the rest of Australia. We were told that our wakeup call would be at 4.30am the next day to see the sun rise at Uluru so there was no singing around the campfire that night!

After a great night’s sleep we got on the bus while it was still dark and made the short drive to the base walk around Uluru. We were the first group there so got to enjoy the walk in peace and quiet, without flies! The walk took around 2 hours and we could see the colour of the rock changing as the sun rose; it was really amazing and was even more special as we felt like the only ones there.

Sitting on Uluru - not as offensive as falling off it!

There is a walking track which climbs Uluru but the Aboriginal people really don’t want you to do it as it is a sacred site and they feel a great sadness when people get injured or die whilst climbing the rock (which has happened quite a few times). Reg gave us a lengthy talk the night before about why we shouldn’t climb the rock but it didn’t stop a group of Japanese tourists that had joined us for the second day. It seems that the authorities are just waiting for the next person to fall off before they close the path completely. There are quite a few areas around the base which are now fenced off because of tourists messing about. One cave is no longer accessible because some idiot spray painted his full name over some of the aboriginal paintings. Not the cleverest vandal as the police had no problems tracking him down from the information he left and giving him a hefty fine and prison sentence, and also a complete ban from re-entering Australia. We all found that walking around the base of the rock was enough to appreciate why it is so special and its age in particular makes you feel pretty insignificant.

One of the sights on the 9km base walk

After the walk it was back to the camp site to have lunch and pack before we moved on to the Kings Canyon campsite. That night the sky was clear for the first time since we’d been here and we got the best view of the stars I’ve ever seen. We could even see the band of the Milky Way in the sky which we recognised from our Planetarium visit back in Kuala Lumpur (thank you Tom Hanks). A couple of people slept outside in swags (big sleeping bags with a mattress stitched in the bottom) but we stuck with our dingo and bug-proof tent. The next morning it was another very early start for a walk around the canyon. Once again we were the first group to arrive at the site and had the place to ourselves. It was a more strenuous walk than the others but nothing really too taxing despite one of the tracks taking us up ‘heart attack hill’. The walk took us up around the edge of the canyon which gave us some great views, then down through an area known as the Garden of Eden to a watering hole where a few people in the group took a swim. It was too cold for us though so instead we spent the time pointing out all the weird prehistoric bugs that were living in the pool. The whole area looked like something from the age of the dinosaurs, in fact it turns out that most of the plants in the area are that old.

Looking out over Kings Canyon

After the Kings Canyon walk we began a long drive back to Alice Springs. On the way we picked up an Aboriginal bloke who told us all about the animals ready to kill us along the Queensland coast (mainly saltwater crocodiles and jellyfish known as ‘stingers’).

We said our goodbyes to Reg and the rest of the group and treated ourselves to a beer and what would probably be our final meal out for a long time, then we caught up on some sleep! It was a great trip and definitely the highlight so far. A lot of people (including us) think of Uluru as just a big rock before they visit but you really have to see it to appreciate why it’s so special.

Wild Camels we spotted on one of our drives

We also enjoyed the drives through the outback as we probably won’t see much of this lifestyle when we’re travelling down the coast. We got to see some interesting creatures including wild camels and a thorny devil lizard, it was great fun!

Thorny Devil

Updates to this blog might be few and far between for the second part of our trip as there is hardly any free wifi in Australia (so far we only found McDonalds offering it). We didn’t anticipate having to pay between £3 to £5 an hour for internet here when we could use it for free even in the poorest parts of Asia we went to (not that we got too far off the beaten track).

A few hours later we were in Butterworth where we caught a car ferry across to Georgetown, Penang. This took about 15 minutes which were spent talking to an odd woman who told us we hadn’t planned our trip very well because Australia will take at least 9 months to travel! We didn’t like her very much and were thankful that she walked off fairly quickly as she was about to go overboard!

We stayed in Chinatown in Georgetown, which is where most of the budget accommodation is and we had an interesting time looking around some places. We found one hotel that was straight out of the 70’s and we reckon that the staff had been waiting there since that decade for another guest to arrive. Another place looked like it was out of The Shinning and although it’s not the scariest of films we didn’t fancy finding out if Jack Nicholson was going to pay us a little visit in the night! We ended up going for the cheapest option which turned out to be a nice clean little guesthouse run by a really genuine tubby Chinese man and v very cheery his wife- turned out it was the first place we walked past too not like us to do things the hard way.

We visited the islands Fort Cornwallis, built by the British, the fort has been set up to demonstrate what it would have looked like in the good old days which included the old chapel, canons pointing out to sea, a campsite, prison cells and our favourite; some real live goats!

Real live goat from the past!

We also managed to knock over the cooking pot and partially destroy a swing that had been hung to a tree, but as British citizens we felt we were entitled to do that.

Before I knocked it all over...

We paid a short visit to the local museum and learnt about the various cultures that make up Penang and Malaysia. We later tried to experience this by eating Indian, Chinese and Malay food while in town.

While we were there we also took the chance to go up Penang Hill. The humidity made sure that we chose to use the funicular railway to get to the top instead of walking the 800m height of the hill. The views were great but there was little else to do at the top besides spend lots of money on afternoon tea.

Blocking your view from the top of Penang Hill!

We headed to Kuala Lumpur on the fanciest VIP bus we’d ever seen. It was a far cry from the ones we’d travelled on around Laos and we hoped it would be a sign of things to come. We stayed in Little India which meant that we enjoyed our fair share of curry and tandoori chicken, and also my new favourite drink, strawberry lassi!

Whilst in KL we scaled both the PETRONAS Towers and the Menara Tower. Menara had by far the better views as it sits on top of a little hill and has a higher viewing deck. However to get up we had to chose one of two packages, including a load of extras that we didn’t really want such as a ‘Formula 1 experience’ which was a naff Playstation game sat inside a plastic car and a horrible area with caged animals where they actually offered the chance to feed live animals to the reptiles.

Looking out over the PETRONAS Towers from Menara

The PETRONAS sky bridge was free to get up; all we had to do was get out of bed early enough to get a ticket. After sitting through a video about how amazing PETRONAS are (and boy are they great!) we got the lift up to the bridge and had 15 minutes to admire the view.

Later that afternoon we went to Aquariana which gave us a chance to see some of the local marine life without getting wet. It was a great place and we had a bit of a funny moment where some local kids wanted a photo with us, the second time that random people have taken my photo, makes you wonder where it will end up…The highlight was catching the conveyor belt through the underwater tunnel and seeing the sharks and rays up close, although it did feel a bit like we were at baggage collection at an airport.

The photos of me wrestling a shark didn't come out, so here I am with a Starfish...

The best thing we did in the city was a visit to the lake gardens. There were all sorts of things to do here including a deer park where we had to back down from a gang of monkeys wielding a coconut when we trespassed on their ‘property’. We ended up having to climb over a locked gate to exit the park, which looked rather conspicuous but as we were breaking out rather than in we didn’t think it would matter too much. There was also a planetarium which was pretty cheap, we were the only ones in the place and got to enjoy a film about how insignificantly small we are in the universe, narrated by Tom Hanks, which was much more interesting than it sounds!

Rachel using a space toilet!

After KL we took a slight detour back north to the Cameron Highlands. This is an area in central Malaysia which is popular for its jungle walks and tea plantations. We travelled at the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations which made it a very, very long journey. Imagine the worst bank holiday weekend traffic and then times it by ten. Prices for accommodations and transport all increase over the holiday period (which is more like a whole week than a single ‘new years day’) and everybody is on the move. Our bus was running late and then we heard that it had broken down. Thankfully the company arranged for some minibuses and we all got on those. The traffic was crazy. You don’t see many people taking to the hard shoulder when it’s busy at home but here they went beyond that and were cruising along the grass verge next to the road! It was a long day and we got to our guesthouse around 10pm. We decided that to avoid a repeat of that we would stay a bit longer here and sit out Chinese New Year.

It turned out to be the perfect place to do that and one of the best places we stayed. The owners were so helpful and friendly and their home was sat on its own private hill surrounded by gardens. The temperature was around ten degrees cooler up here and it reminded us both of home. We spent a lot of time sat outside drinking the local tea and enjoying a civilised game of Uno (played with a fake set of Winnie the Pooh cards we bought in the Menara Tower). The town was really small but had everything we needed. There was only really one bar and we spent a night there drinking expensive foreign export Guinness (better than the normal stuff) whilst watching some blues festival DVD they had on. I don’t think it gets much more rowdy than that up here.

We did one trip out which included various flower gardens, a butterfly farm and honey bee farm. The highlight was a trip to the Boh tea plantation and factory where we learnt all about tea, you could smell the caffeine in the air and we got to see some spectacular views of the plantations.

Picking Tea!

Our final stop in Malaysia was Melaka, down on the west coast. We’re not sure how it happened, but somehow, through a bit of a cock up, we ended up with 5 nights to spend here before moving on so Singapore. We’d spent the whole of Southern Thailand worrying that we wouldn’t have enough time left for Malaysia but now we had run out of places to see (it turns out that we were a bit out of season for the other side of the peninsular!).

Melaka was a nice place; we stayed at a guesthouse run by a Frenchman and his Malay wife. They were both really friendly but this was the first place where we actually felt we were in someone else’s house. They had no private space for themselves and the guests just used their kitchen and living room all day long. It was a bit strange and we got the impression they were new to it and possibly had some regrets. We had a feeling that the bloke would rather have been running and B&B in France as every time he told us about somewhere to go in town he ended by saying, ‘but I don’t really like it myself’.

Melaka had the best Chinatown of all the cities we’d visited in Asia. The New Year celebrations were still going on when we got there which made it incredibly busy but it was nice to see all the Chinese families enjoying themselves. On our last night there was a massive fireworks display which was for some other festival that we didn’t catch the name of, we were in our room and all we heard was the sound of cannon fire which made the whole building shake.

As it was out last stop in Malaysia I decided that Melaka was the place to try Durian fruit. I had heard rumours about it; it’s a spiky looking fruit that is supposed to smell like sewage when peeled but apparently tastes great. I could only find it in iced fruit drink form and let me tell you, it does not taste anything like great. I would describe it as onion infused petrol. In fact, I had my suspicions that the bloke at the drinks stall had tried to create a durian drink by using cheaper ingredients like onions. Either way, I tried it and I now know that it should be avoided at all costs.

Definitely no Durians!

Arriving in Singapore was like getting back into the real world, meaning our money didn’t stretch as far as it had done in other countries. We limited ourselves to three nights here in an attempt to save some money. This was also the first time we stayed in a dorm, it was a bit of a shock as a six bed room cost us more than any other accommodation on our trip so far but we met some nice people and were in a good area.

Singapore at night

We spent one of our days at the Singapore Science Centre which was great fun for big kids like us. They had a big Tesla generator which sent bolts of lightning around the foyer, and in my new dream job, one of the demonstrators got to blow up some hydrogen filled balloons with it.

Making smoke rings

On our last full day in the city we headed over to Sentosa Island which is filled with artificially created tourist attractions. It was pretty expensive so we only chose to do a few things including an aquarium which seemed to be filled with the entire population of Little India on the day we went. The best part of this place was the dolphin and seal show at the end of the day.

Dolphin show!

We were quite sad to be leaving Asia after our three months there. We felt much more confident travelling round than we did when we first arrived, I think we had learnt to accept all the little quirks and just relax a bit more (although I know this blog has had its fair share of rants, on reflection we’ve had more than enough great experiences to forget about all the little annoyances.) Next stop Australia!

From Koh Tao we got the boat to Surat Thani via Koh Phan Ngan and Koh Samui. We decided to sit on the deck and enjoy the view from there but unfortunately with the hot sun shining that meant we ended up looking like lobsters by the end of the day, bad decision!

When we got to Surat Thani we were supposed to be transferred to a bus to Phuket on the west coast but we ended up getting forgotten about in the bus station. There was someone with short-man syndrome barking orders at everybody but for some reason he never arranged a bus to pick us up. This meant a long delay but we managed to get on the last minibus of the day to Phuket. We stayed in Phuket town rather than the main tourist destination of Pattong because we had heard it was a bit of a hellhole. We stayed 2 nights but as there wasn’t really anything to do we spent most of our time planning the remainder of our Thailand trip online. It was in this town that we decided that we were well and truly fed up of Thai food, fried rice and chicken gets pretty boring after a while!

Travelling in style again

From Phuket we caught the early morning ferry to Koh Phi Phi Don, not to be confused with Koh Phi Phi Leh, its uninhabited sister island. The islands of Koh Phi Phi were made famous by the film The Beach. We arrived to the usual touts trying to get you to go to their guesthouse/hotel/tour, fighting through, we found our little guesthouse. Since the 2004 tsunami a limit has been put on the amount of accommodation the island can hold which meant that prices were relatively high as places are limited. Once we’d dumped our bags we decided to find the beach (not the Leonardo Dicaprio one just yet) and were surprised to find 2m of sand and a bay full of crisp packets and rubbish. We thought we’d head to one of the more secluded bays that we found on the map. After a small overland trek we found a string of beaches where we went snorkelling and watched the taxi boats come and go.

Taxi boats on Phi Phi Don

The next day we booked a ‘sunset’ trip to Koh Phi Phi Leh through one of the many tour agencies. We left at 2pm and headed to a small beach called ‘Monkey Beach’, unfortunately there were no monkeys on that day so we headed onwards to the other island. The boat moored up at a small bay on the island and we were immediately surrounded by brightly coloured fish. Here we had the opportunity to snorkel ad sea kayak. This was great fun, our previous experience of kayaking had been slightly tainted by our inability to paddle at the same time (poor teamwork skills), however, this time we seemed to spend less time going round in circles (we blame the paddles in the last kayak!). We had a little paddle around the cove and saw more fish (hiding from the snorkelers).

Finally got to use my underwater camera!

We re-boarded the boat, made ourselves a cup of tea and headed further round the island to another cove. Our guide told us we had to jump in and swim across to the rocky shore where there was a ladder and a tunnel, at first we thought he was joking but he was serious, so we went ahead and jumped in. We gracefully clambered up the rocks and through the tunnel and on the other side found Ma Ya Bay aka ‘The Beach’. We had heard how they had changed the appearance of the bay whilst filming but it was incredible how different it looked. It was a stunning patch of sand but obviously now it’s the last place you would look for your own private beach; there are lots of tourists to share it with! We had plenty of time there before returning to the boat for our dinner of fried rice whilst watching the sun set between the two islands. It was a great way to end the day.

The Beach, there was a shark in the bay but it was too small to eat anyone!

From Koh Phi Phi we caught another ferry to a nearby island called Koh Lanta. This was a relatively large island in comparison to Koh Phi Phi which meant more room to spread out. We chose a resort about 20 minutes drive from the main ferry port in an attempt to see something different and it paid off. We had opted to stay in a bungalow again, and despite picking the cheapest option we were surprised to see what a difference it was from Koh Tao. It was concrete and massive, had a hot shower and a flushing toilet (luxury) although we did see a gecko in our room and there was also a resident cat so not all that different to the last place! We had arrived in the afternoon so we enjoyed the rest of the sun on the beach before migrating to the seating area for a very nice dinner and to watch the sun set (which also convinced us that Thai food is actually great when done right).

Enjoying a feast!

Enjoying the view!

We spent a lot of time at the resort and just hanging around the beach, partly because it was so isolated but mainly because it was so nice there, there really wasn’t any need to leave. We hired a scooter on the final day so that we could explore the rest of the island. We headed to town and booked some transport for the next day and then rode over the hills to old Koh Lanta village where we stopped for a drink. We headed back when we saw some huge rainclouds gathering and just made it back before getting soaked. Out of all the islands we saw this is definitely the one we’d come back to. There was so much to see and with your own wheels you can get to some lovely isolated bays and have the place to yourself. Hopefully it’s big enough to withstand all the tourists and not end up like Koh Phi Phi. We will be back!

From Koh Lanta we decided to head to Hat Yai and spend a night there before crossing over into Malaysia. There isn’t a lot to say about Hat Yai, apparently it has a seedy side to the nightlife but as we had an early train to catch we didn’t really notice. We did however go to an English pub (sounds terrible I know) and I had shepherd’s pie, it was awesome. I did spot a Bristol City scarf decorating the pub which was the only clue that we weren’t in a pub at home, everyone knows Rovers are the team to support.

From Hat Yai we planned to get the train to Butterworth in Malaysia. To be honest we had been looking forward to getting out of Thailand for some time. We’ve been to some amazing places here but we’ve also had some really frustrating times dealing with people. We didn’t see anyone smile for weeks on end and often felt like we were being viewed as walking dollar signs for people to extract cash through any scam they could think up. We have a feeling that if we came back in the low season we might see something different and there are definitely parts that are worth revisiting, but for now we look forward to continuing south.

Eventually we made it to Bangkok and found ourselves a guesthouse. It reminded me of the place Leonardo DiCaprio stayed in The Beach. It had paper thin walls, all the rooms were connected by air vents so you could hear everything and although we had a private cold shower and toilet, there was no sink in the entire building. Even so we were perfectly happy there especially as it was so cheap (£5 a night). Unfortunately we kept being woken up by things crawling over us. When morning came we weren’t sure if we had imagined it but the sight of our first bed bug answered any doubts we had. Some of them were massive so we decided it was time to move on somewhere a bit cleaner.

We wanted to spend a few days in Bangkok to give it another chance as our first visit was a bit of a letdown. While we were there we paid a visit to the zoo. We had been a bit wary of zoos in Asia as many of them sound like old fashioned concrete prisons. Lonely Planet said this one was ‘above average’ so we gave it a go. It turned out to be really good, some of the animals looked a bit bored but the majority seemed happy enough and they were all fairly active. We were lucky to turn up just as all the school kids were watching some sort of dance show in the main arena so we had the place to ourselves for a while. This meant elephant feeding time!

Greedy baby elephant

I was amazed how many animals they managed to fit in this place, they had many more species than I imagined (The last place we went, Marwell Zoo, seemed entirely populated by variations of Antelopes and Cows).

They even had one of these

My favourite bit was nocturnal zone which was filled with all sorts of weird creatures from the local area and having them in darkened spaces meant they were much more active than some of the animals out in the sun.

I have a similar reaction to the heat as this ferret

We continued the animal theme the next day with a visit to the snake farm. Thankfully the snakes here aren’t raised for meat but rather to milk their venom. What set this apart from the zoo’s reptile house was the snake handling talk that we got to see. The host was really charismatic, if a little crazy, and as he talked his snake handlers brought out a variety of deadly snakes. The arena was really small but that didn’t stop them from dropping massive Cobras on the floor a few feet from the front row. The handlers wore big rubber boots and it seems their job was mainly to wind the snakes up enough to strike out, which they did, a lot!

Fun with snakes!

When it was time to get the next snake out they didn’t follow Steve Irwin’s technique of grabbing the tail, they just lunged at the snake and grabbed it round the throat, it was pretty impressive (although they were stood next to the biggest anti venom hospital in South East Asia if anything went wrong). At the end of the talk I got the chance to hold a python which was great, although Rachel won’t thank me for calling her up to share my fun!

Snake handler - My new dream job

We definitely preferred Bangkok the second time around. I’m not sure if that’s because we weren’t as clueless this time, we didn’t get in any tuk tuks for a start, but it seemed a lot more manageable and we had a good few days there. Unfortunately we got ripped off by a taxi driver on our way to the train station who took us the long way, so long that a 10 minute journey took 40 minutes and we almost missed our train. When we refused to pay the amount on the meter he went off to get a policeman who sided with him with a well rehearsed spiel about bad traffic and closed roads. It’s a shame that there are so many people ready to rip you off in Bangkok, it really put a downer on our time there.

Our next stop was Hua Hin. We read that it was a royal retreat on the coast and it seemed like a good place to break up our journey south. We stayed in a small basic wooden room on one of the piers along the seafront. It was tiny but good fun and we got some good night’s sleep with the sound of the waves underneath us (and no bedbugs!).

The beach at Hua Hin

There isn’t a lot going on in Hua Hin. It has a nice beach complete with pony rides and seems entirely populated by overweight Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians. I’ve never seen so many beer bellies on a beach before and we were by far the youngest people there. When we arrived in town we were met by a Dutch man on a moped who took us to his guesthouse. It sounded great but when we got there it turned out to be the creepiest place. The whole house was filled with weird shit including a stuffed wildcat wearing a straw hat (exactly what you need when you’re dead and stuffed!) in the bedroom and some sort of ivory tusk sculpture above the front desk. It was how I’d imagine a colonial plantation owner to decorate their house and I had concerns that if we stayed our heads would end up mounted on the wall, we had a lucky escape!

After Hua Hin we got the cheap train down to Chumphon where we stayed in the friendliest guesthouse in Thailand before getting the catamaran to Ko Tao the next morning.

When we got to Ko Tao we had a very long walk to find some accommodation. Partly because once again we refused to part with any cash for a taxi but also because so many places were full. Eventually we found a vacancy and moved into our lovely little bungalow close to the beach.

Our house...for a few days at least

Most of the accommodation on the islands is like this and it made a change from guesthouses and hotels. The place was really basic (cold shower and scoop flush toilet) but we knew what to expect and made the most of it.

After the first night we realised we were actually sharing our hut with a few permanent residents including a giant gecko which lived in the bathroom wall with some well placed eggs and barked every morning to wake us up, a big bat which we saw on our porch on the first night, a local dog who liked to sleep outside in the mornings, a frog which lived in the drainage hole from our shower and an army of ants which removed the dead mosquitoes we had squished every night. It was a fully functioning ecosystem and we had never felt more at one with nature!

Godzilla!

Ko Tao is a tiny island which one of the disgusting Brits we saw described as, ‘a bit like Tenerife innit!’ Actually you could see it had once been a tropical paradise but now it’s full of package holiday tourists and white people with dreadlocks (surely a crime punishable by death). Still we had a nice time here and the sea was perfect for swimming.

These guys were really good, they performed along the beach every night

We also hired a motorbike for our last day on the island which was a laugh. We didn’t really get anywhere as the roads are so rough but we cruised the entire length of the island and I did some extreme scooter off-roading up a mountain to a spectacular viewpoint (and then realised my camera battery was dead).

Queasy Rider!

We had planned to head to Ko Phan Ngan for the full moon party but we couldn’t find anywhere to stay despite spending hours searching online. High season in the south seems to make things pretty difficult for people who want to keep moving around every few days. It meant that we couldn’t just turn up to places like we had in the north and we wasted more time than we wanted looking for our next place to stay. In the end we gave up on Ko Phan Ngan and decided to head straight over to Phuket on the west coast. We bought a combination boat/bus ticket on Ko Tao and hoped for the best!