Sydney, Part I [5/27-5/28]

Sydney!  My flight touched down in the early afternoon, and after clearing customs I hopped on the train to my hostel.  Conveniently, the place I was staying was located directly across from Central Station; inconveniently, apparently the airport owns the train stops at its terminals, so they're able to charge more to and from them... $16.40, compared to ~$5 for any of the other routes.  Oh well.

View from my hostel at night

I got settled in, grabbed a map, and headed out on a walk.  Sydney was a misleadingly walkable city.  On the map none of the bits and pieces looked that far from each other, but it took a fair while to get from Point A to Point B.  I actually used my first stop, Hyde Park, to try and time how long it might take me to get to other points in the city.

ANZAC Memorial

Hyde Park takes up a pretty decent chunk of land in the middle of downtown Sydney.  It's got plenty of large grassy areas, an ornamental garden, and a few fountains.  It's also home to one of Australia's ANZAC Memorials, and I stopped by to pay my respects; the timing seemed fitting, since it was Memorial Day back home.  Alongside the park is St. Mary's Cathedral, a fairly impressive piece of architecture that unfortunately doesn't allow pictures inside.  There were plenty of people ignoring that rule, but I'm not that guy.

St. Mary's Cathedral

After I finished wandered the park I continued on my way down to the harbor.  Not counting my wandering time, I'd say it was about a 45 minute walk (mostly level or only slightly sloped, luckily) from the door of my hostel down to the area between the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.  I got there just in time to catch part of the sunset behind the bridge, and snapped a few pictures of that, before doing a circuit of the Opera House.  I could've waited a bit longer for the Vivid stuff to start, but decided to get back to the hostel and off my feet for awhile... I knew there would be other opportunities to see it, and plenty of walking in my future.

Sydney Harbour Bridge at sunset

I ended up reading for a bit before heading up to the rooftop lounge for one of the hostel's regularly organized events: Pizza Night!  Considering how expensive everything else around the city is, this was a ridiculously good deal.  $5 got you four slices of pizza and unlimited "goon" (cheap boxed wine)... if that's not a good ice breaker, I don't know what is.  For those so inclined (i.e., less old or more hardcore than me), it also got you entry to a local club, your first drink while you were there, and a shuttle to and from the hostel.  People were getting back to the room late enough that I probably should have just gone for it anyways, but I decided to hold off.

Day two was exploring day.  Unfortunately, I was a bit overenthusiastic, and ended up costing myself a bunch more walking.  There's a free shuttle that runs from a couple streets over from my hostel down to Circular Quay--at the base of the cove between the Opera House and Harbour Bridge--but my plan to get an early start on the day backfired: it didn't start running until 9:30.  Rather than waiting for it, I decided to just walk down.

At the Royal Botanic Gardens

First stop: The Royal Botanic Gardens.  The Gardens form a sort of U shape around Farm Cove; at one point of the U is the Opera House, and at the other is Mrs. Macquerie's Chair, where the first governor's wife used to enjoy sitting to view the bay.  The tropical section was closed for renovations, but the rest of it was still very impressive, and I highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area.  I spent about three hours wandering through them and still probably managed to miss a decent amount.

Sydney Opera House & Sydney Harbour Bridge from the area around Mrs. Macquerie's Chair

Second stop: The Opera House!  I had about 45 minutes until the next tour started, so I grabbed a quick lunch (a tasty but horribly overpriced [surprise!] salad) and worked on some postcards for a bit.  The tour itself was quite interesting, and I learned several things about the Opera House that I didn't know before; for example, the winning design was actually in the pile of discards, but one of the judges showed up late and insisted on going through all of the submissions again.  You weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the actual performance halls, and I'm not sure it was worth the $37 price of admission, but it was one of those things that I couldn't not do.  I think it also got you a discount on some of the shows that were going at the time, so if you've got some money to blow and were planning on seeing something there, I'd say go for it.  Plus, free Wi-Fi!

Inside the Opera House

Third stop: Sydney Harbour Bridge.  I looked at doing the bridge walk, but they wanted $248 for that, so I said "yeah, nah."  You can also walk across the bridge at street level; it may not get you up as high, but it still offers some great views, and doesn't cost a penny.  It takes a bit over 15 minutes to cross on foot (more if you're stopping to take pictures like I was), and there's a small park on the other side that also offers some good views.  I got some pictures, relaxed there for a bit, then headed back across and called it an evening.

Auckland [5/25-27]

View from Mt. Eden

Honestly, Auckland was pretty meh.  I got to see a few cool things, but I think I could have skipped it without missing anything major.  My first day there I got my stuff dropped off at the hostel, then walked a few blocks up the street to Mt. Eden, a dormant volcano that offered some nice views of town.  Sadly it also offered quite a bit of uphill walking, and my legs did not thank me for the effort.  It was still over an hour until dark and I didn't feel like just sitting around at the top waiting, so I wandered into town to try and find a replacement charger for my nook; I'd forgotten mine at bro/SIL's place in Timaru.  No dice though: the one electronic store I found was closed on Sundays.  After going a bit further up the street with no luck, I stopped by an alehouse for an overpriced but tasty (a.k.a. "not local") beer, enjoying that until it got dark.

Auckland at night, viewed from Mt. Eden

Once dusk hit it was time to head back up Mt. Eden to see Auckland at night.  My legs were complaining the entire way, but I figured I was already out and about and already worn out, so I may as well go for it.  Glad I did, too... the city definitely looked cool at night.  I forgot what I grabbed for dinner, but I headed back to the hostel and ended up reading for a bit, then watching Hot Fuzz with some folks in the lounge before hitting the sack.

One of the old gun emplacements outside of Devonport, looking back at Auckland

The next morning I took a bus downtown (thank goodness I didn't decide to walk... I could've done it, but wouldn't have been up for much afterwards) and hopped a ferry across to Devonport.  I didn't do quite as much exploring as I would have liked--the map made it look smaller than it was, so walking anywhere took awhile--but I did get to see the National Naval Museum, as well as climbing both the North Head (home to an old artillery battery) and Mt. Victoria, both of which provided excellent views of the surrounding area.

Auckland from Sky Tower

From there it was back across the bay and up to Sky Tower.  It's no Empire State Building, but it's tall enough to provide some great views of the city in every direction, including down.  The floor of the observation deck included several sections of plexiglass that you can walk out onto, allowing you to look directly down at the streets below.  Even knowing it was more than thick enough to hold me, that first step onto it was very nerve-wracking... totally worth it though.  The trip up is a bit pricey ($28), but you can get $3 off with a coupon in the free official Auckland guide, and it's only a couple more dollars for a day/night package that allows you up once during the day and once again after dark.  Once I'd had my fill of the view I snagged an overpriced beer I headed back down and started another hunt for a nook charger... success!  I ended up finding one at The Warehouse (kind of like the Kiwi version of Walmart), but at 50% off it still ran me $25 for something that would've been <$10 back in the States.  I wanted to keep reading though, so I was stuck with it, and at least I can give it to my bro when he comes back for a friend's wedding this summer.  It was close enough to sunset at that point that I decided to try and get up Mt. Eden again for some shots of that, but alas, the sunset was not a good one.  Oh well.  Back to the hostel to work on postcards, and then it was time for bed before my flight to Sydney the next day.

Look at all the bugs!  Oh wait, those are people.

The Final Leg, Sort Of [5/23-5/25]

The "old" church at Lake Tekapo

From Queenstown we headed along the west coast of the south island towards Mt. Cook.  It took a bit longer than it should have, though... apparently GPS has a funny idea of how roads work.  We told it we didn't mind a bit of unpaved road to save some distance, and it gave us about 30km of unpaved, 1.5 lane road through the mountains.  I guess it technically saved us a bit of distance, but probably took almost twice as long as it would have to just stick to the highway.  Oh well.  We attempted to stop by an observatory in the area, but it was closed to vehicles at this time of year, and we were all worn down enough that we didn't feel like walking to the top.  On top of that (no pun intended), the weather around Mt. Cook meant it wasn't worth the drive out there; it was cloudy enough that there wouldn't have been any view at all.  We decided to cut our losses and just head on to our lodging for the night, an old shepherd's hut along Lake Tekapo that had been converted into a guest house.  It wasn't fancy but it had everything we needed (minus the internet... surprise!), although the bathroom and shower were in a separate building.

12th Man representing at Lake Tekapo... Go Hawks!

Once we got settled in there, SIL attempted to rest up, and the bro and I headed in to "explore" the town.  There actually isn't much there, other than an old--though not as old as it looks--church, a bunch of vacation homes, and a small downtown area with a few small shops and restaurants.  After a few pictures along the lake we grabbed a quick dinner (overpriced, as always) and some wine, then headed back to the cabin.  I sorted through my pictures from the last couple days, sewed up a tear in my pants (mostly successfully, although I had to go back and do part of it again later), and then we broke out the wine and played cribbage until it was time for bed, with each of us managing to win a game.

The view from our shepherd's shack

The weather around Mt. Cook is a fickle thing, and decided to disagree with us the next morning as well.  Rather than waiting around in hopes that it would clear up, we decided to just head back to Timaru and rest up.  A quick trip to the grocery store for some dinner, and the library for some movies, and we were set.  I also managed to get in some laundry, which turned out to be the only time I did it on the trip... success!  Although it did mean I was kind of gross for a couple days, so... semi-success, I guess.  Went to bed early that night, and then got up early the next morning so the bro could drive me up to Christchurch for my flight to Auckland.

View from the room at the bro & SIL's house in Timaru.  It's alright, I guess.