Off t New Zealand

With New Zealand being so close to Australia (only a 3 hour flight) there was no question in my mind that at some point, I would make the journey across the Tasman Sea.  And what better time to go than mid-Summer when the weather would be glorious.  So, at the beginning of February, I hopped on a flight from Melbourne to Auckland to begin my journey around the country.

I decided to buy a pass on the Magic Bus – a hop on, hop off bus that runs circuits of both islands.  It  was the most economical way I could find to see a great portion of the country in the limited amount of time that I had.  I was a little apprehensive at first, as I’d heard stories of party buses, unreliable connections, and general craziness, and after one initial hiccup (where the entire population of the bus had to stand up and introduce themselves, and explain what their problem was that morning – I hate having to do that) I was pleasantly surprised.

Our first notable stop on the journey was the Shire’s Rest Cafe – the jumping off point to tour the set of Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings movie.  You could eat Second Breakfast, and then jump on a tour of the set – which I did.  Sadly, that’s all I can say or show about that, due to the confidentiality agreement I had to sign, as the site will soon be used to film portions of The Hobbit. 

The New Zealand Countryside.

Sheep!!

Entrance to Hobbiton - and that's all I'm saying or showing.

Then it was off to Rotorua – quite possibly the smelliest town I’ve ever been in.  Due to the volcanic activity underneath the township, it’s a hotbed for geothermal activity.  Bubbling mud, geysers, and that distinctive sulphur smell abound.  It was still a beautiful place to spend two nights. 

Black Swans on the lake.

Then it was off to Waitomo, the jumping off place to explore the Glo-Worm caves.  It was a necessity that I visit the caves, and bring Glo along with me.  There’s something to be said for taking a picture of your glo-worm in the glo-worm caves!

The entrance to the caves.

Glo-Worm strings.

Glo

Can you find the glow worms?  The little blue lights are the glow worms.

Tasmania – Port Arthur (or Megan’s Day of History Geekdom)

OK – as anyone who knows me can attest, I’m a little bit of a history nerd.  I don’t know why, but I love history.  I loved Social Studies as a kid – learning about the history of different countries, examining behind the scenes to see how things worked.  I was that nerd in school.  So when I heard about Port Arthur, it was something that I had to do.

The City Lookout over Hobart

So, it was another early morning, as I waited for the van to come pick me up at 7:00am.  And we were off.  The first stop was in the town of Richmond, just outside of Hobart and home of the Oldest Bridge in Tasmania – built by convicts in 1823.  It’s a very picturesque little village, complete with the old Millers house, and the oldest Catholic church.  As a result of my ghost tour experience a couple of days before, I couldn’t help but wander through the cemetery to look at some of the old headstones.  Morbid, but I found it fascinating.

The Richmond Bridge

The original Mill Owner's home - still a private residence.

The Church.

Back on our way to Port Arthur, we stopped along the way to view some of the stunning ocean cliffs.  Pictures are always better than words.

And then we finally reached Port Arthur.  Port Arthur is the old convict settlement on Tasmania.  Essentially, it’s the collection of ruined buildings that remain – although some have been reconstructed and refurbished to give you the idea of what life was like for both the convicts and the officials who lived in the settlement.  It’s a little eerie to be quite honest, but quite interesting.  Also included was a harbour cruise so that you can see the Isle of the Dead – where they buried both convicts and officials – and the Boys prison island, because it wasn’t only adults who were transported.  All in all, it was an excellent day .

Tasmania - Wineglass Bay

In an attempt to get out of the city and into some nature, I joined a guided tour to the Freycinet National Park in order to see the iconic Wineglass Bay (which consistently ranks in the top 10 beaches).  The van came to pick me up at the ungodly early hour of 7:00am, we picked up the rest of the travellers, and were off. 

One thing that I really enjoy about these little day tours is that they stop off at places that I normally wouldn’t if I were driving myself.  And you get some local background information.  About an hour outside of Hobart, we stopped at a little roadside rest stop which had a great view of Maria Island.  In its previous life, Maria Island had been a convict settlement, and a cement plant (don’t ask me why they decided a concrete plant on an island is a good thing – particularly since there is no bridge), but now it’s a national park – and biologists and animal scientists are using the island to create separate colonies of healthy populations of animals.  Apparently the goal is to study these populations, and if diseases break out on the mainland, hopefully the animals on the island will be quarantined.  Sadly this plan came to fruition after the Tasmanian Devil populations have been decimated by a contagious cancer.

Maria Island in the distance.

A nice little look out over the countryside - yes those are grape vines.

Back in the van we all went, and onward we drove until we got to the National Park.  The sun finally came out, but let me tell you – I was glad that I’d bought a jacket in Melbourne, as the wind coming off the water was so cold.  Up the “mountain” we hiked, until we got to the lookout.  The view was absolutely stunning – I could see from a distance why the bay ranks in the top 10 consistently.  Time for some pictures, and then the clouds rolled in and the rain came down, ruining any plans to continue down for a swim.

The "mountain" we had to hike to get to the lookout.

Cool Rock formation.

Wineglass Bay.

Not to let a little rain ruin the rest of our trip, we continued on, doing a coastal walk to a special “secret” place that our guide knew about.  Up a hill, down a hill, climb over this rock, now over this rock – by the end of the hour long hike, I was thinking this better be a really good secret place.  Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a cave – one that was discovered by our guide when him and some buddies went “fishing” and were too intoxicated to drive home afterwards.  I don’t know how they found it, but it was a pretty neat experience.

Ocean Scenery on our Hike

Crawling into the cave

And back out again.

Afterwards, it was back into the Van to drive out to the final lookout.  If you squint your eyes, and use a lot of imagination – you can almost see Antarctica.  Almost.  Not really, but it’s nice to imagine.  No wonder it was so bloody cold.

Looking back towards Wineglass Bay.

There are seals on the rocks.

Squint.  Really Really hard.

Megan's Scary Scary Night in Hobart

As my sister Sarah can attest – I don’t do scary.  I don’t like scary movies, and I’m really not a fan of horror books (I read Pet Cemetery and it haunted me for weeks).  So it really didn’t make a lot of sense for me to sign up for the Battery Point Ghost tour in Hobart, but in my quest to step outside my box, I signed up – promising myself that I’d keep an open mind (and telling myself that if it got to scary, I could always leave).  And besides, it’s not like I really believe in ghosts.

I met my group in the evening down in the Salamanca Square at the Salamanca Bakery.  I had been a little pessimistic about the entire evening as it had poured rain for the entire day, but just as I was getting to the bakery, the clouds broke, and a rainbow lit up the sky.  I took it as a good sign.

Let me just say that it was probably one of the best tours I’ve ever been on.  It was a wonderful way to walk about a neighbourhood, and learn the history of the area – particularly the seedy history of an area.  From housemaids impregnated by clergy, to the poltergeist house, to the church tower where a convict was hidden by a cleaning girl, each site that we stopped at had multiple stories to be told.  I don’t want to say too much, because if anyone ever goes, I don’t want to ruin the experience. 

Does it look like the church tower is leaning?  Because it isn't.

It's apparently haunted by a poltergeist.

You'd never know it from looking at it, but apparently this used to be a whorehouse with quite a reputation.

Probably the most terrifying part of the evening was the entrance to the tunnels that run under the Princes Park.  These tunnels were dug when Hobart was settled, and used as the storage areas for the ammunition for the cannons used to protect Hobart from invasion.  Hanging out in a small dark area – not my most favourite thing to do, but it was incredibly interesting to hear about how the soldiers spent their time, and the resident ghost who likes to make his presence known to young girls.  Two of the girls on our tour say they felt something while in the tunnels.  Me, I kept taking pictures of the walls, trying to get some of the centuries old graffiti.

The entrance to the tunnels.

They tell me that the spots are "orbs" or spirit energy.  Hmmm.

While I had a great time on the tour, and I didn’t get that scared at all (basically because I was too interested in the history of the area and the stories that could be told), afterwards, on my walk back to the hostel, by myself, with nothing to distract my mind from what I’d heard, I started to get a little nervous.  And then, as I was making my way through my rambling centuries old hostel back to my room, I started to spook myself.  So maybe, just maybe, I do believe in ghosts after all?

The Blue Mountains

After heading back to Sydney with Erica and Stefania (a couple of Italian girls that we met in Adelaide) we decided to head up to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days of bushwalking.  After a two hour train ride from Sydney, we departed the train in Katoomba, our jumping off point.

After dropping our bags off at our hostel (as I’m now starting to resent every single item in my backpack), we headed down to the information centre to get some guidance on what walks we could do, and what sites we couldn’t miss.  Needless to say, the walks and sites are endless – which means I may have to make a return visit before I depart Australia because we couldn’t see it all.

The most photographed site in all of the Blue Mountains is the “Three Sisters”, a rock formation easily viewed from Echo Point.  The local legend is that the Three Sisters was created when a sorcerer turned three beautiful sisters into stone to protect them from the advances of three men.  Unfortunately the sorcerer died before he could reverse the spell, and there they rest.  Luckily it was sunny and clear, and I was able to get some decent pictures.

We did a quick walk in along the cliff face to the Katoomba Falls.  What was supposed to be an easy walk was turned quite challenging by the rain that had fallen the day before, turning parts of the path into a puddled, muddy mess.  Made even more challenging by the wearing of flip flops rather than actual walking shoes.  Lesson learned, and it was a good thing.

As an aside, that isn’t a smoky haze covering the mountain range.  The Blue Mountains are named the Blue Mountains because of the blue haze that is given off by the oils in the abundant eucalypt trees in the gorges.

The next day, we set out on our really long hike, consisting of the Prince Henry Cliff walk, to the waterfalls, then down from very narrow and treacherous steps (a lot of very narrow and treacherous steps), along the bottom of the cliff face for 4km through a temperate rain forest, complete with ferns bigger than me, and rocks turned completely green with moss and lichen, until we came to the Furber Stairs – 1000+ stairs of pure torture back up to the top.  Silly me – I didn’t charge my camera the night before, and as a result it died about 1/3 of the way through our voyage, so I’m going to have to go back and get some pictures – in particular of the leeches that live in the forest.  They’re particularly adept at climbing up shoes and latching onto the first piece of skin they can find.  Gross.