From New Zealand I say Kia Ora!

Since being on the move, it’s been difficult to get on here to update! So I’m afraid New Zealand is going into 2 giant posts.

On the 4th April I was lucky enough to be heading up to spend a week up in the Northland with family friends.

We had a cottage with this for a front garden! Fantastic.

From this week I have been completely sold on living in New Zealand. To put things into perspective, there are 4 million people living in New Zealand, while 4 million people live in London alone. There is just so much space here! So little development but so many hidden beauties like this natural harbour we found ..

Theres no doubt that New Zealand is for outdoorsy types. That is the beauty of the place! So much to explore that just seems so untouched since the beginning of time. The harbour also provided some good inlets for wakeboarding.

Before the europeans settled here, the indigenous New Zealanders (Maoris) had a set of beliefs about the land. It should not be used for resources, built on, and left in it’s natural state – hence why theres heaps of national parks here! Think England, but a fraction of the people, 10 times more wildlife, and a far more dramatic scenery.

One morning the wind was funnelling into the beach up in Taupo, however after pumping up the 12 it decided to go BANG! What bad timing ey! That was the end of my kiting in New Zealand :( up here was the only place you didnt need a full on wetsuit .. snow was waiting for us down south!

With kiting off the agenda I was keen to explore some more of the Northland, so jumped in a car and headed north. I have never seen such stunning beaches in my life! What’s more, there wasn’t a soul on them!

I was SO gutted I wouldn’t be kiting until Fiji, but hey.. that’s how it goes! The primary reason of travelling was to explore and experience new things, and if kiting wasn’t going to happen then it wasn’t the end of the world.

 After an incredible week up in the Northland, it was time to head South. Having previously decided we were terrible backpackers, having never stayed in a hostel OR taken public transport, we took the Naked Bus over to Rotorua, down to Taupo and Wellington. Naked Bus was the cheapest form of transport to get there, so we weren’t complaining!

Very quickly after a couple of bus runs, this form of transport definately wasn’t for me. They sting you for carrying an extra bag of gear onto the bus, it was so much slower and unreliable! Not to mention the couple of breakdowns on the highway!

rotorua - the geothermal lakeside village. Stank a treat!

Lake Taupo - before heading down to Hot Springs for a bathe

Huka Falls - powering 1/3 of New Zealand's electricity

Time in the North Island gave us an insight into the Maori culture that is integrated into society, which I think is awesome! They would re-tell Maori legends, show off their art, teach tourists their language and generally share their beliefs with us. I am normally so anti – history as it’s so damn boring to know about the past, but these people had me intrigued! English society is  all about who has what money from what source, whether it be new money or old. There is so much more to where you live, what school you went to, what car you drive .. people at home really need to look outside the box of materialism! 

We’re in Wellington now at the bottom of North Island, ready to take the ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton tomorrow morning! Can’t wait to see the South Island, everyone has done nothing but talk in awe about it.

A bit scared of the cold though! We have snow waiting for us!

x

And good god is it cold here! I’m definately not used to throwing the layers on!

The last 10 days have just flown by, cramming in as much as poss:

1) A flying visit through Sydney. The harbour bridge, the opera house, swimming at bondi beach, strolling through Darling Harbour and the rest of the CBD – not an awful lot to report to be honest apart from we’ve done another city! Cities just don’t do it for me. They’re all good to visit for a bit, but I’m just always looking forward to getting back to the coast.

Obligatory photo with the harbour bridge and opera house …

Enjoying a picnic by the water surrounded by fine dining restaurants. Who needs a fancy restaurant when you can enjoy a much better view from the jetty of the harbour??

Enjoying a little free fireworks display in Darling Harbour.

2) After looking at how far we had to go until Melbourne and the amount of days left, we decided to mish it through the middle of NSW and Victoria along the highway. A 12 hour drive was far from exciting, but as it was us driving it, we obviously had to have one last drama before we gave the van back in Melbourne. After stopping for petrol at this random station literally in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway, our door decides to jam open. Again. Looking at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, all we could do was just laugh. So we located a garage, secured our stuff in the back, banged on the hazard lights and off we went.

3) The Great Ocean Road – a road heading along the south coast of Victoria to the West of Melbourne. We did the drive over 2 days, after hearing alot of hype about the scenery you find along the way. It was so so worth it!

We came across these chappies quite unexpectedly.

the 12 apostles = 12 random stacks, stumps and arches dotted along the shoreline at sunset.

another dude we drover under. Random fact of the day: Koalas move so slowly and spend hours sitting still because they’ve spent their entire day getting high off eucalyptus leaves.

The arch named ‘London Bridge’.

The colour of the ocean was so so nice, the urge to jump in it got the better of us. The Southern Ocean reminded me alot of home – that initial chill you get, then the burning sensation all over your body, then sheer numbness!

So so, Australia is done. New Zealand starts in a couple of days. I can’t believe we’re leaving! This place feels so normal these days! Even though we have been on the move every single day, it feels so normal to be living out a car and a bag.

However, after hearing all the hype about the big NZ I am SO excited to go! The next report will be from the North Island somewhere, sometime soon!

seeeee ya Australia.x

If I would live anywhere on the East coast, it would be here.

After a hectic day in Brisbane trying to sort our lives out in the way of real exciting stuff like tax returns, and fixing our broken fridge in the van, we hit Byron about 11pm. As soon as we park up, the first persdon we see is a dude on his bike with an african drum under his arm, dreads down to his knees and a rasta hat on! It would be very rude not to go take a peek at the town. Everyone is just soo friendly and welcoming. We made about 4 friends just from wealking up and down the street!

After months and months of rain rain rain in Queensland ( this summer was the wettest summer in 100 years! typical!) it was so nice to have the sun out. The sun makes such a difference to a place and your perspective of it . For example, we woke up one morning to find ourselves slowly becoming submerged in a river..!

… We didn’t want wet clothes in the camper as they were never going to dry in the van, so the morning was spend running round in anoraks and boardies. An hour later, we were sunning it on the beach!

Byron Bay is the most easterly point of the Australian mainland, so we decided to take a stroll up to the lighthouse to look over the bay.

Always go look round the point to see what’s there. You never know what’s round the corner until you take a sneaky peek! The beach was totally deserted as opposed to Byron which is packed with surfers, longboarders, bodyboarders, SUP’pers and all of that.

After a perfect day exploring the bay, we headed out to the infamous ‘cheeky monkeys’ bar, resulting in a fantastic night! I highly recommend any backpackers finding themselves here to have at least one night there. Who needs a dancefloor when you have masses of tables??

Another thing we didn’t realise was now we were in New South Wales, the time had changed! We had spent 3 days working on completely the wrong time. This country is so big some states have daylight saving, some do not .. some have half an hour differences, some an hour differences .. how confusing!

Consequently, I now work on 3 times of day. Sunrise, sunset and and when I’m hungry.

We’re slowly making our way down to Sydney, should be arriving in 2 days or so!

Ciao for now :)

After our very smart move to sleep in, resulting in completely missing our tour yesterday .. we managed to get to it this time!

Fraser Island is off the south east Queensland coast and is a tourist hub sfor so many reasons. We decided to do a day tour over there to check the place out and see what all the fuss was about.

We bumped and bashed our way down these sand tracks to Lak Mckenzie which is basically a giant lake of rainwater. 

I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere as beautiful as this! Unfortunately it was slightly overcast when we were there, but the lake is surrounded by the whitest silky sands. The shallows are turquoise and then there’s a sudden drop where the water becomes dark. I accidently took a gulp of water when i was exploring underwater, but it was the purest water I’ve ever tasted! I felt like I was swimming in a giant jug of water! Awesome.

 We reluctantly got back onto the coach to head to 75 mile beach on the other end of the island. We were lucky enough to see some wild dingoes on the beach, even if they are a bit aggressive!

They just look like cute dogs but infact they’re wild as anything.

Eli Creek was another good spot where we went on a mish upstream to see what we could find.

Apparently there was an Aboriginal community living in a small part of the island. It was mad to think that they were so close to us tourists, living an extremely different lifestyle! I would love to go get involved with a community like that and see how they live, but I’ve been told of the conflict between them and the European settlers here .. maybe I wouldn’t be too welcome!

That is still something I really want to do.. go immerse myself in some tribe on the other side of the world and live, sleep and breathe like them.

That’s another trip though!

It was a pity we only had a day there as it was so varied and remote! But hey we’re tight for time as it is.. back to Brissy tomorrow to sort our lives out for the day.. then we hit Byron Bay! woohoo!

After a massive drive down from Airlie beach, we hit Hervey Bay in the hope of hitting Fraser Island in the next couple of days! There were no trips going until the next day so we had a day to kill .. and the wind picked up! woohoo!

Very soon after I got out it dropped so couldn’t really do much but cruise about enjoying the sunshine!

It was a pretty cruisy kind of day but it was good to speak to a few locals and get a feel what this spots all about! The guys from Cardboards came down a bit later with all their new flexi stuff ( they’ve just started distributing flexifoil to aus) so that was cool to see what those guys do.

Luckily I got chatting to the owner of a local backpackers down the road, so we got treated to a hot shower that evening! Normally we use the cold public showers on the beach so that was such a treat. You appreciate the smallest things when you live out a van!! :)

 Fraser Island is all booked for tomorrow, hopefully the weather will hold out!