HOME!!!

Hey hey! So I'm back in England and its...COLD!

The last couple of days weren't particularly eventful. Got the plane to Thailand and went to the Kho San Road area to buy some cheap stuff like t-shirts, contact lenses (they are a third of the price I pay in England!) and souvenirs etc. before heading off to the Silom area for my final day away. I went to Chinatown, which is just crammed full of market stalls selling cheap fake designer stuff (Gucci bag for £5 anyone?) then went to Thurmit Temple to see a 3m tall Buddha statue made of solid gold. That night I went to a huge night market, which was also in the middle of the red light district...a very strange experience!!

My flight back was delayed a couple of hours which made the 12 hour journey home even more boring...but I made it! Arrived back in England late last night (Thursday) and have slept...lots!! I can't believe my year (and a bit) of travelling is over. I have LOVED every minute of it...even when things didn't go as expected! All the countries I've visited have been amazing in lots of different ways and I'd definitely recommend travel to any of them. This will be my last year-out related post. I hope you have all enjoyed reading this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it and look forward to seeing some of you soon.

Take it easy,

Si




The view from our hotel room in Sydney...



...was amazing by day...



...(especially the bay)...



...and stunning at night!



Room wasn't bad either ;)



The Golden Buddha in Bangkok



I dunno who this Sue is, but shes getting a lot of action!!



Chinatown!

Back where I started!!!

So, we got back to Auckland and had to return SETI (boo hoo!). We then had an evening and the following day to look round Auckland. The first thing we did was meet up with Chris, a guy who I met on an online game that I used to manage who lives in Auckland! Was really random meeting up on the other side of the world and was good to have someone with some local knowledge!! He took us to the beach for some fish and chips and gave us a mini sightseeing tour on the way there and back!! We had a walk to the Sky Tower and wandered around for a bit but it was the end of our NZ experience so we had no money and needed to organise some stuff and ended up in the internet cafe. We then watched some films at the hostel while we waited for our 5:45am flight to Sydney!

When we got to Sydney Sara jetted off to Melbourne (she'd hadn't seen it yet) so I decided to spend my last few days in Australia in the lovely town of Manly, where I spent the first three months of my travels! So that was five days ago, I met a couple of Irish guys in a dorm I was staying in and have spent my Manly days partying, surfing and lying on the beach (not in that order). Sara is back and tonight is our last night in Australia so we've decided to treat ourselves and booked into a very swish hotel in central Sydney! They took ages to check us in so upgraded us to a room with a view right across the city to the harbor, its by far the best view of the city I've ever seen! The room is amazing and there is a big flat screen TV, woohoooo! In fact, its so good that I'm going to stop writing about it and go back to the hotel!

Off to Thailand tomorrow evening then back home 2 days after on Thursday the 22nd, I'll probably write again but looking forward to seeing you all!!




The Sky Tower from below

Caving and Surfing on the West Coast!

Waitomo Caves was the last big highlight on our trip, we couldn't wait to get there so we drove over that evening. There are hundreds of caves in the area, most unexplored, which you can absail into, climb through and 'black water rapid' down! I chose a trip that did all of the above! After meeting our insanely funny Aussie guide, we drove over to a small hut near the caves to get changed into wetsuits, helmets and headlamps. Before we entered the cave we practiced using a decender for the absailing, looking like fools absailing from fence posts across flat ground!

Next we walked over to the cave shaft where everyone voted for me to go down first!! I was connected up to the rope and jumped into the hole before absailing down for 30 meters! I absailed straight into a very cold river and waded up to a dry point to wait for the others. After everyone had sailed down we grabbed a big rubber ring each and waded up the river through some small caves with our headlamps to guide us. At the apparent end of the cave the guide told us that the tunnels actually went at least 500m furthur but you had to go underwater for a long way using SCUBA gear to reach them. Only one guy has ever done it and he said that it was so horrible that no one has ever tried again! Anyway, at the point we had to grab the shoulder of the person in front of us, turn off our lights and wade through the cave in pitch black darkness. As our eyes started to adjust to the light we started to see more and more glow worms blinking on the cave walls and ceiling like little stars. Then we heard a loud BANG and the guide chuckled saying that the adrenaline would make our pupils dilate so we could see more glow worms. Sure enough we looked up and were dazzled by the hundreds of thousands of blue-green lights from the glow worms. Then it was time to do some black water rafting!! We hopped on our rings and shot down the river in total darkness peering up at the glow worms. At certain points we would hit rapids and bounce down them, getting soaked in the process! Once we got to the end of the rapids it was time for some caving. We squeezed ourselves through a load of small holes before it was time to leave. This involved a rock climb up the 30m wall we'd absailed down!! It was great fun and very very tiring!!

The next day was horse riding day! Sara is a keen horse rider and I have never even tried to get on a horse...a good combination! Anyway, we head to a trekking place that was on the top of a huge hill. I was introduced to my horse, Albert, and we headed off behind the rest of the group. At the beginning it was hard to keep myself balanced but I got the hang of it in the end! The views were amazing as we trekked around the hill and through the fields. Afterwards we went to Bridal Veil Falls, a huge waterfall a few km down the road.

We had two days left before we had to return the car so headed over to the seaside town of Raglan. Its a really relaxed place with some amazing surfing beaches. The best was Manu Bay which has a huge left hander that I couldn't wait to see. As soon as I saw the bay I wanted to go surfing and luckily the place we were staying that night rented out surfboards so I carved it up for a couple of hours before getting some well needed grub!

Another Country!!

We headed to the West coast and took the scenic drive along the coast around Mt. Taranaki, another big (doormant) volcano, to New Plymouth. We got a couple of nice views of the snow-capped volcano but by the time I had the chance to stop and take a picture it had been covered by clouds! We stopped at a beach on the way round, eating fish & chips while watching the waves, and went to a park with loads of birds before reaching New Plymouth. We camped out by the beach and had a walk on the black volcanic sand. It was weird walking on black sand, which sparkles in the sun, like someone had inverted the colours or something!

Anyway, after all that driving there wasn't actually much to do in New Plymouth so the next day we drove straight to the volcano and took the road as far up as we could. From about 1000m up we could see up to the top (which was again covered with clouds) and down over the city. The climb to the top was 8 hours and there was a lot of snow so we didn't try and climb the volcano and instead headed inland along 'The Forgotten Highway'...

Hugging the winding road was a railway that used to transport huge amounts of coal from the mines in the area. When the coal dried up, everyone left! So, along the road, we saw lots of disused mine shafts and mine related buildings which had a bit of a ghost-town atmosphere. However, the highlight of the trip was the small town of Whangamomona, which became an independent republic after disagreements with local councils!! At the 'boarder' is a guard station and you have to show your passports!! When we arrived it was unmanned so we were instructed to proceed to the hotel for immigration and passports! After having our passports stamped and reading a little about the town (who's presidents have included 'Billy the Goat' and a poodle) we set off on the final leg of the forgotten highway journey...




The beach, full of black sand!



The guard post at Whangamomona



We went through this random tiny bridge called 'The Hobbit Hole'...



Beautiful green hills featured all along the forgotten highway

Christchurch, scary motor parks and Kaikoura!

We hit Cathedral Square as soon as we arrived in Christchurch and looked round the market. It was Sara's birthday the next day so I took her to the Tram Restaurant, an old tram car converted into a swish restaurant, so we spent the evening chugging round the city eating lovely food! The next day we went to the science museum to play glow in the dark mini golf and chilled out in the city's lovely botanic gardens before heading North.

We were trying to make it up to Kaikoura but it was getting late, so we had to stop somewhere on the way. We felt like staying in a motor park and saw a sign for one in a small random village on the way up. After paying, we had a chat to the guy who owned the place and both decided he was seriously weird. As the evening went on the cabins there started to remind us of the motel cabins in Psycho, and backpacker murder reports were running through our minds....anyway, we made it through the night! And left (very) early for Kaikoura.

On the outskirts of the town is the Kaikoura Winery so we decided to do a wine tasting tour. After tasting a few drops we were shown all around the winery including their underground wine cellar. The cellar took a lot of time and money to build and is one of the only underground cellars in NZ but, after all that, they have found that they make more money hiring it out for weddings than actually storing wine in it!!! Next we went to a seal colony to try and spot some seals. While squinting our eyes at a suspected seal on a rock far out to sea, we practically tripped over a big seal that was just sunning himself in the car park!! here was also a young seal just on the beach in front of the car park and neither of them paid any attention to the tourists milling around taking pictures!

Our final morning on the South island was spent driving to Picton to catch the ferry back over to Wellington. We arrived back on the North island late in the afternoon and found a place to sleep just North of Wellington. We had only five days before we needed to return the car to explore the West side of the North island...



Mountains just outside Geraldine on the way to Christchurch



The Cathedral at Cathedral Square in Christchurch



A statue next to the Cathedral



A cone-type thing in the square



We stayed at a motor home that night, it had a 'jumping pillow'!!!



The Tram Restaurant



Me and Sara at our table



Chilling out on the tram



The Kaikoura Winery



Me trying to be a connoisseur



The vines



Kaikoura from a lookout point



A wild peacock!



A seal relaxing by the car park!



The baby seal



Trying to take an artistic picture of a daisy in Blenhim