Earthsong have left 2 upstairs studios with loft at $320,000.00 (one of these is ours), they have a north facing balcony - no garden. However, there is provision for them to have a bit of the downstairs gardens, there is a strip at least 1 meter wide around all the downstairs apartments that is Common Land, and it is usual that the upstairs folk get to use this.
I would prefer the down stairs studio appartment if we could get it, unfortunalty it is already reserved for another lucky person.
There are also two, two bedroom apartments both $476,000.00 (too expensive for us). The downstairs one has a study as well as the 2 bedrooms and a small garden in front and back. The upstairs studio is two bedrooms with a large mezzanine loft, that could possibly be converted into bedrooms, by putting in a more substantial staircase and enclosing the loft.
These apartments butt up to a large piece of Common Land on the North, so the front garden "feels" a lot bigger.
Body Corp levies =$20 a week, this covers insurance for the
building, Common House costs, and anything we chose to spend it on i.e. facilitators for community workshops, landscaping etc.
Local Council rates =$20 per week.
Ulility costs (combined) = $30-$40 per week all year round. Summer being around $20 winter maybe up to $50.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Earthsong Updates
Well I have been busy sorting out our current appartment. I thought when we moved from our 3 bedroom house in Hurstbridge, to our 2.5 bedroom appartment (and no storage space etc) in Thornbury, we had given away or thrown out everything that we didn't want or could live without, I really thought there was nothing left that I could possibly stand not having any more - this is not the case. I have so far compacted my kitchen down by a full corner cupboard, you really don't understand how much "plastic" I can accumulate for storage.
Basically I went through every single item and said to myself "Tracey, have you used this since you moved last time" and if the answer was "No" or" "Only once or twice with out much success" (or something along those lines), it got tossed, but, I had to constantly reasure myself with the "it's ok Tracey, if you discover you need one again I'm sure they sell them in New Zealand, or maybe you can borrow one from a neighbour in the most amazing community in earth" worked wonders.
My next step was to go through the books that we still had in boxes (we have lived in Thornbury for 1 year now and these had not left their original storage), I managed to find 1 teachest (technical packing box term) and one book box (technical term for a smallish box that isn't too heavy when filled with books), and I have only just started on this task, there are still 2 complete bookshelves to look through *gulp* (I don't see many actually going any where really - not my babies!)
The other thing I have culled is the video collection, I have catelogued our entire collection, noted those that will be or have been replaced with DVD's and saved the file in a secure place (if you want to get me a gift, I have a huge list *grin*). Basically it has been decided that our ENTIRE video collection is going to new homes (let me know if you want to see the list and pick out a few gems for yourself).
Yes it's true, all the videos from my Shirley Temple collection to Craig's compleate set of Babylon 5, all to be replaced at some future time with DVD's (a saw a great collection of Audrey Hepburn movies at Borders the other day *giggles*) Basically, all movies that can't be housed with friends and family will either go to the library or to the Children's hospital (or soemthing like that).
I'm really racking my brains to work out how we are going to manage moving from a 2.5br to a studio appartment!
Basically I went through every single item and said to myself "Tracey, have you used this since you moved last time" and if the answer was "No" or" "Only once or twice with out much success" (or something along those lines), it got tossed, but, I had to constantly reasure myself with the "it's ok Tracey, if you discover you need one again I'm sure they sell them in New Zealand, or maybe you can borrow one from a neighbour in the most amazing community in earth" worked wonders.
My next step was to go through the books that we still had in boxes (we have lived in Thornbury for 1 year now and these had not left their original storage), I managed to find 1 teachest (technical packing box term) and one book box (technical term for a smallish box that isn't too heavy when filled with books), and I have only just started on this task, there are still 2 complete bookshelves to look through *gulp* (I don't see many actually going any where really - not my babies!)
The other thing I have culled is the video collection, I have catelogued our entire collection, noted those that will be or have been replaced with DVD's and saved the file in a secure place (if you want to get me a gift, I have a huge list *grin*). Basically it has been decided that our ENTIRE video collection is going to new homes (let me know if you want to see the list and pick out a few gems for yourself).
Yes it's true, all the videos from my Shirley Temple collection to Craig's compleate set of Babylon 5, all to be replaced at some future time with DVD's (a saw a great collection of Audrey Hepburn movies at Borders the other day *giggles*) Basically, all movies that can't be housed with friends and family will either go to the library or to the Children's hospital (or soemthing like that).
I'm really racking my brains to work out how we are going to manage moving from a 2.5br to a studio appartment!
Friday, February 24, 2006
And the end (or is it the beginning?)
We arrived in Auckland, tired, hot and preparing emotionaly to go home. I think our subconcious had said "that's it, the holiday is over I want to go home". So as you can probably guess, we were not overly impressed with our first impressions of Auckland. As far as we were concerned right then, it was just another city (it is the largest city in NZ and is kind of like a mini Sydney, compleate with harbour bridge). We spent a lot of time driving around Auckland, we visited the city a few times, visited a beach (that was really odd, it's the first time I have ever seen a beach with black rather then white sand), and finally got to spend an afternoon at Earthsong! When I said Craig and I almost decided to move to Wellington, the reason we decided not to is because we are moving to Earhtsong. We (providing the funding comes through) will be purchasing a lovely wonderful studio apartement overlooking the whole village, and we are excited and I just want it to happen now!
Our appartment is still in the construction phase and want actually be finished until Xmas, but we are hopping that a rental property will become available before then (in about 3 or so months for Craig's wishes, tomorrow for mine). It's an amazing, beautiful place that is just what we want and need. We had said to ourselves after a day in Auckland, that Earthsong would have to be pretty special for us to decide to move here, thinking that it wouldn't happen, but.... it's pretty special!
We (grudgingly) had to leave Earthsong at 5.30pm as we were due for dinner with the Baron and Baroness of the Barony of Ildhafn (our new SCA home). We were delightfully surprised to be treated to a lovely roast dinner (chook, my favorite), and (not surprisingly) lovely company.
Basically we have left NZ on a huge high. The entire experience (except the jet boat) was wonderful, the people are great, the sights stunning and Earthsong is magical, now I'm doing everything I can to fill up my days so that time shall pass quickly and we can return.
I hope you liked readying this account of our holiday, and when new and exciting things take shape I shall endevours to add them to this blog.
Take care and have a lovely life.
Our appartment is still in the construction phase and want actually be finished until Xmas, but we are hopping that a rental property will become available before then (in about 3 or so months for Craig's wishes, tomorrow for mine). It's an amazing, beautiful place that is just what we want and need. We had said to ourselves after a day in Auckland, that Earthsong would have to be pretty special for us to decide to move here, thinking that it wouldn't happen, but.... it's pretty special!
We (grudgingly) had to leave Earthsong at 5.30pm as we were due for dinner with the Baron and Baroness of the Barony of Ildhafn (our new SCA home). We were delightfully surprised to be treated to a lovely roast dinner (chook, my favorite), and (not surprisingly) lovely company.
Basically we have left NZ on a huge high. The entire experience (except the jet boat) was wonderful, the people are great, the sights stunning and Earthsong is magical, now I'm doing everything I can to fill up my days so that time shall pass quickly and we can return.
I hope you liked readying this account of our holiday, and when new and exciting things take shape I shall endevours to add them to this blog.
Take care and have a lovely life.
North Island tour begins
We really spoilt ourselves for our two nights in Wellington with accommodation at the Museum Hotel. Craig and I are both huge fans of Wellington and came very close to deciding to move there. We found the best Indian resturant we have ever been too (and we have been to many). We did a little shopping and then decided that we wanted to meet some locals. We posted an email to the SCA group in Wellington and ended our stay with fish and chips and lovely company (with other enthusiastic 14th century peoples).
After leaving Wellington, we headed to Taupo, it was a lovely drive that (as always) included a dip in beautiful Lake Taupo. I was sitting by the lake watching Craig swim around when I noticed what looked like a huge rock, floating in the water, I soon discovered (from the encylopedia that is my husband) that it was pumic stone. I was facinated by the pumic stone everywhere after that, picking it up, breaking it open and throwing it into the water to watch it float, I was entertained :-)
Once we reached Taupo we found ourselves some accommodation at a lovely Tudor style hotel across from the lake, compleate with our own private plunge pool, the hot water was fed straight from the surrounding hot springs and apparently has great healing potential. That day Craig decided to try and teach me to windsurf. It was a lot of fun (I have much better balance then him and if I could just figure out the whole direction thing I'd be great at it).
Most of our North Island tour ended up being unplanned activites. We ended up visiting the falls in Taupo. Somehow Craig convinced me to get in a jet boat! ***WARNING THIS IS A VERY FAST RIDE THAT IS FOR THRILL SEAKERS! THE BOAT DOES NOT ONE BY MANY MANY MULTIPLE 360 DEGREE TURNS, SWEARVES RIGHT NEXT TO TREE TRUNKS STICKING OUT OF THE WATER AND RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE OF CLIFFS! NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED** and thus not for me! I hated every minute of it except when the boat would stop (like at the foot of the falls) and Craig had a blast.
We really began to notice how much more energy I had these days when we did a walk around "The Craters of the Moon". This was about a 45 minute walk around earth that oooozzzzzeeeeeddddd steam from everywhere. The space of land consumed by this rising heat expands every year. It was really something to see.
We left the next day and headed for Rotorua (with only one wrong turn to add another 1 hr of travel to the day *sigh*). Now Rotorua didn't sound so bad, there was some very interesting things to see and do there, but WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THE SMELL! I spent the night with my head under the blankets because I couldn't get to sleep from the smell.
But we did have a "cultural experience", we saw bubbling mud, a geyser, a kiwi's bum, and watched a welcoming ceremony. It was all very fascinating stuff. Oh and there was a really cool little paddle pool infront of the information centre with benches to sit on where we could rest our tirede footsies after long days of shopping and sight seeing.
Finally we headed to Auckland, where we would be spending our last two nights.
After leaving Wellington, we headed to Taupo, it was a lovely drive that (as always) included a dip in beautiful Lake Taupo. I was sitting by the lake watching Craig swim around when I noticed what looked like a huge rock, floating in the water, I soon discovered (from the encylopedia that is my husband) that it was pumic stone. I was facinated by the pumic stone everywhere after that, picking it up, breaking it open and throwing it into the water to watch it float, I was entertained :-)
Once we reached Taupo we found ourselves some accommodation at a lovely Tudor style hotel across from the lake, compleate with our own private plunge pool, the hot water was fed straight from the surrounding hot springs and apparently has great healing potential. That day Craig decided to try and teach me to windsurf. It was a lot of fun (I have much better balance then him and if I could just figure out the whole direction thing I'd be great at it).
Most of our North Island tour ended up being unplanned activites. We ended up visiting the falls in Taupo. Somehow Craig convinced me to get in a jet boat! ***WARNING THIS IS A VERY FAST RIDE THAT IS FOR THRILL SEAKERS! THE BOAT DOES NOT ONE BY MANY MANY MULTIPLE 360 DEGREE TURNS, SWEARVES RIGHT NEXT TO TREE TRUNKS STICKING OUT OF THE WATER AND RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE OF CLIFFS! NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED** and thus not for me! I hated every minute of it except when the boat would stop (like at the foot of the falls) and Craig had a blast.
We really began to notice how much more energy I had these days when we did a walk around "The Craters of the Moon". This was about a 45 minute walk around earth that oooozzzzzeeeeeddddd steam from everywhere. The space of land consumed by this rising heat expands every year. It was really something to see.
We left the next day and headed for Rotorua (with only one wrong turn to add another 1 hr of travel to the day *sigh*). Now Rotorua didn't sound so bad, there was some very interesting things to see and do there, but WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THE SMELL! I spent the night with my head under the blankets because I couldn't get to sleep from the smell.
But we did have a "cultural experience", we saw bubbling mud, a geyser, a kiwi's bum, and watched a welcoming ceremony. It was all very fascinating stuff. Oh and there was a really cool little paddle pool infront of the information centre with benches to sit on where we could rest our tirede footsies after long days of shopping and sight seeing.
Finally we headed to Auckland, where we would be spending our last two nights.
Last days on the South Island
Craig and spent 3 more days on the South Island. From Christchurch we went to Kaikoura for 2 nights. Here we went Kayaking with the seals (pictures haven't been developed for this just yet as we had to purchase a waterproof disposable). This was great fun, I was really picking up health wise by this time and managed to actually help row most of the tour. We had no real plans for Kaikoura which was great as we ended up wandering around at random. We visited an artists studio, took lots of photos, having lunch by the side of the road (which just happened to be whitebaite, muscles and scalops all fresh from the sea that morning and cooked right there infront of us - magic). We also found an old (renovated) convent where we stoped for second lunch and I took wandered around the gardens taking more happy snaps. There was the cutetest little bird that really wanted it's photo taken, because as soon as I stoped, he flew of his branch, flew around me and then back to his branch until I picked my camera up again.
The next day we headed off to Picton and the boat ride across the the North Island.
The next day we headed off to Picton and the boat ride across the the North Island.
On to Christchurch and Canterbury Fair
After flying ontop of the glacier we packed up and headed out of town. The intention was to find somewhere to stay in Arthurs Pass for the night and then drive the rest of the way to Christchurch. However, after getting over the 1 lane bridge that is used for both directions of traffic and the train (and today - workman), stopping a few times to admire the view (and trying to see the giant rock but ended up just seeing huge piles of them created by the former gold miners), before finally arriving in Arthurs Pass we decided it was boring, had some munchies, Craig (of course) had a swim in the freezing cold water (seriously, Bill & Kelly had their drinks in it to keep them icy cold), we finally decided to keep on going to Christchurch which we discovered was onloy another 2 hours drive away.
We arrived in Christchurch (which is a city we quite liked) and spent a long while looking for suitable accommodation. Our first stop was a backpackers set up in an old hotel, and it stank - literaly! The beds where awful, the place was dingy and I hated it, so we left. We ended up staying the night in a brand new hotel, (much better). The next day was loads of fun. We left our hotel, stowed our luggage at the airport and returned our car (all in preperation for the shuttle bus to Canterbury Fair), but before the bus arrived we had to fill several hours so we went off to explore the Antarctic, well the training centre any way. If you have several hours to pass near Christchurch airport, go and visit the Antarctic Centre, it was fun and educational (make sure you where pants!). We had a ride on the vehicles they use to move around on the antarctic, got to experience the freezing cold temperatures and harsh winds of a mild storm. Kelly and I actually waited out the storm inside an igloo but even then we got some of the wind, and of course we were sitting on ice and snow. I (stupidly) had on only a short skirt so tried very hard to pull me legs up under my wind jacket, it didn't really help. The Antarctic Centre was the kind of place you would expect to go on a school excursion, but we all really enjoyed it.
After leaving the centre we then spent a few more hours laying around the airport waiting for our ride to Canterbury Fair. Craig, of course, insisted on getting changed at the airport so he could arrive at the fair in garb. Finally we arrived at Canterbury fair where we were to stay for the next 5 days.
I spent a lot of the even sleeping, or sitting around the Mangy Mong (outdoor tavern) drinking hot chocolate, turkish coffee (thick and sweet and the first coffee I have really drunk). Craig managed to borrow a bow, Bill managed to borrow some armour and thus the boys got to fight and play to their hearts content. Their was feasting and crafts, entertainment and court. Bill managed to win and archery award and Craig managed to win the wrestling competition (my hero) (video footage to come at some point hehe). But alas, all good things must end and so the 7th of Feb arrived and we departed from the Middleages and returned once more the the 21st century and headed to Hanmar Springs for a night of luxury.
We stayed at a really delightful B&B, lovely decour, beautiful gardens and a pleasing view, (and ducks). It was pure luxery, we spoilt ourselves compleatly for the night, topping off the B&B with a visit to the Springs (a bit smelly but still really nice - don't expect Hepburn Springs-like facilities or you will be disapointed).
After a stunning breakfast the next morning, we drove Bill & Kelly back to Christchurch and put them on a plane home to Melbourne :(
We arrived in Christchurch (which is a city we quite liked) and spent a long while looking for suitable accommodation. Our first stop was a backpackers set up in an old hotel, and it stank - literaly! The beds where awful, the place was dingy and I hated it, so we left. We ended up staying the night in a brand new hotel, (much better). The next day was loads of fun. We left our hotel, stowed our luggage at the airport and returned our car (all in preperation for the shuttle bus to Canterbury Fair), but before the bus arrived we had to fill several hours so we went off to explore the Antarctic, well the training centre any way. If you have several hours to pass near Christchurch airport, go and visit the Antarctic Centre, it was fun and educational (make sure you where pants!). We had a ride on the vehicles they use to move around on the antarctic, got to experience the freezing cold temperatures and harsh winds of a mild storm. Kelly and I actually waited out the storm inside an igloo but even then we got some of the wind, and of course we were sitting on ice and snow. I (stupidly) had on only a short skirt so tried very hard to pull me legs up under my wind jacket, it didn't really help. The Antarctic Centre was the kind of place you would expect to go on a school excursion, but we all really enjoyed it.
After leaving the centre we then spent a few more hours laying around the airport waiting for our ride to Canterbury Fair. Craig, of course, insisted on getting changed at the airport so he could arrive at the fair in garb. Finally we arrived at Canterbury fair where we were to stay for the next 5 days.
I spent a lot of the even sleeping, or sitting around the Mangy Mong (outdoor tavern) drinking hot chocolate, turkish coffee (thick and sweet and the first coffee I have really drunk). Craig managed to borrow a bow, Bill managed to borrow some armour and thus the boys got to fight and play to their hearts content. Their was feasting and crafts, entertainment and court. Bill managed to win and archery award and Craig managed to win the wrestling competition (my hero) (video footage to come at some point hehe). But alas, all good things must end and so the 7th of Feb arrived and we departed from the Middleages and returned once more the the 21st century and headed to Hanmar Springs for a night of luxury.
We stayed at a really delightful B&B, lovely decour, beautiful gardens and a pleasing view, (and ducks). It was pure luxery, we spoilt ourselves compleatly for the night, topping off the B&B with a visit to the Springs (a bit smelly but still really nice - don't expect Hepburn Springs-like facilities or you will be disapointed).
After a stunning breakfast the next morning, we drove Bill & Kelly back to Christchurch and put them on a plane home to Melbourne :(
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Drive to Queenstown, Puzzling World and on to Franz Joseph
We would have arrived in Queenstown much sooner if a new trend (that would continue for the entire trip) had not started.
One thing you will not about NZ is that there are some amazinly clear, fresh, cold, creeks, rivers and lakes running all over it. The only problem with this is that Craig decided that the feature of his trip to NZ was to swim in any and all of these bodies of water, no matter how cold or how much clothing he had on.
He found these wonderful bodies of water even off the main track (we stoped for a toilet brac and he wondered off into the forest and came back a little while later with his clothes in hand and him dripping wet, he had found a clear, shallow creek and decided to have a quick dip).
Ohh, did you see the pic of our amazing spaceship cloud?
Once we reached Queenstown we found some accommodation (at the "Melbourne Inn" we thought it was funny). We had a great dinner at a local pub in town, went to bed and by breakfast the following day we were in Arrowtown. I had eaten something for breakfast, but then decided I was still hungry so I went back inside and spied a yummy looking apple pie, I ordered, the lovely lass behind the counter asked if I would like a little bit of berry sauce with my pie, sounded lovely I said and a little while later she came out with the most decadent apple pie ever, and it was delicious!
We then wondered down to the Ford of Bruinen (where Frodo and Arwen cross and the Ringwraiths get clobered by a river of water horsies), Kelly got to ride her horsing along the banks (not sure if she's Frodo and Arwen or a Ringwraith).
We left Arrowtown by a very very windy, thin road that leveled out to a great viewing spot (hence the panaramic pics of the town), we continued on past the Bra fence (apparently women stop here, take off a bra and attach it to the fence, and it seems alot of women do thisk, we did not even stop I'm afraid). Next stop - Puzzling World in Wanaka.
This place is alot of fun. We explored the interier exhibits, 3D pictures, a room full of faces that follow you (creaped me out so I did a quick circut and left), these faces by the way are of some really sweet people like Mother T, Einstein, etc, but still, these giant white (hollow but look 3D) faces following me, eek! There was the tilted room that gave me serious trouble to enter, I can't explain how wiered it made me feel, look oober motion sick-vertigo combo deal. I finally discovered I could trick my brain into letting me go in as long as walked looking at my feet (just don't look up again ahhh!). Again I was out of there pretty quickly. Then Kelly and I become hobbits through stage tricks.
Before tackeling the maze we had a quick pit stop to the toilet, usually not worth mentioning, except here boys and girls had seperate entries but ended up in the same room (see pic) very odd
We wandered around the maze and located all of our coloured corners (still not as fit and healthy as I would have liked at this point in our trip - 8 month mark of my CFS), so we cheated and ducked out the emergency excit rather than continue through to find our way back out, I wasn't the only one tired after that walk.
Unfortunatly I don't have a pic of this, but we pulled in to get petrol before leaving town and while the boys arranged petrol, myself and blushing Kelly, enjoyed the view - 6 young, very hot, buff boys in absolutaly nothing but Superman undies, filling up their car with petrol and kicking around a ball, it was very entertaining ;)
After several more hours of driving (there where many many many hours of driving in this trip), we arrived and Franz Joseph. We spent a nice night in a backpackers, Craig and I taking advantage of the spa which gave us a chance to meet a few other tourists. I was very keen for this day to end, because tomorrow we would be getting into a helicopter and flying up onto the glacier (= me being very excited because of the whole snow thing again and also because I had never been in a helicopter). It was fantastic! If you haven't had a helicopter flight before then I thoroughly recomend you do, it was the best fun, amazing views that you simply can't get any other way, I loved it! Seeing the glacier was realy mind blowing when you look at this giant (see if you can spot the other helicopters in the pics, then you can get an idea of what kind of scale I'm talking about here), giant frozen river. This glacier is moving at about 1 metre per year and that's really scary if you ask me. You lool at it and think its just this huge mountain of ice, stationary, but infact it is carving its way through the landscape every day - very cool.
The last exciting thing was finding a campervan painted with the Wild Rumpus (Where the Wild Things Are), Craig and I had planned on doing that same sort of thing to our van many many years ago when we took our little 3 month trip up the east coast of Australia, but it didn't end up fitting into the budget :(
One thing you will not about NZ is that there are some amazinly clear, fresh, cold, creeks, rivers and lakes running all over it. The only problem with this is that Craig decided that the feature of his trip to NZ was to swim in any and all of these bodies of water, no matter how cold or how much clothing he had on.
He found these wonderful bodies of water even off the main track (we stoped for a toilet brac and he wondered off into the forest and came back a little while later with his clothes in hand and him dripping wet, he had found a clear, shallow creek and decided to have a quick dip).
Ohh, did you see the pic of our amazing spaceship cloud?
Once we reached Queenstown we found some accommodation (at the "Melbourne Inn" we thought it was funny). We had a great dinner at a local pub in town, went to bed and by breakfast the following day we were in Arrowtown. I had eaten something for breakfast, but then decided I was still hungry so I went back inside and spied a yummy looking apple pie, I ordered, the lovely lass behind the counter asked if I would like a little bit of berry sauce with my pie, sounded lovely I said and a little while later she came out with the most decadent apple pie ever, and it was delicious!
We then wondered down to the Ford of Bruinen (where Frodo and Arwen cross and the Ringwraiths get clobered by a river of water horsies), Kelly got to ride her horsing along the banks (not sure if she's Frodo and Arwen or a Ringwraith).
We left Arrowtown by a very very windy, thin road that leveled out to a great viewing spot (hence the panaramic pics of the town), we continued on past the Bra fence (apparently women stop here, take off a bra and attach it to the fence, and it seems alot of women do thisk, we did not even stop I'm afraid). Next stop - Puzzling World in Wanaka.
This place is alot of fun. We explored the interier exhibits, 3D pictures, a room full of faces that follow you (creaped me out so I did a quick circut and left), these faces by the way are of some really sweet people like Mother T, Einstein, etc, but still, these giant white (hollow but look 3D) faces following me, eek! There was the tilted room that gave me serious trouble to enter, I can't explain how wiered it made me feel, look oober motion sick-vertigo combo deal. I finally discovered I could trick my brain into letting me go in as long as walked looking at my feet (just don't look up again ahhh!). Again I was out of there pretty quickly. Then Kelly and I become hobbits through stage tricks.
Before tackeling the maze we had a quick pit stop to the toilet, usually not worth mentioning, except here boys and girls had seperate entries but ended up in the same room (see pic) very odd
We wandered around the maze and located all of our coloured corners (still not as fit and healthy as I would have liked at this point in our trip - 8 month mark of my CFS), so we cheated and ducked out the emergency excit rather than continue through to find our way back out, I wasn't the only one tired after that walk.
Unfortunatly I don't have a pic of this, but we pulled in to get petrol before leaving town and while the boys arranged petrol, myself and blushing Kelly, enjoyed the view - 6 young, very hot, buff boys in absolutaly nothing but Superman undies, filling up their car with petrol and kicking around a ball, it was very entertaining ;)
After several more hours of driving (there where many many many hours of driving in this trip), we arrived and Franz Joseph. We spent a nice night in a backpackers, Craig and I taking advantage of the spa which gave us a chance to meet a few other tourists. I was very keen for this day to end, because tomorrow we would be getting into a helicopter and flying up onto the glacier (= me being very excited because of the whole snow thing again and also because I had never been in a helicopter). It was fantastic! If you haven't had a helicopter flight before then I thoroughly recomend you do, it was the best fun, amazing views that you simply can't get any other way, I loved it! Seeing the glacier was realy mind blowing when you look at this giant (see if you can spot the other helicopters in the pics, then you can get an idea of what kind of scale I'm talking about here), giant frozen river. This glacier is moving at about 1 metre per year and that's really scary if you ask me. You lool at it and think its just this huge mountain of ice, stationary, but infact it is carving its way through the landscape every day - very cool.
The last exciting thing was finding a campervan painted with the Wild Rumpus (Where the Wild Things Are), Craig and I had planned on doing that same sort of thing to our van many many years ago when we took our little 3 month trip up the east coast of Australia, but it didn't end up fitting into the budget :(
Te Anau, Glow Worms & Milford Sounds
After leaving behind Dunedin we arrived in Te Anau. This was one of those times that you randomly pic something not thinking it will have much effect on your life and then discover you have found something wonderful. This was Te Anau!
The pictures in my flickr site after the Otago Museum are of us swimming in this amazing clear, land locked, beautiful, cold lake that lies at the foot of some stunning mountains. We couldn't believe we had been so lucky as to get accommodation (so cheaply) in such an amazing location (next time we have to pic cabin 169 - it has the best view and location).
That night we went on a tour of the Glow Worm caves. It is cold, wet, and a little small (if Dr Krystal could do it, so could I!) This was a really lovely experience. I had expected the glow worms to be much much bigger, but they are the tinniest little things, the ceilings of the caves looked liked someone had just installed tiny blue LEDs at different brightnesses (the brighter the glow worm the hungrier it is). It was a very pretty and romantic trip and only a little bit scary. Now, because this is my journal thing I get to write whatever I like, so here I shall share with you one of my favorite poems:
I'd love to be a glow worm
A glow worm is never glum
It's hard to be downhearted
When the sun shines out your bum
We were not allowed to take any photos inside the glow worm caves as it disrupts things for them so I'm afraid I can't share any wonderful pics but you can visit the Real Journey's site (the people we took our tour with) and have a look there.
There are a series of pics we took the morning after we arrived, I'm pretty impressed with these pics (and even Craig finally decided to have a play with my camera for the first time ever so he could also capture some of this stunning morning). I had walked out of our cute triangle cabin to go down to the showers, as I reached the showers I stoped dead in my tracks, if the view of the lake the evening before was stunning, this was simply magical. I had Craig race back up to our room to get my camera and tripod and rushed down the the lake side to capture this spectacular image. I took a panaramic shot of the mountains and at some point I will connect all the pics together and print them out.
It was about this point that I also fell in love with ducks, so in the future you will see a quit a few duck pics (sorry about that but they were just too cute). Now I must also mention the last photo in Te Anau is of the Olive Grove, they serve a fantastic dinner and breakfast, very worth the visit.
After my morning photo session, we packed our bags and headed off to Milford Sounds. There is a great photo that we almost didn't get as the camera battery was basically dead and so the camera really didn't want to respond, but we did get it "great pic". For those who don't get it, there is a picture of a brown tourist sign pointing to "The Divide" and directly below that sign is a blue sign with an arrow pointing in the same direction with a picture of "woman|man" (we thought it was funny).
The passage into Milford sounds is along a windy road (where we got to see part of a car commercial being filmed by a low flying, sideways flying helicopter) and that white stuff in the pics - snow - actually snow in summer. There is a tunnel that you have to wait at to get through to the final pass into Milford and if I had have wanted to (which I did but everyone else didn't want to miss the 15min window when the lights change to let us through the pass), I could have gotten out of the car and gone on a short wonder off the road to touch and play with the snow (remember this is the middle of summer, and you have to excuse my excitment about such things as I had only touched snow once before in my life when I was about 11). Finally the lights changed and we were able to continue on to our destination.
Now, at this point my camera had no battery power (remember The Divide), so I was a little sad that I might not be able to take any photos of the Sounds, however, the nice people at the cafe allowed me to plug in my charger and we had enough to snap away happily, which is lucky for us as there are more photo's of Milford Sound then of anything else in our entire holiday I believe. This is partly because it was really amazing scenery and partly because Craig had adopted my camera and so we were both having fun taking photos for the entire trip.
Aside from giant mountains, waterfalls and seals, we also had a short stop over at the Underwater Observitory, unfortunatly the wonderful sunny weather we had been praising thus far also results in the algi blooms growing so the water was a little cloudy so we couldn't see very far out into the water, oh and the guy in the wetsuit outside - he really is the window washer!
We had a lovely, windy, lazy and wet (at least Bill who got soaked when the boat put its front end into a waterfall) splendid day. Ohh, that pump you see Craig hand pumping, he is actually, really and trully pumping petrol into our car. Only New Zealanders can get petrol in Milford Sound, the rest of us have to try our luck several ks down and off the main road and a very quant camping place compleate with H-bomb.
The pictures in my flickr site after the Otago Museum are of us swimming in this amazing clear, land locked, beautiful, cold lake that lies at the foot of some stunning mountains. We couldn't believe we had been so lucky as to get accommodation (so cheaply) in such an amazing location (next time we have to pic cabin 169 - it has the best view and location).
That night we went on a tour of the Glow Worm caves. It is cold, wet, and a little small (if Dr Krystal could do it, so could I!) This was a really lovely experience. I had expected the glow worms to be much much bigger, but they are the tinniest little things, the ceilings of the caves looked liked someone had just installed tiny blue LEDs at different brightnesses (the brighter the glow worm the hungrier it is). It was a very pretty and romantic trip and only a little bit scary. Now, because this is my journal thing I get to write whatever I like, so here I shall share with you one of my favorite poems:
I'd love to be a glow worm
A glow worm is never glum
It's hard to be downhearted
When the sun shines out your bum
We were not allowed to take any photos inside the glow worm caves as it disrupts things for them so I'm afraid I can't share any wonderful pics but you can visit the Real Journey's site (the people we took our tour with) and have a look there.
There are a series of pics we took the morning after we arrived, I'm pretty impressed with these pics (and even Craig finally decided to have a play with my camera for the first time ever so he could also capture some of this stunning morning). I had walked out of our cute triangle cabin to go down to the showers, as I reached the showers I stoped dead in my tracks, if the view of the lake the evening before was stunning, this was simply magical. I had Craig race back up to our room to get my camera and tripod and rushed down the the lake side to capture this spectacular image. I took a panaramic shot of the mountains and at some point I will connect all the pics together and print them out.
It was about this point that I also fell in love with ducks, so in the future you will see a quit a few duck pics (sorry about that but they were just too cute). Now I must also mention the last photo in Te Anau is of the Olive Grove, they serve a fantastic dinner and breakfast, very worth the visit.
After my morning photo session, we packed our bags and headed off to Milford Sounds. There is a great photo that we almost didn't get as the camera battery was basically dead and so the camera really didn't want to respond, but we did get it "great pic". For those who don't get it, there is a picture of a brown tourist sign pointing to "The Divide" and directly below that sign is a blue sign with an arrow pointing in the same direction with a picture of "woman|man" (we thought it was funny).
The passage into Milford sounds is along a windy road (where we got to see part of a car commercial being filmed by a low flying, sideways flying helicopter) and that white stuff in the pics - snow - actually snow in summer. There is a tunnel that you have to wait at to get through to the final pass into Milford and if I had have wanted to (which I did but everyone else didn't want to miss the 15min window when the lights change to let us through the pass), I could have gotten out of the car and gone on a short wonder off the road to touch and play with the snow (remember this is the middle of summer, and you have to excuse my excitment about such things as I had only touched snow once before in my life when I was about 11). Finally the lights changed and we were able to continue on to our destination.
Now, at this point my camera had no battery power (remember The Divide), so I was a little sad that I might not be able to take any photos of the Sounds, however, the nice people at the cafe allowed me to plug in my charger and we had enough to snap away happily, which is lucky for us as there are more photo's of Milford Sound then of anything else in our entire holiday I believe. This is partly because it was really amazing scenery and partly because Craig had adopted my camera and so we were both having fun taking photos for the entire trip.
Aside from giant mountains, waterfalls and seals, we also had a short stop over at the Underwater Observitory, unfortunatly the wonderful sunny weather we had been praising thus far also results in the algi blooms growing so the water was a little cloudy so we couldn't see very far out into the water, oh and the guy in the wetsuit outside - he really is the window washer!
We had a lovely, windy, lazy and wet (at least Bill who got soaked when the boat put its front end into a waterfall) splendid day. Ohh, that pump you see Craig hand pumping, he is actually, really and trully pumping petrol into our car. Only New Zealanders can get petrol in Milford Sound, the rest of us have to try our luck several ks down and off the main road and a very quant camping place compleate with H-bomb.
Our NZ holiday begins
(the above link is to my flickr site, you can follow along with the pics if you like)
We flew out of Melbourne on the 27th January. We had to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight left, I thought this was a bit excesive, check-in couldn't take that long could it? what was I going to do for the other 1.5hrs *sigh*. As it turned out, that two hours was just enought time to checkin, collect a few last minute things (like my motion sickness tablets and these really wonderful earplugs that regulate the air pressure, ahhhh wonderful things they really are), we then had a few minutes to sit down and relax, read our books and take a few pre-flight-I'm-so-excited-I'm-going-on-holidays photos.
We flew out of Melbourne on the 27th January. We had to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight left, I thought this was a bit excesive, check-in couldn't take that long could it? what was I going to do for the other 1.5hrs *sigh*. As it turned out, that two hours was just enought time to checkin, collect a few last minute things (like my motion sickness tablets and these really wonderful earplugs that regulate the air pressure, ahhhh wonderful things they really are), we then had a few minutes to sit down and relax, read our books and take a few pre-flight-I'm-so-excited-I'm-going-on-holidays photos.
I really was very excited, this was only my second time overseas, and even though it was just New Zealand I was still very very excited. Craig was a little more blazay about the whole thing as he'd been there before when he was little.
The flight was rather uneventful (thankfully), it was rather depressing to see just water under me window (yes I got posession of the precious window seat). But once we reached land, Craig and I really got excited about the whole affair, leaning over each other to see out the window, pointing out sites and landmarks (btb we were flying into Christchurch at this point). For someone who has never seen the coast of another country from the air (it was night when I arrived at New Caledonia in 1995), it was just amazing, I would never have believed a country so close to Australia could really look that much different, but even the layout of the farm lands was so very different, the pictures taken from out plan window don't capture the lovely colours of the patchwork ground but you can get an idea of the layout.
There where so many parts of the landscape that impressed me one of these was the river paths, I'm not sure if these rivers ever have more water then they did as we flew in, but from the air, they looked to me like veins of silver in the landscape, the photos really don't do justice to the colours unfortunatly but you can get an idea of what I saw. Another impressing sight was the connection between open sea to coast and followed by chocolate mountains, it was really really amazing to see.
This wonderful view of the South Island continued after we landed in Christchurch as we collected our baggage, checked into our domestic flight to Dunedin and continued our arial tour.
I can't say we were very impressed with Dunedin once we arrived. To us it seemed very dusty and uncaired for. Apparently most of the housing in Dunedin is rental properties to students who populate the town only during the middle part of the year and then it is abandoned for the summer. The owners of these houses don't bother to maintain them at all as the students will pay about $100pw just for a room (that's steep in my book). I found it really sad to see so many derilict looking buildings, Dunedin looked tired and depressed.
The reason we had started our trip in Dunedin was because we were meeting our frinds Bill & Kelly. Bill had been attending a Lynix conference here for the past week which was to finish up on Saturday, so until then Craig, Kelly and I amuzed ourselves.
We jumped on a double-decker buss in town and took a tour of Dunedin. We saw the world's steepest street (which Bill and Kelly had walked up the night before - they even have a certificate to prove it). We saw the historic train station (which is impressive but I think Albury's one is nicer, but I could be biased), and we learnt how Dunedin had reclaimed most of its land by cutting the tops off all the hills and tossing it into the water, and this was before tonka trucks people).
The next day we had a tour of the Otago museum, oddly though Kelly and I took lots of photos of the stunning tradional Japanes Clothing display rather then the things related to NZ (there were two photo's of the Moa bird, giant prehistoric bird, but I'm having a "I'm fat" issue at the moment and hated myself in those photos so they didn't make the cut, sorry people).
Craig and Bill left Kelly and I at the museum to collect our hier car. Poor boys thought it would be a short walk, ooops - a long time later - they returned with the car, and we really started our trip (with only 1 wrong turn and a bit of a detour in the oposite direction), tonight we would be in Te Anau.
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