Goodbye Oz

So long Australia - for now.....it's been great

Well that's the end of the line for us....only a wee 30 hour plane journey and we'll be back in Scotland (where apparently it's raining). We've had a great time and we are pretty sure we will return one day, and pick up where we left off......but for now

Gooooooodbyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeee!!

Cheers again to everyone, who kept in touch with us and to all the new friend we made on our travels....you all made a great experience all the more enjoyable

Love

The Blues xx
(no longer on tour)

Beni in Sydney

Beni at the opera house

Poor wee Beni.....all alone in Sydney. Why? He can't find Pee-sac or Jeni. Who knows where they are.....hopefully residing at the bottom of one of our rucksacks, but they could have eloped to the Sunshine Coast, since the last time they were seen was when they all went surfing on Maroochydore Beech (or even worse.....maybe a great white got them in the surf)

The old Steak and Kidney

Sydney at night

Us at the Sydney harbour bridge

So here we are....last stop in Sydney. Because it was our last stop, we decided to splash out and get a nice apartment for a few days, overlooking Darling Harbour......pretty much in central Sydney. We spent the last few days having a look around and trying to top up our tan, but I reckon the Sydney weather new we were heading soon and tried to acclimatise us, to Scottish weather, by raining for a few days. This meant that we had to stay dry which of course led us to a wee tour of the local boozers. The sun put his hat on, on the last day and on the whole it was pretty warm, so we can't complain really.

Our party is coming to an end!

Due to the lack of funds and no win on the Ozzy lotto, we are heading back to the UK on the 27th October.

We will spend next week in Sydney, so should have some more pictures to put on our blog before we head home.

It has been the best 8 months of our lives and dont regret one bit of it....and the next time we head off, we will make sure we budget properly (ha ha)

This tour is not over, just postponed for a while...

Love The Bluesxx

The great Tattie scone cook off

Stand aside citizen.....

this is a job for Tattie Scone Man !!!

After the drunken night before, we were all saying how we missed not having tattie scones to cure our hangover hungers (for those not in the know, a tattie scone, or potato scone, is a Scottish delicacy, made from potatoes, flour, water and a little salt), BUT you can't get them in Oz. IB let it slip that he had made them before......so that was it. The following day we set on our quest, checked the recipe thanks to Google (click here if you want to make your own), and headed to the shops.

A couple of hours later, we had a good 45 tattie scones, which soon became 40 (the workers have to eat you know), which we froze - although I don't know why cause Cathy and Gavin are going through them like there is no tomorrow!!

I think we can safely say they were a success

Back to Brissie

Brisbane

After a great time at the Sunshine Coast, we headed back to Brisbane to stay with Cathy, Gavin, Becca and David. Cathy, who we had never met, is the sister of our friend Brian, so it was going to be fun trying to find her at the station. She described herself as "shorter than Brian, with longer hair" - hmmm this could be tricky, but also said she was wearing a purple top...which made finding her much easier. She drove us to their home where they made us very welcome. On Saturday night we had a few drinks (of course) to celebrate our new friendship and danced the night away to Debo's mp3 player, which had an array of "hits" which Cathy hadn't heard in ages......great fun (but sore heads and legs in the morning)

Life's a Beach

Life on Maroochydore Beach....

It's all about catching some rays....


Or catching some waves!!!!

Havin a great time.....love Beni, Jeni and Pee-sac xx

Boat shed at Cotton Tree

Anthony, Becca, Debo and IB at the Boat shed

After 10 days of staying in their back garden (and using their facilities), we felt it was only right that we should give the Murrays their life back. To say thanks we treated them to lunch at the Boat Shed restaurant. It's in a great setting, right down on the beach and best of all it's only 1 minute from our new backpackers....not far for us to stagger home to. The food was amazing (possibly the best we've tasted....ever), and yes, there was more beer/wine involved.....it was such a nice day it would be a shame not too.

Thanks again Murrays for all your hospitality!!!

The Blues encounter more Mozzies

IB's leg......yes it is itchy!!

It was nice to have a break from our old pal the mosquito, when we were in New Zealand (it was too cold). Now we are in Oz, they are back with a vengeance, and their South American cousins must have let them know how good we taste....because they love us!!!

Hopefully our new repellent will help save us from this itching hell

Debo meets her first Huntsman

Harry the Huntsman

(who has been in the wars by the looks of things....only 7 legs)

After 2 great weeks of not seeing much scary wildlife around our camping trailer (which Becca and Anthony had set up in their back garden....cheers guys), we found this cheeky chappie, when we were packing it away. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and, according to the Murrays, a mere baby, but it was enough to give us a couple of shivers. To see what they can grow to click here

Debo didn't freak out though....and we can only put this down to all the other beasties we've seen over the last few months - well done her !!!

Australia Zoo

Croc feeding at Oz Zoo

Some koalas, hanging around

On the Thursday, we took Maya and Aleah (Murray kids), to Australia Zoo. For those of you who don't know, this is the zoo that was set up by Steve Irwin and his wife. It's layout is dedicated to the well being of it's animals and allows the public to get very close to the animals. At the croc show there was a memorial to Steve who made this all possible. We had a great day and saw many "locals" like crocs, emus, koalas, Tasmanian devils etc.

We spent about 6 hours there and were all knackered towards the end. Anthony and Becca came and picked us up and took us for a well deserved beer on the way home.

Arrived in Brisbane

Another beautiful day in Brissie

We know....we know.....we arrived in Brisbane over 2 weeks ago, but we've been having so much fun, we never got round to updating the blog until now.

We flew into Brisbane and it was actually raining on arrival. Stayed at a backpackers in the centre, which had it's own bar (trouble). Woke up the next day to beautiful sunshine and hangovers. Luckily the hostel also did brekkie (eventually.....it was Sunday morning), and after a feed (and a pint or two when the bar opened at 12), we felt OK again. Got in contact with the Murrays (who we met in Wanaka etc.) and headed out to their place.

Tried to sneak a few beers on the train (it was a 2 hour journey), but there was no loos on it, so decided this would not be such a good idea. Met up with the Murrays and were taken out to their house in Buderim, on the sunshine coast.

Hello Oz

Sorry for the delay....but we've just spent the last week in, with friends, just outside Brisbane.......yes more drinks. What can we say....these Australians are a hospitable bunch.

Will update the blog properly......soon (ish)

hic !

the Blues x

Goodbye NZ

Look closely at the sand

Cheers New Zealand....it's been great. Our favourite parts were around Nelson, Wanaka and Akaroa (in the South Island) and around Napier in the North Island.....although skydiving in Taupo was pretty unforgettable too.

In our last few days, we travelled up to the Bay of Plenty....which was nice and then onto the Coromandel peninsula (which is meant to be nice.....but it chucked it down for most of the time). We are now back to Auckland and will have to hand Darlene (the camper) back tomorrow.....she has served us well.

Cheers to all the excellent people we met on our travels in NZ, who have helped us out and/or we have had a lot of happy, fun times with.

As for the the NZ drivers, who hate campervans......tough luck, they are not going to go away!!!

lots of love
The Blues x

next........Oz

p.s. c'mon the Scots against the All Blacks

Heading North

Picton Harbour

We arrived back into the North Island on Saturday. The weather has been pretty hot, from Picton up to Napier (with slight hangovers, from having a wee drinking session with a Scottish guy we met in a bar in Picton). We did a bit of free camping just outside Napier and then went onto Gisbourne, at the top of Hawk Bay. The weather is OK at the moment, with the odd shower, but today we are heading up to the North coast.
Only a few days left in NZ and then onto Oz. We will try and update before we head off to Oz but the internet accesss can be a bit hit or miss in some parts of the north. Really looking forward to going to Oz and will be meeting up with some friends in Brissie. Yipppeeeeeeee...x

O grade craft and design

The Blues bird house

(that's the one on the pole....not the big one beside it)

We were asked to leave something, or make something for the house we were staying at.....This duck house is over 100 year old, so we decided to make a letter box, bird house - with the same "rustic" style. "O" Grade craft and design came in handy for this, but I hope there is no strong winds in the near future.

Thanks to xPx for helping us out and letting us stay. It was much appreciated.

Hope the birdies like their new house

Keeping the dream alive!

View down to Akaroa (in the far distance on the left)

The workers: Debo Helge and IB

We are currently out on the Banks peninsula, near Christchurch, and have managed to get a little bit of work. We are doing some garden labouring (i.e. removing garden rubbish, cutting down stingy nettles, planting trees etc.), and getting paid some sheckles. The woman we are working for, also lets us park Darlene her garden, so no camping charges either !!! It makes a nice change to work, and also nice for us to get some cash which all goes towards keeping our trip alive (and lets face it, our budget is well out the window, so every little helps).

We reckon we'll hang around here for a little bit longer and then start heading back up to North Island and Auckland. It is a beautiful part of the world around here though, so we are quite happy to hang around for a bit.

Party at Hamner Springs

cheers!!
(IB, Anna, Smiley, Debo, Becca [debo's partner in crime] and Anthony)

Anna and Smiley (more friends we met in Wanaka), asked if we all wanted to rent a house in Hamner Springs, before we all went our separate ways. Of course we all jumped at the chance.....a house, with a kitchen, a garden, double beds and a log fire OR stay in our wee camper .... no contest (although we still love you Darlene)

Yep....more booze - great day and night. In the morning, we all headed to Christchurch. The Murrays headed back to Oz, and Anna and Smiley showed us round the sights of Christchurch

Free camping at Ben More

View from our camp...not bad for free eh?

The following day we, and the Murrays (our freinds we met in Wanaka), decided to "free camp" in the wilderness (i.e. not at an official camp site). We found a nice spot, as you can see from above, lit a fire, drank lots of booze and had a great time. If you can find the spots and the weather is good.....it's well worth doing.

Note : the booze part was only to keep out the cold

Goodness gracious....Great balls of stone!!

These boulders are cracking !!

Jeni, Pee-sac and Beni clearly not that impressed with the stone baws

After Dunedin, (cheers again to Alison and Justin for letting us stay), we headed north to Moeraki to see the Moeraki Boulders. These are large rounded rocks were created many years ago and were trapped in the surrounding mudstone cliffs. Over the years the mudstone is eroded by the elements which deposits these spherical rocks onto the beach. Pretty weird

We enjoyed our visit, but it was spoiled by an extremely rude and grumpy guy who owned the restaurant at the entrance to the beach, who insits you pay $2 to go on a public beach ?!?........If you want to go, we suggest you go via the Dept. of Conservation entrance (which is free).

It's safe to say, we had words with him!!

When you're feeling a p p p peckish

Some yellow eyed penguins come ashore

a seal playing in the surf

....p p p pick up a penguin (sorry for anyone reading this outside the UK.....penguins are chocolate biscuits).

On Saturday Alison and Justin, took us out to Sandfly Bay on the Otago peninsula. It was a wee bit of a twisty drive to the place (which made Debo feel a bit sick), but we got to this beach, covered with sand dunes. There was a few people on the beach and also a seal diving about the water. We went along to the hide at the far end of the beach, and waited. There were a few up on the hill, but the penguins are meant to come back to the beach at dusk, so we waited .... and waited....and waited.

Eventually we decided that we weren't going to see any more, and decided to walk back. As we walked along the beach, these 3 cheeky chappies swam ashore and waddled to their nests.

That made the trip worthwhile.....ace

(Didn't see any chocolate biscuits though)

Queenstown

A bungee jumper over the Kawarau river

Queenstown, with The Remarkables in the background

After Wanaka, we continued on down to Queenstown (considered NZ extreme sports capital). We had heard there was a few avalanches in The Remarkables mountain range, before we arrived, but luckily never saw any!!

We stayed for a couple of nights and met up with the lovely Murray family from the Sunshine Coast in OZ again. We all went to watch the bungee jumpers at it was great fun. One guy had a kilt on and it was good to see that he was a true scotsman....enough said. Queenstown has so much to offer and you could easily spend several days there doing all the adventure sports, but you will need a big bank balance.

Puzzling World

Debo in the "spooky faces" room

Debo in the optical illusion room....weird
(click on the image to see it better)

On the way out of Wanaka is Puzzling World (see http://www.puzzlingworld.co.nz/ for more info), which is a collection of mazes, puzzles and optical illusions. We got lost in the maze for about 1/2 an hour and then took some photos in the other rooms. There was one room which is on a slant and made us feel sick (sorry no photos.....couldn't stay in there too long), another room where all these heads followed you around and another room that you looked small at one end, then huge at the other.... called the Ames room....weird but if your out Wanaka way, it's worth a visit.

Wanaka and the conquering of Mount Roy

The climb begins

Debo, with Wanaka in the background

Spectacular views over to Mt. Aspiring and surrounding mountains

Damn you summit.....stop getting further away!!!

Debo has a well earned rest near the top

The snow gets deeper

Hurray....the summit

(we got there, just as the cloud came down to spoil the view)

After a couple of days of rain, in Wanaka (we didn't really mind since the campsite had a nice wood burner, a free spa/sauna and we met lots of nice people), we thought we'd better go out and get some excercise. We saw there was a good trek up Mount Roy (1585m), so decided to give it a go.

Holey Moley !!! after a good 4 hours slog, we eventually got to the summit, for the clouds to come down and spoil the view. The snow was pretty deep at the top, but luckily most of it had frozen, which made walk (slightly) easier, but we still managed to sink in a few times. On the way down the cloud lifted and we got some amazing views. A helicopter also flew past us and landed at the top, let it's passengers out to take photos, then went on it's way.....CHEATS!!!

It took us another 2 hours to come down and at the bottom, we hobbled to the van (all our muscles were aching). When we got back to the campsite, we made good use of that free spa.

The next couple of days, we could hardly walk!!!!

More huge bits of ice

Beni, Pee-sac and Jeni at the Fox Glacier

Dangerous places, these glacial valleys

(luckily we didn't fall in, with the avalanches and tidal waves)

After Greymouth, we made our way down to the glacial areas, about halfway down the west coast of south island. The weather had taken a turn and it was very wet. We reckon we missed some great scenery, because of all the low cloud.....but hey, it's winter here, so I guess it can't be sunny all the time. We took a visit to see the glaciers....which were very impressive, but not as good as Patagonia (sorry NZ). After we had been to the Fox Glacier, the rain came back on (in buckets) so we decided to press on, further South, to Wanaka

Westport to Greymouth

Seal colony at Westport

(there are seals at the bottom....honest...you have to look carefully though)

Pancake rocks at Punakaiki

again.....it's a hard life !!!

After Nelson, we started to travel down the west coast of South Island. Our first stop was Westport and when we arrived it was chucking it down. Next day it cleared up though and we took a walk out to the seal colony. We met this (hyper) kiwi guy, who was running (of course) along the track. He told us that the journey from Westport to Greymouth was voted one of the top 10 coastal routes in the world. He also told us some points to stop off at before he ran off (he said he was going to do a bike ride and then go surfing!!!!).

Off we drove, in wee Darlene, and the sun came out again. The scenery was amazing. Between the incredible surf of the Tasman sea and the road, which carves its way in and out of the steep cliffs. On our way, we passed The Pancake Rocks, which are a collection of limestone layered towers, caves, tunnels and blowholes slowly being eroded into the sea. When you look at them, they do (kind of) look like piles of pancakes.....hence the name.

After we got to Greymouth, we parked up at the campsite, and took advantage of the free spa.

Nice !

We will probably head down to the glacier region over the next couple of days, and then take it from there.

Kaiteriteri

Split apple rock

The Bay at Kaiteriteri

The view from our van...we could get used to this !!

We travelled up the coast a bit, from Nelson (through some more vineyard country), to Kaiteriteri, which is on the edge of the Abel Tasman national park. Amazing beaches and luckily the weather was very nice. Our campsite was right on the beach, and because it's winter at the moment (although it's still pretty warm, by Scotland standards), it was nice and quite. We spent a couple of days around here because it was so nice, and did a couple of (small) treks, to explore the surrounding area.

We could definitely spent some more time here.....but we must press on

From North to South Island

Some dolphins showed up to greet us to South Island

We got the ferry on Tuesday from Wellington to Picton and then travelled on to Nelson. In Nelson we met up with Karen, a friend who used to stay in Glasgow. She introduced us to some of the local beers and also gave us a list of a few sights to see around the Nelson area.

Thanks Karen, and we're glad we didn't come last in the pub quiz

Beni, Jeni and Pee-sac in Welly

Beni, Jeni and Pee-sac at the Wellington Cable Car

(They were surprised to find one to their scale......)

From Napier to the "Big Welly"

Wellington city and harbour....view from Botanic Gardens

Old St Pauls Cathedral in Wellington

Side street in Napier

National Tobacco Company in Napier

After the excitement of Taupo, we headed east to Napier. It is a very nice town that is very much Art Deco, since the original town was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930's (hence the art deco theme) There are also a million vineyards around, but we did not go to see any of them. We are trying to watch our cash, which is disappearing very fast. We spent a few days there and on the beach there is a complex that you can swim and have a sauna, so we did that one day.

We are now in Wellington...we spent the whole of yesterday walking around looking for the "big welly" sculpture and could not find it.......it was in our book, so we knew it existed. The girls in the tourist info, said no and we said yes...anyway to cut a long story short, it does exist....only 90km away in a different part of NZ...fools...the weather was windy, wet and cold, so we had to take refuge in a nice wee pub.

Meeting up with friends that we originally met in Argentina and then again in La Paz, later today and are catching the ferry on Tuesday to the South Island. No plans as to what we are doing yet, other than meeting a girl from Glasgow, Karen, that IB knows on Tuesday for dinner...we will probably head down the west coast to Queenstown.

Sorry no pictures....there is not a lot to see when you are in the pub...going back into Welly tomorrow, so will try and get some then..