All my bags are pack, i'm ready to go...I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again!
Almost 15 months to the day, it is time to leave this amazing country and head back to the UK. Fear not though as the blog will continue. Although under a new name and in a new place.
Looking back over the last 15 months it is hard to sum it all up, but I have had the time of my life here, it's been unreal. I have met some fantastic people and made some fantastic friends, and I am truly gutted to be leaving them all, but trips to the UK are already planned for some of them so I am sure I will be seeing them soon. And I do promise to come back to Australia one day soon, and do everything that I have not got round too on this trip. A highlight of the last 15 months would have to be swimming in the great barrier reef or my trip to New Zealand, both were fantastic. There are so many more things I wanted to do but just haven't had the chance too, but I will be back.
I part of me actually does feel ready to go now, there will always be many reasons to stay, but if you do, you will never know what could have happened if you had left! This is kinda how I am now looking at going to London, if I had stayed in Australia for another 2-3 years, or longer, I probably would have never moved to London, but this has given me that opportunity, and it's time to try it out. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, and that what's for you, won't go by you!
I am not going to put many pics up in this post, just the one pretty one of the bridge. I will create a video montage over the next couple of weeks and will put it up on here as my final post for Australia.
I will miss Australia, and all my friends in it, old and new! I can't wait to come back here and I can't wait to see you all again.
The last week here in sydney has been a bit full on with moving out the flat, staying with friends, leaving dinners and drinks, so I have not had the chance to post on here. This is going to be a bit of a hurried post, as I do have a flight to catch this afternoon.
Last weekend was spent moving out the flat in bondi. I moved in with Sabrina and Nick for a 6 days, they stay in Leichhardt, so it was a bit of a challenge moving my bags from Bondi on public transport, but we got there in the end. They were great to live with and sabrina made us an awesome dinner on my first night there. The next day I went back to Bondi for the day, did a bit of cleaning in the flat and then handed the keys over to the new tenants. I can't say I was sad to be leaving that flat, but I will miss living in bondi, the social life, the beach and the local eye candy make it an awesome place to live. And I also went a year there without having to appear on an episode of Bondi Rescue.
My last week was spent seeing people and just generally getting organised for going home. I also went out for brazilian BBQ with chris and Greig, where we all nearly killed ourselves by eating too much meat, they just keep coming to your table with more meet, and I am talking every kind of meet you can imagine. It was amazing though.
I also had a final trip to Manly to see my cousin Rachel. We went for some food to help her recover from her hangover, and then headed to her place of work so I could try out a couple of the fancy beers they have there. I then enjoyed one of Sydneys best sunsets on the ferry ride home.
Friday was mainly spend recovering from the meat hangover I was suffering from the night before and then I met up with Jo, and we went to see Stephen K Amos in the Sydney comedy festival. He was great, one of the best stand ups I have seen, he is a lot cruder than he appears on TV, and was great at interacting with the crowd.
On saturday I said goodbye and thank you to Sabrina and Nick and moved in with chris and lisa. Then on saturday night, I had my leaving drinks at the Opera bar. I was truly touched by the amount of people that turned up, and have to say it was a fantastic night. The Karaoke at the end of the night being the highlight.
Then on sunday, recovery was definetly needed and Chris and I headed out for a late breakfast and then took a walk down the coast to watch the surfers. We then decided to go to bowls, I have never played lawn bowls before, but it was really good fun. Back home I know bowls is seen as a bit of a fuddy duddy sport for old people, but in Australia it is more of a trendy game to play. It was very relaxed and there was live music playing while we were playing bowls in the sun with a beer. It was a great way to relax on a sunday afternoon. My last day here was spend saying the final goodbyes and getting the final things ready to come home. Not too exciting but nice none the less.
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, originally commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australia & New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during WW1. It now more broadly commemorates all those who served and died in military operations for their countries.
And too commemorate this day, there are early morning services followed by parades in the different cities around the country. Then, doing what aussies do best, they get blindingly drunk, whilst playing 2-up. Which is basically just heads or tails but with 2 coins. There is literally thousands of people playing in every pub, and you just bet with people around you. Usually, $5, $10 or $20 is the bet, but some people go higher. I came out of the day $5 up - not much but I will take it.
So I met with a few friends and we went to The Australian pub, in the rocks, one of sydneys most famous pubs. We hung out there for the drinking and playing 2-up. It was a grand day, the sun was out and the patter was great, we even got treated to a pipes and drums band walking intot he pub and playing. We got the pub at 11:30 and it was already jumping and it just got busier and busier as the day went on, this was a picture of one part of it when I arrived:
There is also a traditional Aussie rules game which is played every year between traditional AFL rivals Collingwood and Essendon at the MCG.
This annual blockbuster is often considered the biggest match of the
AFL season outside of the finals, sometimes drawing bigger crowds than
all but the Grand Final. This year Collingwood won by just a single point, 80 - 79.
Over the next few months I am sure we will see plenty of adverts just like this, but this one isn't a bad start and is sure to bring a tear to the eye of a few:
So I only have 15 days left in Australia, I am sure I will be back one day, but for the moment I have 15 days left to enjoy Sydney and all that Australia has to offer.
Problem is, I don't have any cash left to go travelling, I blew all that on New Zealand and my trip through Melbourne, Cairns & Port Douglas, which is fine as I had an awesome time! So I will be remaining in Sydney for the next 2 weeks. The problem is, I have done more or less everything that Sydney has to offer, and I am not really keen on doing much else. So the next couple of weeks may be quiet, spent catching up with and saying cheerio to friends. Leaving drinks are organised for the 5th of May, and there one or two other events booked in before that too. So it should be a fun couple of weeks.
The weekend passed fairly quietly, a few glasses of wine on saturday night with Jezza & Gemma, ended up with me falling asleep on the sofa half way through a film, (no surprises there then). The Descent Part 2, isn't too exciting. Yesterday was a day full of sport, I watched the Sydney Swans tale on North Melbourne in the AFL first, with a fine victory for the swans, then the Man utd game and the GP, followed by listening to killie beat the hibs 1-0. So not a terribly exciting weekend, but a nice one all the same.
Anyway, better be off as I have a posh english bloke coming to view the flat shortly. Times in Sydney are starting to get a bit dull. Maybe it's time to cause some trouble!
So as I have mentioned in previous posts, I was unfortunately made redundant a couple of months ago. The company was making cuts and sadly I was one of them. I am not going into my feelings about it but I wasn't too happy, put it that way. It seems Australia is finally beginning to feel the effects of the recession.
So I have been working on finding a job but when I realised that there wasn't exactly a lot of work around and I had a time limit on finding a job because of my visa, I decided to do all the travelling you have probably been reading about. And since I got back things haven't changed much, so I have made the decision to return home, well maybe saying that I have made that decision is wrong, it's more been forced upon me. I don't want to leave Australia yet, but maybe it's meant to be, my visa only lasts for another 3 weeks.
So sadly that means that this blog is going to come to an end in the next couple of weeks. So I WILL endeavour to post something each day between now and my leaving date. It might be a load of crap but hopefully some days it will be good.
I am not 100% sure on my next destination, but it is likely to be London. So maybe a new blog will start or this one will carry on under a slightly different name, maybe 'A Thorne in the big smoke', not quite as catchy I suppose.
I am going home (the only reason I put this in is because I love the song and the film):
Cannae beat a bit of Local Hero! If you have never seen it you can watch the whole film in 8 parts on youtube.
So in theme with posting something interesting every day, last night I went to Sydney's new Museum of Contempory Art (it had a new wing added on). It was a load of bollocks! I actually liked the building more than anything, the art inside wasn't up to much at all. There was a special clock exhibition on, some of the clocks on the 3 tables they had in the exhibition were cool, but a load of them were awful, like cartoon clocks and potatoe clocks! All nonsense.
One thing I have missed over the past 15 months since I moved out here is going to see the mighty killie in action!
I remember before I left I said it would be bloody typical of us to win a cup when I moved to Australia, and one month ago, guess what happened!
Killie beat celtic to the win the league cup. A goal in the 85th minute sealed the win. I did get up at 2am to watch it and didn't get back to sleep at all afterwords, and I had an interview at 9am. It was well worth it though and even though I was on the other side of the world it is a day, or should I say night, that I will never forget. We have never won this trophy before, and it ruined Celtic's chances of the treble. And Neil Lennon (celtic manager) was made to choke on a killie pie in his bitter interview after the game. But this was one of the greatest performances I have seen by a killie team and one that will never be forgotten. When this happens to a club like Kilmarnock, it makes history and creates legends.
Incase you missed it, here are some highlights here
I can't wait to get back to games next season & hopefully see us lift another cup!
Heading south from Queenstown, the scenery was again awesome, however, it soon started to flatten out very quickly and turn into what New Zealand is famous for, sheep country. They were everywhere I have never seen so many sheep in my life! Well, maybe in Wales.
So, like I said in the previous post we had decided to head to Milford Sound that night in order to do some Kayaking the next morning (Wednesday). We had also booked a cave experience to see some gloworms at a cave near Te Anau, hence we had booked to stay in Te Anau on the Wednesday night. To get to Milford Sound, you need to head through Te Anau, it’s about a 4 hour drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound, with Te Anau at the halfway point. Once we got through Te Anau, we were about 25 minutes north and decided to stop as it was about 6pm and the sun was setting, as we were driving right along beside Lake Te Anau and a huge mountain. So we pulled over into a camping park and drove down a dirt road to the edge of the lake, and stopped in the forest. The sunset was immense, as you can see from the pictures, it was well worth pulling over for.
Our makeshift dinner, and whisky!
Our rescues campervan!
After a couple of hours of sitting on the pebble beach we got up to leave. Anna had been driving, but I was going to take over for the rest of the journey, as we got up to leave she reached into her pocket to find the key and, you’ve probably guessed it by now, it was missing! She had them in her pocket, but they must have fallen out in the pebbles somewhere. By this time it was 8pm and considering we were 20 miles from the nearest town and surrounded by a lake and mountains, it was incredibly dark. Luckily, Anna had a head torch, so we spent an hour looking and then asked a couple who were camping out near us for help, they had a couple of torches and offered to help us search. After an additional 2 hours of searching, and digging, we came up with nothing. It was late and we decided to give up for the night. We had no phone service, and the torches were dying, it was too far to walk to anywhere, so we decided we would have to sleep in the car overnight and get back to Te Anau in the morning. It would mean missing the kayaking the next morning, but we hoped we could put it back to the following day. The couple camping offered us a ride back to Te Anau in the morning and supplied us with a blanket and a spare sleeping bag that they had. Luckily, we also had some food in the car and more importantly, half a bottle of whisky! We ate some left over cheese and salami with crackers then headed back out to the beach with the bottle of whisky. After an incredible uncomfortable night sleeping in the car, which luckily we had left unlocked, we were awake really early, and the camping couple gave us a lift back into Te Anau. Since we had a hostel booked in the town for that night we decided it would be easier to head straight there. Once we got phone service, the first thing we did was phone the kayaking company to inform them of our situation, but by that time we were already an hour late. They didn’t have much sympathy for us but did agree to move our time to the following afternoon. Although, the woman on the phone was incredibly rude about the whole situation and to be honest I almost went Malcolm Tucker on the bitch.
We dumped our stuff in our room and phoned the rental company and they just laughed at us, but did give us the number of the roadside repair branch of the company. Once Anna phoned them we got through to the most helpful person so far, John. He told us we could get a new key made if we had the make and model of the car and key (which we did), however, the nearest locksmiths was 200 kilometres away in Invercargil. Not ideal! However, John organised for them to be made and told us that they would be delivered by 3:30pm that afternoon and a courier would drop them off at the hostel. Since it was only 9:30am, we were pretty delighted by this, it would also give us time to go pick up the car before we did the cave tour. So I had decided I needed to chill out for a while and have a shower and some sleep. Come 3:30pm though, the keys had not arrived, and it was the same come 5:30pm. But we had to head out on the caves tour anyway, so we informed reception that we were waiting on keys being delivered and they should be arriving shortly, and headed off not knowing if or when we would get the keys, but we did know that the car would remain, unlocked, in the middle of nowhere for another night.
The caves tour was great, and totally took our minds of the situation. We boarded at the end of the main street in Te Anau onto the ferry that would take us directly to the caves. The ferry trip lasted about half an hour and we arrived at a small dock. After having a quick introductory talk we headed into the caves. I had to get down on my hands on knees to get in as the gap was that small, but once in, it was fine. The walk through the caves took about 20mins but then we got in a boat. There was a river running throughout the cave but at this point, it was big enough to get in a boat, but it was for something a bit special. We were in complete and total darkness, but above our heads the roof of the cave was blue. Lots of tiny little Glow worms in the ceiling were lighting up the cave. It’s hard to describe, so here is a picture:
On the way into the caves the guide told us to take a drink from the water as it would bring us good luck, since we needed all the luck we could get I made sure I took a huge handful. By the time we got back to the hostel reception was just closing, but they hadn’t received the keys, and by now it was too late to do anything about it that night. So we had some dinner and hit the hay. The next morning we got up and phoned our friend John first thing, he was perplexed as to why they weren’t there. So he got onto the courier company and was told that they would be with us at 11:30am. Maybe that water wasn’t bringing us much luck. Since we had to be in Milford Sound by 2pm and it was a 2 hour drive and we still had to pick up the car in the forest, we were cutting it close to put it mildly! But we decided to wait, hope and pray that the keys would be there by 11:30am. So we organised for a bus to take us up to where we had left the car, as there are no taxis in Te Anau, so our only option was to charter a bus. With the bus booked for 11:45pm, it would give us just enough time to make it up to the kayaking. However, the bus just had to arrive before the keys! At 11:40 the keys hadn’t arrived, but the bus had! We phoned the courier company and were told the driver was 10 minutes away, so the lady driving the bus said she didn’t mind waiting. Thankfully, the keys arrived 10 minutes later, and we jumped on the bus and we were away. I was stressing out about the fact we had left the car unlocked for the last 30 hours, but when we arrived at the car, thankfully, it was fine. And, thankfully the key worked, and we were off to Milford Sound for an afternoon of kayaking. Maybe that cave water brought us some luck afterall.
Milford Sound is a fjord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top travel destination in an international survey (the 2008 Travelers' Choice Destinations Awards by TripAdvisor) and is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Rudyard Kipling had previously called it the eigth wonder of the world. So all in all, not a bad place to go Kayaking!
We had booked to go with Rosco’s Milford Kayaks and they picked us up at the local lodge. We had our safety briefing and were given all of our equipment and then we jumped in the kayaks and off we went. Three and a half hours out in the ocean, you would actually think it was a lake but it is indeed ocean and we had a high chance of seeing seals, penguins and dolphins apparently. We were surrounded by huge waterfalls, steep cliff faces and huge mountains. The views were fantastic and kayaking relaxing, it was the perfect way to chill after a stressful couple of days. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any penguins or dolphins, but we were lucky enough to see some seals. For me, and I think Anna too, this was the highlight of the week, it was just incredible.
Lake Pukaki
We finally got back to Te Anau about 9pm that night and we were both fairly knackered, so headed to bed. We had to be back in Christchurch with the car by Saturday lunchtime and since it was a days drive we decided to leave Te Anau early on the Friday and hoped to fit a morning fishing in up near Christchurch in on the Saturday morning. It was a long day of driving on the Friday, but with some awesome mountains and lakes as blue as the sky, we arrived up near Timaru by mid afternoon, the home of my friend at Leith, Brie. However, as nice as it is, everything was completely closed as it was good Friday. So we decided to head north towards Christchurch, but when we got there we realised that we could go a bit further as it was only about 6pm. So after a look on the map we decided that Akaroa, about 80km west of Christchurch, should be our destination for the night. We had nowhere to stay, so as we were driving past a pub at the top of a mountain, about 20km outside of the town, we pulled in and went in for dinner. The waiter was great and phoned a couple of hostels in Akaroa for us, unfortunately though they were booked up. However, luck was on our side. The waiter told us about this wagon at a b&b on a farm we could stay at, and the owners were sitting at the bar. So after dinner we went over to them and they had availability, their farm was about a 10 minute drive away. Trixie the woman told us to follow her, so we did, down a dark country road to the middle of nowhere, at this point I thought we were about to enter our own horror movie. However, when we got there we were greeted by this:
It was amazing, and Bruce and Trixie were fantastic hosts and it only cost us $25 each for the night. So this is a bit of a plug for them, for $50 a night you can stay on their farm in this wagon or in their house with the B&B option. Check out their website here, www.puaha-valley-lodge.com If you are ever in this area I couldn’t recommend it highly enough, it was the best place we stayed at all week.
When we got up the next morning, we headed into Akaroa. We were in luck again(that water working its magic), as it was Easter Saturday the town was jumping with a market and a live auction going on. We had some breakfast and bought some fudge (Akaroa is famous for it apparently, and it was very nice), and by then, it was time to head to the airport. It brought the week to an end in a great way.
New Zealand is a fantastic place and is one of the best holidays I have ever been on. I can highly recommend it! It was a week full of extreme highs and some amazing moments. Even losing the keys added to the adventure of it all. I would go back in a shot and hopefully I will do someday soon.
It is likely it will be the last trip I make on this side of the world before I head home, and if it is, what a great trip it was, with a great travel companion and some interesting people along the way . I do need to thanks to the camping couple Thorston and, I think it was, Annabel for their help when we lost the keys, much appreciated. We would have been lost without them.
One other thing, I found out the translation to the haka whilst I was there, here it is):
Ka mate Ka mate (It is death It is death)
Ka ora Ka ora (It is life It is life)
Ka mate Ka mate (It is death It is death)
Ka ora Ka ora (It is life It is life)
Tenei Te Tangata Puhuruhuru (This is the hairy man )
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra (Who caused the sun to shine again for me )
Upane Upane (Up the ladder Up the ladder )
Upane Kaupane (Up to the top )
Whiti te ra (The sun shines!)
And because is fun, and Anna had never heard of it, here is the haka in full glory:
And this, because it is funny:
So, The Sun Shines. Doesn’t sound so tough or threatening now! I am sure Scotland will thump the All Blacks next time we meet! I wish.
In my last post I finished up by telling you I had met Anna, and she asked me to go to New Zealand with her and travel around the south island. That was 3 weeks ago on my last day in Port Douglas.I arrived back in Sydney the next day and booked my flights to Christchurch.Some people may think it’s a little crazy booking a weeks’ holiday with someone I had met the day before.However, we had got on very well and as I was now classing myself as a traveller, I was simply doing what travellers do!
Our plan was to hire a campervan in Christchurch and hopefully keep it for the week.Anna had gone through standbyrelocs.com, where you can hire a campervan for as little as $5 a day. This is how it works, if a hire company needs a van or car relocated from one city to the next they put it on this website and you can hire them and take them from A to B for them.It costs nothing, but there is a time limit on it and a kilometre allowance.Simple as that.So we had a van from Christchurch to Queenstown and we had 2 days to get it there.After that we hoped to pick up another van or a car for the rest of the week.
Closed of city centre
So with flights booked, I was due to arrive in Christchurch Saturday lunchtime.Anna wasn’t due in for another 11 hours, so I had time to kill in Christchurch and see the sights.I had booked into a hostel, or at least I thought I had, but when I got there I was told there was no booking and they were fully booked.Disaster! So after spending some time looking online for another hostel I booked into the YMCA!!! As it wasn’t too far, I decided to walk.It was only then that I began to realise how much Christchurch was still suffering from last years earthquake.On that 20 minute walk alone I saw lots of damaged buildings still fenced off, roads still closed and areas where buildings had been pulled down or were being rebuilt.Once I checked into the hostel, I decided to take the short walk into the city centre, where the whole area is still cordoned off and will be indefinitely, there are far too many buildings too unstable and most are due to be pulled down.This includes, hotels, offices, homes, bars, restaurants and the main shopping area. Thousands of business’s and jobs gone, the devastation is actually unbelievable.However, one awesome thing is how they have converted old shipping containers into shops.It’s very cool, with clothing shops, phone shops and cafes all in containers.Despite all this, Christchurch is a stunning place, there is a beautiful river running through it and some fantastic parks.I would fully recommend visiting if you can and help this city get back on its feet!
Shopping Containers made out of shipping containers
One of many buildings still being torn down
This old building is due to be destroyed
Since Anna didn’t get in until after midnight we stayed in different hostels and arranged to meet at the airport to pick up the van at 8am on the Sunday morning.We were hoping to get a comfortable van but we were shocked when we saw this, our home for the next two days:
A six person beauty!After watching our instructural DVD, we mapped out which route we wanted to take, based on how much time we had.We were both keen to travel the west coast and head towards to the glaciers, so that meant heading west directly across the country over Arthurs pass towards Hokitika. Generally about a 2 hour drive I think it took us about 4 due to stopping constantly to check out the views and scenery which just got better and better as the day went on.Then we got to one point where we stopped at this look out:
The road ahead
Kea's
However, whilst there, we were attacked by these guys, we later found out they are called Kea’s and are actually a bit of a pest.However, they are beautiful looking birds, and they did live up to their pest name, when all of them started attacking our van, and eating the paint off the roof and the rubber on the mud guards.
Once we hit the west coast we got as far down as Franz Josef, where the first glacier is.The sun was beginning to set and we had been on the road since 9:30am.So we decided to stop and get some dinner.Afterword’s, we found a campervan park round the corner where we parked up for the night and decided to head to the local hot springs.This was my first time in a hot springs and I will be back as soon as possible, it was a great way to relax after a long day on the road.That was until they closed, and instead of just telling us they were closing they decided to just turn all the lights off.Meaning we had to find our way out in complete darkness.A bit strange but they do things slightly differently in NZ, a whisky before bed and that was the end of day 2.
On the Arthurs pass road
Franz Josef Glacier
We awoke fairly early on the Monday, and took the short drive south towards the Glacier.We had been told of several walks we could do around the glacier, but we decided on one which would lead us right up to the glacier, we knew it would take a couple of hours but we also thought it would probably be well worth it.And we weren’t wrong!The walk was fantastic, scenic waterfalls and stunning views of the glacier.After stopping at Lake Matheson near Fox Glacier, for a picnic lunch on what is known as the lake of reflection, we headed towards a Salmon farm, although we did see a man running naked across the road in the middle of nowhere, which was a bit weird.
Waterfall at Franz Josef Glacier
Haast Beach Sunset
Now driving a 6 person campervan on these roads in NZ is amazing, most roads are only one lane but are incredibly well looked after, and it was great fun driving on cliff edges and mountain roads in the van, although slightly scary at times.We didn’t have a plan as to where to stay that night, we were just going to head as far as week could and see where we ended up.After catching a sunset at Haast beach we got back on the road and since the roads were high on a cliff and it was dark we decided to stop at the next place we found, Makarora.This place was tiny, literally just a campervan park, a few farms and, of course, a pub!So we stopped and had some dinner and decided to camp out for the night.We drank some whisky and watched the shooting stars above the mountain tops.I have never seen the sky as clear at night, even the milkyway was as clear as it could be.
Morning view at Makarora
Sunrise at Makarora
We had to be in Queenstown by 12 the next day, and it was a 2 hour drive from where we were, and the morning drive was great, taking us past Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, down towards Wanaka.We finally reached Queenstown just before 12.We then headed into the town centre to work out what to do next, as we no plan whatsoever.We wanted to get another van but there were no relocations available, not only that there were no vans at all.Which meant we had to get a car, after a few hours of planning where to go and what to do over the next couple of days we had a plan.We thought about staying in Queenstown, but had heard of a Kayaking adventure at Milford Sound.Now this isn’t far from Queenstown, but because of a massive mountain range you have to make a 4 hour drive around it.So we decided to book the Kayaking for the sunrise session the next morning and we would try and get there that night and stay in the lodge.We also booked a caves tour near Te Anau for the following evening after the Kayaking.Te Anau was exactly half way between Queenstown and Milford Sound, but once you got past Te Anau there was nothing else until you got to Milford Sound.So we booked a hostel in Te Anau for the next night, as we wouldn’t be back from the caves until late.So off we headed late in the afternoon looking forward to the next couple of days we had all planned out, only it wasn’t going to work out exactly how we planned, in fact it wasn’t even close.
