In the land Down Under

So I've been getting some subtle and not so subtle hints to update my blog more often. Sorry about that, but I do my best...

I've been in Australia for the past week, enjoying the sights and melting in the humidity. I am shocked to see how unfortunately and digustingly sweaty I get in this weather, and it's only been in the low to mid 20's since I've arrived. I simply cannot (I repeat, I cannot) fathom what 39C with 100% humidity feels like! I'm not sure I want to know, but I suspect I'll find out in the next few weeks when travelling up north into the tropical Top End of Australia. But enough about the weather for now.

I arrived in Sydney last Friday, and have been living the high life since then. I've been staying at my cousin Doug's & his wife Beth's place in Sydney, located right in the middle of things in Darling Harbour. Doug & Beth have been very welcoming, and I've been treated like a royal visitor. A personal tour guide, amazing home cooked meals, a room to myself, a nice reprieve from my current backpacking lifestyle!

My days in Sydney have been somewhat lazy, since I have been mostly enjoying the above. I did get the chance to visit the central business district, see the Opera House and walk for what seems like miles around various Sydney neighborhoods. The highlight of my sightseeing in Sydney was the BridgeClimb, where, as the name suggest, you climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge up to the very top (see picture below). It wasn't too difficult, even for little old me. The worse bit may have been my half-jog to get to the BridgeClimb in time for my 1:15PM climb, having misjudged the time it would take me to walk there and having lazed around all morning doing my laundry and talking on Skype. I was red-faced and sweaty even before starting the climb. Charming. :-)

I left Tuesday morning for a 2-day getaway to the Blue Mountains, where I had my first chance to partake in the very typical Australian pastime of bushwalking. Now for those of you who aren't very up on their Aussie lingo, the "bush" is a very general term used for what we Canucks would call "woods" or "forest". I didn't know this before getting here by the way, I thought the bush referred to the Outback. But no, those are 2 different and separate things...

My first bushwalk started on a cloudy afternoon, in walking distance from the hostel I was staying at in Katoomba (cool name, isn't it?). The scenery is gorgeous, and I was really enjoying myself, walking on a trail high on the cliff surrounding the most amazingly green canyon far below. I was quite thrilled that there I was, "bushwalking" in Australia, all the way across the world from my home. I enjoyed myself for a full 10 minutes, until it hit me. There I was, in the bush in Australia, land of the killer snakes and spiders. The country that has the most ways you can die an ugly death at the hands of reptiles and arachnids. I kind of froze for a minute there as I remembered this, but started moving again, slowly and with a little less enjoyment than I was having a few minutes before. I also remembered what Beth told me, that even though you hear all these scary things about Australia, you probably won't ever see any of the things that can kill you. But still, "probably" isn't all that reassuring when you're on your own in the bush.

I did manage to enjoy the rest of my walk, but I can't say that I saw much of the scenery as I was walking. I was too busy looking out for snakes and spiders. And I did see quite a few spiders, but they were smallish and I'm pretty sure they weren't of the killer variety. I didn't see snakes but I did see a small iguana/lizard/some kind of reptile.

The next day I had more bushwalking planned. There is this one walk that involves the "Giant Stairway", with 800 or so steps leading into the bottom of the canyon from high on the cliff above. This is where a few years ago Doug & Beth saw a girl puking near the top of the steps, after her climb up. Puking not being high on my list of things to do while in Australia, I decided to go down the steps and back up further along the trail in a 10$ gondola ride. Call me lazy if you want, but it was still quite the workout just going down the bloody steps. My legs certainly feel it today as a result of my walk yesterday.

I'm heading off to Melbourne this Sunday. I am doing it the "flashpacker" way, i.e. I am going to Melbourne on a 2-hour flight instead of taking the 12-hour overnight bus. For an extra 30$ AUD, I got myself a cheap flight and I am very happy about it. For those following on Google Earth, the rest of my time in Australia should be spent visiting Melbourne, going from Melbourne to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road, from Adelaide to Alice Springs via Coober Peddy, then an organized tour of Outback highlights (Uluru, Kings Canyon, the Olgas) from Alice Springs to Darwin, which should be my final destination in Australia. There are so many places to see and the country is so big that you really can't do it all in 5-6 weeks. You have to make choices, and those are mine, even if they involve some of the hottest places on earth at this time of the year. Anyone want to join me? :-)

My last week in New Zealand

OK, so I don't want to rub it in, really I don't. I know that it snowed this week in Montreal, and more snow is expected in the forecast, but the weather here in New Zealand has been seriously great these past few days! I've just spent the better part of today working on my farmer's tan and maybe a little bit of sunburn as well. It was 28C and not a white cloud to be seen. Pretty good for the end of November, hey?

I've continued to enjoy my time in New Zealand since the last post. I'd say the pace has definitely slowed down a lot from the first weeks of the Magic trip, when I was on the move to a new destination almost every day. I've had the chance to relax a bit more in a few places, and it's been great.

For those non-adventure lovers out there (there are bound to be a few!) , I did 2 excursions you might be interested in if you ever make your way to New Zealand. The first started from Dunedin, NZ's very-own Scottish town. The weather was not the best when I was there, and I had my coldest days since being in NZ (min 1C, max 8C. Brrrr!), which is saying a lot. I decided to do an "Animal safari", since it sounded good and was a nice way to spend my day in Dunedin instead of doing nothing but avoid the cold and wet weather. First off on the Animal safari was a stop to see some Royal Albatross, the largest sea birds around. Now if you're anything like me, you're thinking at this point: ooh, big deal, birds... I'm not into birds too much, so even if I did see a Royal Albatross, I could barely tell the difference between this and a normal "mouette", at least not from afar. But our guides were really excited that we got to see one, so I guess that means I'm lucky, right? Next up the guides brought us to a farm by the sea where we got to watch my new favorite animal (or bird?): the penguin. We walked through farmland to the beach to see the tiny little penguins return from a hard day at sea. Some of the older penguins are used to seeing humans, so they don't mind you so much, but the younger ones are a bit nervous. They would swim out of the sea, start waddling up the beach, then stop dead in their tracks. They'd look up at us to where we were standing still more than a 100 meters away and do a u-turn and head right back to the sea. Or stand very still and pretend to be invisible. Too cute! We were also brought to a shelter on a hill by the beach, where we could watch the penguins moving around without them seeing us. We saw some newly hatched penguins being protected by their parent, and other eggs just starting to hatch. Very cool!

The other non-adventurous activity I did took place in Lake Tekapo, this very small village that has a summer camp/cottage feel to it. Reminded me of the Laurentians. Anyway, the weather was so nice and a great change from the cold and wet weather of Dunedin, that I decided to stay 2 nights instead of just one. On my first night there, I did a star-gazing tour. Since I never get to see the stars even at home, being so close to all those lights emanating from Montreal, star-gazing is something I really wanted to do while in NZ. I was lucky enough to arrive in Lake Tekapo to great weather and cloudless skies. There is also an observatory up on a hill close by, so now was my chance to see the Southern sky at its best, plus get close-ups of the Moon and constellations via a huge telescope. The "tour" began at 11:30PM and lasted until close to 2AM. I got to see literally thousands of stars in a sky so bright and lit up that it looked fake. Brilliant!

Aside from that, I enjoyed spending a relaxing day sitting on the beach by Lake Tekapo, with nothing more pressing on my agenda then doing my washing and calling home. Since then, I have moved on to Christchurch, my last destination in New Zealand. I've spent a couple of days walking around and visiting, as well as thinking about my next destination: Australia. Even if I've enjoyed New Zealand tremendously and I think it was the best place to start my trip, I'm looking forward to moving on to a new country now. It's kind of like starting over on a new trip, but with a bit more "backpacking" experience under my belt. Not much, since NZ was so easy, but I don't have the same worries I did when I started my trip in October. I now know I can do this, and enjoy every challenge along the way. It has now been more than a month since I've stopped work, and I must say I am in no rush to get back. I have plenty of other things to do, places to see, people to meet, new "favorites" to discover...

Cruising in the southland...

I had already decided earlier on during my trip that I would treat myself to an overnight trip to either Milford or Doubtful Sound when I was in the South Island. A day-trip to Milford Sound, part of NZ's famous "fiordland", is almost mandatory for any visitor to New Zealand, but I had met a few people who had mentioned that the day trips are really long days and there is a lot of sitting on a bus involved. If you can afford an extra 100$ or so, you can do an overnight cruise and that breaks up the long bus ride and gives you an extra special place to sleep that night! Since I'm not spending thousands on bungies and etc..., I decided to go for it. I also had to choose between Milford & Doubtful Sounds, both beautiful fiords but each with their own "cachet". I chose the lesser travelled Doubtful Sound, simply because it is usually more expensive than Milford Sound but was on special the day I booked it. By a "poule de luxe" standard, if it was more expensive, it had to be better, right? Sorry, I'm not really that shallow. It's really the cute guy at the hostel reception desk that convinced me to go the Doubtful instead of Milford ;-)

So bright and early Monday morning I was off to catch a coach (bus, for us Canadians) for the first part of my journey to Doubtful Sound. The bus brings you as far as it can, then you hop on a boat to cross a lake (Lake Manganui) and take another bus that finally brings you to your final destination, a 70-passenger boat waiting for you on Doubtful Sound.

I had heard somewhere that "fiordland" is the wettest place in NZ, and thought that it rained there something like 350 days out of every 365. It turns out I was misinformed, it only rains about 200 days a year, but it does get the most rainfall in all of NZ. Everywhere else measures rainfall in millimeters, but there they measure it in meters. Seriously. Some parts get more than 6 meters of rain a year! All this to say that I was really expecting it to be rainy, and I was not disappointed. The ship's crew make a really big effort to make sure the passengers don't let the weather influence their experience. The fact that is was raining hard is actually a bonus, as you get to see dozens of "temporary" waterfalls falling from the cliffs. One of these waterfalls is actually higher than Victoria Falls in Africa, but it doesn't "count" as it is temporary. Meaning when the rain stops, so does the waterfall... Actually, I'll have to look that up. The guides on coaches and boats can basically tell you anything and you'll believe it. I must learn a bit more skepticism. (side note: my first "Magic" coach driver told us to look out the window at the new breed of animal they are raising in NZ. A sort of sheep, but with a long neck like a giraffe. it's called the "shiraffe". I actually believed it for maybe 10 seconds until I saw some lamas grazing in a field. I called the bus driver on it later that night in the bar, and he just laughed and told me they make up stuff all the time...)

Back to the cruise: It was a beautiful trip, in an almost mystical looking place. Because it is so remote and in a protected 3million square km park, you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere and are the only people there. With all the mist and rain and waterfalls, there is an eerie mystical feeling to the place. It's not to be missed if you ever decide to visit NZ!

The ship was nice, my shared cabin the smallest room I have ever slept in. It's no bigger than a train sleeping car, with 4 bunk beds. I met 2 Scottish girls and 2 Kiwi guys and spent most of my time with them. On the trip back to Queenstown, the sun poked out of the clouds, but not for long. It has been raining off and on since then, so I've attended to the mundane tasks of laundry, shopping and Blog instead of freezing my butt outside in cold wet weather! (another side note: really, if you ever decide to come to NZ, make sure you pack a jacket or fleece or something more than a cotton hoodie!)

And one last thing, thanks to my sister Johanne for reminding me to update my profile with my new age. That was really nice of you ;-)

Birthday blast-off!

First of all, thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes, emails and videos. It was good to feel so close to all of you on what could have been a tough day far from home... Thanks again!

My "New Zealand" birthday started off bright and early to the sounds of helicopters buzzing in the sky. A good sign for my own helicopter trip planned for 10AM! But then a glance out the window got me worried, as it was very cloudy and visibility seemed low. And even if some companies take their helicopters out for tours and heli-hikes, it didn't necessarily mean that my company would...

I left for the helicopter place at 9:30, just to be sure I wouldn't be late. The village is so small, it literally takes 5 minutes to get from one end to the other. So I left my hostel at 9:30 and was at the helicopter place at 9:32, only to be told that all flights were cancelled for this morning and I was rescheduled for 2 PM. I wasn't exactly pleased about this, even though only fickle Mother Nature was to blame. This meant I had to be back at the helicopter place at 1:30PM, which also meant I didn't have much time for walking around the glacier as I had planned. The next bus available for the actual glacier area was in 1 hour, and I would only have 2 hours there before I had to get back on the next bus. Oh well. What can you do.

So after killing 1 hour waiting for the bus and honestly feeling a bit sorry for myself, (yeah, poor little me, I know) off I went to the glacier. It was really something special to see and I thoroughly enjoyed the walk through the rain forest to get to the glacier itself. Kind of weird thinking of glaciers and rain forests in the same context, but there you go, that's NZ for you. The glacier itself is impressive, with spots of blue ice visible even from the ground. And for once I wasn't the slowest walker on the planet, as I made it to the glacier and back in plenty of time to do another walk, that brought you to a lake with a reflection of the glacier in the water. Spectacular, but you'll have to take my word for it, since I only had a disposable camera with me. Forget trying to buy a digital camera in Franz Josef, they only sell disposable cameras at the gas station and one tourist shop. Still, the view of the lake and the glacier was excellent.

I then rushed back to the village and kept my fingers crossed that my scenic flight would happen. The day was clearing up, but not that fast and there were still lots of clouds around. I was at the office at 1PM and was told that no flights had left yet, but to come back in 30 minutes. At this point, I'm already resigned to the fact that I won't be going but that at least I got to see the glacier up close and I enjoyed it. So, back to the office at 1:30 after a 30-minute, 90 cent call home, only to be told to wait again. 1:35, 1:40, 1:45, ... and finally, at 2 PM I was told it was a go! Woo hoo! Off I went accompanied by 3 Americans (1 older couple and 1 guy my age) across the street to the helipad. We were briefed on what to do and not do around the helicopter (i.e. don't raise your arms around the back of the helicopter like that Dr. did on ER) and settled into the helicopter. I was sitting up front, right next to the gorgeous helicopter pilot (something about pilots and firemen. It must be in their job descriptions...) and off we went!!! It was amazing, not scary at all. It just kind of floats up, up and away! The clouds were still heavy around the base of the glacier, but we quickly got above them and saw the glacier up close. You could see the crevasses and blue ice really well. The helicopter flew around both the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, as then brought us close to Mt Cook, NZ highest mountain. The scenery was unbelievable and the 40-minute helicopter ride worth every penny! We even got to land on one of the glaciers and kick around in the snow. I have to admit the snow part was not too impressive coming from a Quebecois who dislikes winter, but the landing on a glacier part was worth it! I took 20 or so pictures with my disposable camera. I have no clue how they'll come out, but I'll sure remember my *gasp* 37th birthday for a long while!

My birthday then got even better since I spoke to all my sisters at once after my flight. I think I was still giddy from the experience, so I doubt I was really coherent... I was told to make sure I checked my email today, so off I went to the Internet cafe, funnily enough located inside an old red bus. My family had had a dinner party the previous weekend since my parents are off to Florida for the winter, and they had all taped little messages for me and posted them on YouTube. They even sang me Happy birthday and had a birthday cake for me as well! It was great, and I didn't shed more than 2 tears, so that was good to.

That's it for today! I am now in Queenstown, a.k.a. Adventure capital of the world. It's a beautiful place, but I was kind of at a loss today as to what to do when you're not into bungy, white-water rafting, sky-diving, jet boating, ... I ended up going shopping in a local shopping area to get myself a better deal on a digital camera than in all the tourist shops in Queenstown. I think I got an excellent deal for NZ. The camera I bought here is exactly the same price as I found on FutureShop, and a girl I met in my hostel dorm has the same one and paid more than 100$ extra in Australia for hers. So not bad.

For those following me on Google Earth, I'm off tomorrow on an overnight cruise to Doubtful Sound. Hasta luego!

A rainy day update

So, I've only been gone 3 weeks and already I'm slacking off in the blog department. Sorry about that... My days are usually pretty filled and although I do have time to check my emails, I haven't really had that much time to update the blog. But it's poring rain right now in Franz Josef and I've just bought a 2-hour Internet card, so here I go!

The past week has continued to be very busy and beautiful. I really have been lucky in the weather department, with little rain and when it has, it didn't really matter. I've also continued to be a wuss, spending a couple of hours last Friday watching people do bungy. In this case, I actually take back the wuss thing and just say that I've been really smart. Throwing yourself off a bridge with a rubber band tied around your ankle just seems silly to me :-) But watching other people do it sure is entertaining!

After Taupo, a nice little village somewhere in the middle of the North Island, the bus headed for Wellington. It was a long day's drive with lots of stops here and there. One stop will be interesting to Lord of the Ring fans: the drive goes through a desert road where you get this amazing view of 3 mountains, one of which being Mt. Doom in the Lord of The Rings movies. It was really cool, even though I have to admit to not being a real fan of the movies (blasphemy here in NZ). I hope to post a few nice pictures of it soon.

Speaking of The Lord of the Rings, guess what movie is played in almost every single hostel TV room here in NZ? You guessed it, LOTR. I guess people like to watch it again after seeing the locations "in real life".

A had a short stay in Wellington, only 2 nights - 1 day, as I was in a rush to get to the South Island. Wellington was OK, basically another big city but with a nice seaside location. In really lives up to its nickname of "Windy Wellington", or at least it did for the time I was there. Visited another museum (probably my last in NZ, since they are not my favorite places), walked around the city, took the Cable car up to the Botanical Gardens and walked back to the city center. I also caved in and went to my first movie of my trip. It had been at least 3 weeks after all since I'd been to the movies! I saw "Atonement", a British movie that may have played at home a few months back, but I'm not sure. All the other movies playing were at least 2-3 months behind what we get at home, so I'm assuming this was the same. It was a good movie, or at least a good way to spend 2 hours out of the wind and resting my feet!

I was up and early on Monday to take the ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island. The ferry was huge, has a movie theater among other things to keep people quiet during the 2.5 hour journey. I was really surprised that the crossing is actually from west to east and not north to south as you would assume. It seems that Wellington on the North Island is actually lower south than Picton, the ferry terminal on the South Island. Who knew!

Next stop was Nelson, another very quaint village. I checked out the town for a couple of hours and got ready for the next day's "Seal safari". Nelson is close to Abel Tasman national park, an amazing area with lots of secluded bays, beaches and a really famous tramping (i.e. walking) path. I'd booked myself a "Seal safari", which was basically a combination of bus to get you to Abel Tasman, a boat to cruise along a few bays and visit the seal colony and a 1.5 hour walk back to a bay to finally be picked up by a water taxi to do the trip in reverse. It was a gorgeous day, with a beautiful blue sky, but still pretty damn cold. I had 4 layers up top and spent most of the day with all of them on. The only time I took my hoodie off was after huffing and puffing my way uphill for a while. But the kicker was the visit to the seal "colony". The boat stops for 5 minutes across from an island where I counted 5 seals. Supposedly they are all off somewhere busy mating or something. I saw another 3 more swimming in the sea, so grand total for the "Seal Safari" was 8! Still, I had a really good time. I walked back with 2 other girls, and even though I huffed and puffed uphill, it was a relatively easy walk. At the very end of the trail, we had to choose between the low tide trail and the high tide trail. When in doubt, you would think that we'd have chosen the high tide trail, but no, we went with the other obvious choice of following the group ahead of you and assuming they know what they are doing. Just as obviously, they didn't. We ended up having to roll up our pants, take our shoes and socks off to wade across a little stream or pond to get to the beach. Cold, but it was pretty funny, especially watching other more complainy type of people get all worried about getting their feet wet... Funnier still were the stories one of the girls shared with us about her time spent in Australia. Can't really repeat them here though ;-)

Next up was another looooong bus day to get from Nelson to Greymouth. The only claim to fame of Greymouth, besides being a mandatory overnight stop on the Magic bus, is the Monteiths brewery tour. For 25 NZD you get a tour of the brewery, a taste test of all 7 of their brews as well as an all-you-can-eat sausage diner with a free pint of your favorite brew. It's a good opportunity to meet more people (as if you don't meet enough already every day on the bus and sleeping in dorms all the time!). I spent awhile talking to a couple of American girls who had just come from India, Thailand and Australia. I left with a couple of notes on what to do and where to go, and I am already looking forward to the next destinations!

So it's still going really well, if a little rushed sometimes. I'm looking forward to sleeping somewhere more than 2 nights in a row. Like I said, I've been meeting a lot of people, mostly from the hostels and the bus. Have I mentioned though that it seems that mostly girls/women travel to NZ on their own? There have to be guys/men somewhere, but they certainly aren't on the Magic bus or in the hostels I've stayed in. On most days, our bus is filled with lets say 20 girls and 1 guy travelling with his girlfriend. And most of those 20 girls are English or Irish. Bizarre...

Off to do some camera shopping as mine bit the dust a couple of days ago. I hope to find one today since tomorrow is (hopefully) my helicopter tour of NZ's 2 glaciers and highest mountain! It's my birthday gift to myself! I say hopefully, because it is weather dependant. So please send good weather vibes down to NZ for me tomorrow!