Sydney, Part III (5/30-31)

Sadly, my last day in Sydney was largely a waste.  I slept in again, which was nice, but woke up feeling like I was starting to come down with something.  I just missed the free shuttle downtown, so rather than wait around for the next one I decided to wander Chinatown for a bit.  Most of my time there was spent in a gigantic mall-type area, where, much like Portabello Road, anything and everything a chap can unload could be found.  Unfortunately, either my camera or my general demeanor (or being obviously non-Chinese) identified me as a tourist, and I had at least three different places try to rope me in for an "Asian massage."  I ended up just buying a t-shirt and a few souvenirs for folks back home, then dropping them back by the hostel before heading back downtown.

Since I didn't pay attention to my map and didn't realize how much cool stuff was around Darling Harbour, I decided to go check out the Sydney Observatory.  After walking there from Circular Quay (not too far, but lots of uphill) I got out my camera to take a picture... and discovered that my camera no longer liked my memory card.  I tried restarting the camera and ejecting/reinserting the memory card, but no dice; I had to go back to the hostel and format the card.  Luckily I had just backed up my pictures the night before, so I didn't lose anything, but it was still quite annoying.

Attempt number two at the observatory was slightly more successful.  I got there slightly before 15:00 and realized I had a bit more time to kill before the next tour at 15:30, so I wandered back down a few blocks to where some street vendors had set up food stalls; they weren't much less expensive than the actual restaurants, but I ended up getting a good deal on what turned out to be a pretty darn delicious lamb sausage on a roll.  I made my way back up to the observatory and sat around for another 20 minutes or so, at which point I realized I'd misread the sign out front: entry was free, but all the official tours included a stop in their video room... which cost $10.  I was feeling pretty cheap at this point in my trip, so I decided to just explore as much of the building as I could--most of it, luckily--without being part of one of the tours, and then heading back to the hostel.  It was after the cutoff time for the free shuttle to and from downtown, so I once again made the trek across town on foot.  I did pick some beer on my way back though, and that helped make things not quite so bad.

The early evening was spent getting everything repacked so I'd be ready to head out the next day.  Around 18:30 I joined a couple other guys for dinner (steak & fries for under $10... not the best I've ever had, but fairly good, and incredibly cheap for Sydney) and then Godzilla in 3D at the biggest IMAX screen in the world.  It was really cool getting to see it on such a big screen, but it definitely needed more Godzilla.

Sydney, Part II (5/29)

Manly Beach

The next morning was a Thursday.  I slept in a bit, then joined a fellow American from the hostel for the ferry ride out to Manly Beach.  It was windy as heck on the way, but we got some great views from the deck, and got lucky enough to spot a whale as well... first time I'd seen one in the wild.  The beach itself was really nice as well: nice sand, nice surf (there was actually a surf class going on), and much less touristy than Bondi Beach.  We wandered the extent of the beach itself, through a cave to an area that would have required some serious rock climbing to progress beyond, then back along the beach to a nature trail on the far side.

You have to look really closely, but there's a whale tale in there.

The Cave of Wonders! Or maybe just
a regular cave

The nature trail took us to what seemed like a completely different environment, from sand to scrub, and from palms to pines.  There was very little in the way of wildlife--a decent amount of birds, and a few frogs that we heard but never saw--and not many people either, although we did run into a few guys hitting golf balls from the clifftop into the ocean.

Surfing

Even the short version of the hike turned out to be a pretty decent workout, so we cut it a bit short in the hopes of catching the next return ferry.  It was just starting to rain (not to heavily, at least), which may have had some impact on our decision as well.  We spotted whales on the way back as well, but it went a bit downhill from there.  My map showed that the free shuttle ran late on Thursdays, but the lady at the bus terminal told us otherwise, so we ended up having to walk the 40ish minutes back to the hostel.  Normally that wouldn't have been so bad, but I had just spent all day (and most of the the previous several days) walking around, and my body was starting to feel it.  The worst part?  Later that night, two girls back at the hostel told us that they'd been able to catch the free shuttle just fine, and later than we'd been there.  Thanks bus terminal lady!

Are we still in Australia, Toto?

That evening more than made up for the travails of the day, though.  Dinner was put on by the hostel again, and once again it was way cheaper than I could've eaten out for: $1/each for Aussie dogs (basically just a hot dog inside bread instead of a bun, but they were big dogs and the bread was great) with all the fixings.  After that it was on to the main attraction: Vivid Sydney, a giant festival of "light, music, and ideas."  I joined a few more folk from the hostel and hopped the train down to the harbour for the light show at the Opera House.

Ooooh....

Wow.  Just wow.  The main attraction was the Opera House itself, but lights were being projected onto several other buildings and some smaller installations down there, much of it accompanied by music.  The area was all sorts of crowded, but it still wasn't hard to get some amazing views.

Butterflies?  Okay.

I'm not even sure what this is, but it's cool enough that I don't care.

As if Australia needed more rabbits.  At least these ones weren't breeding.

So I accidentally arrived in the middle of one of Sydney's biggest events.  As I am occasionally fond of saying, luck is just one of my many skills.  I'll just leave this video here for you to enjoy....

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.

How the Internet got to New Zealand

I'm really not sure, and I don't think it's all the way here yet.  Data use is incredibly restricted, either by time, amount used, or both.  In America, I'm used to free Wi-Fi in most public places, and 'free with purchase' at most of the rest.  The hotel in Queenstown had 20 minutes free/day.  The hostel I just stayed at in Auckland gave me a voucher for 200mb of free internet use, which was plenty for general surfing, but not enough to get all of my pictures uploaded.  Hopefully Australia is a bit better, otherwise many of the posts about my trip will be coming after the fact.

Queenstown, Part II

Can you get any more New Zealand than this?

After Mount Aspiring we swung back through Queenstown to grab some lunch and say hi to SIL, then out the other direction to head up Coronet Peak. We were tempted to take a detour on Skipper's Road while we were up there'd, but decided that the little Toyota probably wasn't up to it.  Luckily we were able to give our legs a rest and drive all the way to the top of Coronet Peak.  Well, most of the way.  Along with having great views, Coronet Peak is a ski hill, and the only way to get to the very top is on the ski lift.  The chairs were running, but given that it wasn't actually open, we didn't have any lift tickets, and it looked like they were making snow to go along with the real stuff that should be falling shortly, we decided to make do with what we had.

Looking down from Coronet Peak

We had time for one more stop before heading back (coming at this time of years means you miss out on the summer & winter tourists, but also means you have less daylight to work with), so we decided to swing by a beach along the Shotover River.  Shotover used to be known as the richest river in the world, but it's been pretty thoroughly de-golded (I know that's not a word... deal with it) at this point. It is, however, one of the few rivers I've seen down here that merits the name--most are more like streams or creeks.  From there it was back into town for drinks and dinner.  The bro went for another Fergburger, but I didn't want to have too much of a good thing, so I grabbed a pie from the Ferg Bakery next door.  Pies are a traditional dish down here, and are basically a better tasting and higher quality (i.e., they won't give you the runs) version of a Hot Pocket.  Mine had pork belly, apples, onions, and some sort of gravy contained by a nice flaky crust, and was quite tasty. After that it was back to the hotel to finish up my postcards and watch some NZ television before hitting the sack.

Hole in... a lot.

Day three turned out sunny for us again, which is apparently quite lucky this time of year.  We started off the morning tracking down a Frisbee so we could hit up the local disc golf course.  I almost gave up on it after the first shop wanted $29.95 for one... even after the exchange rate is taken into account, that's just ridiculous.  Luckily we were able to find another shop that was open, and selling them for only $12.95.  The course itself made a fun start to the morning as well.  Neither of us did particularly well, but the course took us around the outside of the small peninsula that the Queenstown Gardens are located on, so we got some great views while we were playing.

Arrowtown.  This actually should have gone with the previous post, but oh well.

By the time we finished it was light enough for us to hit up the gondola.  It was a bit pricey, like pretty much everything else down here, but we got a discount on the luge course at the top, and the views were incredible.  They also had a luge course up top that we added on as part of a package with the trip up the gondola.  The wind kept it cold enough that it wasn't as enjoyable as it could've been, but zipping down the course high above Queenstown is hard to beat.

View from the top of the gondola.

The day finished with a couple more short hikes in the Mt. Chrichton/12 Mile Delta area (there were fish!), and then, of course, more beer and another Fergburger.  I swear, those things have pretty much ruined every other hamburger for me.  For the rest of you, you're damned if you do (in which case every other hamburger will be ruined for you as well), damned if you don't (in which case you'll be missing out on the best hamburger in the world).  Final verdict: go to Queenstown.  You'll thank me, and then you'll thank yourself.

12 Mile Delta.  Man, what I wouldn't have given for my fishing pole.