South Island

Hi y'all!

Saturday the 8th we left Sydney and flew into Christchurch. We got on a shuttle bus to Maui, where we picked up our campervan. After filling in a couple of forms and waiting for a bit, we drove to our first campground.

Our first full day in New Zealand, we had to wake up at 6am, because our shuttle to Mt Hutt would pick us up at 7.20am. Once we arrived at Mt Hutt, we got our ski passes, some clothes and ski equipment and walked to our first skiing class. I'd never skied before, so obviously I had to learn the basics first before getting on the slopes. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be and I think I did pretty well for a first time.

On Monday we started driving towards the west coast. We had a lunch break at Castle Hill, which looked like a setting in The Hobbit movies. After that we drove through Arthur's Pass to get to our campground in Hokitika.

Tuesday we decided to drive to Fox Glacier, we had to walk on a dry riverbed to get to the viewing point. It was really pretty and just imagining how big it used to be was pretty cool. On our way back to the camper, it started to rain, so we decided not to go the the Frans Jozef Glacier, but to go straight back to our campground. From where we walked to the other side of the road, to go see the Glow Worm Dell. That was really cool, it looked like a fairytale.

The next day we drove to Westport. On our way there we had a stop at the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. It was really cool, especially the blowholes. After we'd arrived at the campground, we drove to a seal colony about 15 minutes away. At first we could barely see any of them, but after looking at the rocks for a while, we started to spot more and more.

Thursday we had a long drive to the Golden Bay, where we would stay in Collingwood for a couple of nights. The next day we stayed at the campground to do some laundry and relax for a day, 'cause we'd been doing lots and lots of stuff during the past week.

Saturday we drove to Farewell Spit, where we did a walk along Golden Bay and the ocean on the west coast.

On Sunday we drove to Marahau, near the Abel Tasman Park. After we got a spot at the campground, we walked to the Abel Tasman Coast Track. We didn't do the entire track, 'cause that one takes three days to complete, but we did walk for a good two hours before starting to walk back to the campground.

Yesterday we drove to Picton, so we wouldn't have to wake up extremely early for our ferry the next day.

This morning we got on our ferry to Wellington and as I'm writing this, I can see the Northern Island.

I'll try to upload the pics as soon as possible. Just one more island to explore before heading back home...

Cheers!

Reunited in Sydney

Hi y'all!

Friday the day had finally arrived, dad and Falco would arrive in Sydney. Unfortunately their plane from Singapore had a really bad delay, so they didn't arrive until late that night..

The next day everyone slept in, but at noon I decided to wake them up, so we could still do something during our first day. I took them on a bit of highlight tour through Sydney, we started by walking to Town Hall, where we went into the Queen Victoria Building. After looking around for a bit, we walked back to Hyde Park, from where we went into the St Mary's Cathedral. Once we started walking towards Mrs Macquarie's Chair through the Royal Botanic Gardens, the sun started to set, which meant that the light show on the Opera House would almost start.

On Sunday we went to the Circular Quay, from where we walked to the Opera House, before getting on a ferry to Watsons Bay. Once we got up to the lookout point, Falco spotted a whale in the water. That was the first of many whales we'd see this week. We got on the bus and drove to Bondi Beach where we went to San Churro. Once we got back to Circular Quay, we decided to go up the Sydney Tower Eye, where we had an amazing view of the sunset.

Monday we went on the other half of our highlight tour. We started in Darling Harbour and from there, made our way up to the Harbour Bridge. Once we'd made our way across the bridge, we got on the train back to central station. From there we slowly walked back to our hotel.

Tuesday we went whale watching! The first two hours of our tour, not a lot happened, besides the tails or back sticking out of the water from time to time. But during the last 30 to 45 minutes they suddenly started jumping out of the water, which was amazing!

The next day we got on a ferry to Taronga Zoo, it's in the middle of the city and you've got a couple of amazing views. They had a couple of baby gorillas and a baby elephant. After the zoo we got on a ferry to Manly, where we had dinner with a view of the water.

On Thursday we rented a car, so we could drive up to Nelson Bay, where we did a kangaroo encounter on a golf course. We saw lots of kangaroos and a couple of joeys.

The next day we drove to the Blue Mountains, our first stop was Echo Point, where we had a look at the Three Sisters. After that we drove to the Katoomba Falls, from where we had an amazing view of the falls and the Three Sisters, bit without all the tourists. Our third and last stop was Govetts Leap Lookout, where we did a little hike to the waterfall. You could walk across the river that ended in the waterfall to another lookout point. After that hike, we drove back to Sydney, so we could pack our bags.

This morning we got picked up at the hotel at 4.40am. It didn't take us long to get to the airport, so now we're waiting to start boarding onto the aircraft.

I won't be uploading any pictures yet, because most of them are on my laptop, which I can't use at the moment. I'll try to upload them as soon as possible though.

Cheers!

Darwin to Alice Springs

Hi y'all!

The day I got to Darwin I decided to do the Darwin City Heritage Walk. It was a walk mostly along the coastline of Darwin and it was beautiful. At the end of the day I had to pack my bag for my first tour.

My 10 day tour from Darwin to Alice Springs, was separated into three different tours. One from Darwin to Kakadu and Litchfield National Park, back to Darwin. One from Darwin to Alice Springs and the last one went from Alice Springs to Uluru back to Alice.

Kakadu and Litchfield National Park

We started the tour by going on a croc cruise. This time we saw way more crocs then I did in the Daintree Forest, we saw around 20 crocs, a couple of big ones (saltwater crocs) and lots of small ones (freshwater crocs). After our cruise we drove into Kakadu National Park, where we went to the Ubirr Art Sites. There were a lot of amazing rock paintings and signs that there had been Aboriginals living in that area. On our way to our first campsite, we drove right past a bushfire, there were quite a lot of bushfires on our way to camp.

On Sunday we drove to Jim Jim Falls, it had just reopened a day before our tour started. During summer (rain season) the water gets so high the saltwater crocs can get in, so before they reopen it they have to make sure there are no more crocs in there. We had to do a bit of a hike to get to the waterfall. They view was beautiful, unfortunately, the water was freezing, but that didn't stop us from swimming to the waterfall. On our way to our new campsite we had a quick ice cream stop, where they sold homemade ice cream, I got the TimTam flavor.

Monday we started the day by going to the termite mounds in Litchfield National Park, they were massive! There was a field full of magnetic termite mounds, these termites build their mounds in the same line as the magnetic pole of the earth. Near this field there was a tree full of green ants, the thing with these ants is that you can actually lick their butts (or eat them) and it will taste like lime. So I decided to try it, 'cause how many times do you get the chance to lick an ants butt, right? It was a really funny feeling, basically the ant will try to poison you, by stinging the lime taste in this case on your tongue, but it doesn't poison us. The Aboriginals use these ants to get some flavor on their meats or fish, they'd put some ants inside and cook it. After all this, we went to the Tolmer Falls Lookout, it was beautiful, but unfortunately nobody is aloud to go swimming in there, because there are bats in the cave under the waterfall and while it was still open for swimming, the amount of bats started to drop, so they closed the falls. We went to two more waterfalls where we were aloud to go swimming, the Wangi Falls, which was beautiful and it had a little warm rock pool under the waterfall as well. The second one was the Florence Falls, that one was really pretty but quite busy, so instead of staying there for a really long time, we drove to the Buley Rockholes, these were little rock pools with small waterfalls in between. That was our last stop before heading back to Darwin.

Darwin to Alice Springs

We started the tour by going to Edith Falls, it was really beautiful and we could go for a swim. After swimming for a bit, we drove to Katherine Gorge. There were so many bats in the trees, it was crazy! They were all hanging on the same branches, so at some point one of the branches broke off and all of the bats started screaming and flying off. We walked all the way up the hill and tried to spot a croc in the river below us, but we couldn't find any. From this tour on, I only slept in swags, so the first night I was able to spot a shooting star.

On Wednesday we started the day by going to hot springs. It was shaped like a river and was so nice and warm. At some point we spotted a wallaby getting close to the water, it started eating grass and just sat there while we were swimming 1 meter away from it, it was perfect. We drove to camp and had a stop on the way at the oldest pub in the Northern Territory. Once we got to camp, there were two camels, two donkeys and two horses that we were able to feed. This night I saw five shooting stars before I went to sleep.

Our first stop on the last day was Tennant Creek, where we went to a small gallery with Aboriginal paintings in it. After that we drove to the Devils Marbles, which was really cool, they we huge! We had a stop at Wycliffe Well, which is the alien town of Australia. Apparently there have been abductions by aliens in this area and it's the only place where they've seen a lot of spaceships over the years. After our stop at the alien town we went to a mango farm to get some fresh ice cream, before we would arrive in Alice Springs.

Friday I had a day off in Alice Springs, I met a couple of others on the previous tours, who were on the 10 day trip as well. Lucky for us, the Beanie Festival started that day, so we got to check that out. It was a lot of fun, there were so many beanies! After the Beanie Festival, Mary and I went to look at some Aboriginal art at a gallery, it was really nice.

Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon

My last tour started really early in the morning. Our first stop was the most central point in Australia. After that we had to collect some firewood so we'd be able to make a fire at our campsite. After we dropped the firewood at the campsite, we drove to Uluru. Before we got there we stopped at the cultural centre, where we saw a film about how the Aboriginals lost their land and how they eventually got it back about 50 years ago. They also had a little art gallery where you could see some Aboriginal women painting new paintings, which was pretty cool. After about an hour we finally went to Uluru and it was really impressive! We did a walk around Uluru and saw some rock paintings and caves and freshwater holes that the Aboriginals used to use. Around 6o'clock we went to the sunset lookout, unfortunately there were a lot of clouds, so we didn't get to see much of the sunset.

The next morning we were supposed to go see the sunrise at Uluru, but it was still too cloudy, so we drove straight to Kata Tjuta, where we did the Valley of the Winds walk. It was beautiful (I took most of my pics with my camera though, so I won't be able to upload those).

Our last day we got up really early to do a sunrise walk on the Kings Canyon. It was really pretty. At the end of the walk, our tour guide showed us a bush plum that you can eat. If it's ripe, it's supposed to taste sweet, but the one I tried wasn't ripe yet so it was quite bitter. Our last stop before we got to Alice Springs, was at a rescue farm. They had lots of camels, which we got to ride, a couple of kangaroos and some emus.

Today I didn't do much besides getting my bags ready for my flight to Sydney tomorrow.

I had a great time! Don't forget to have a look at my new pics.

Cheers!

Cairns, Daintree Forest and Great Barrier Reef

Hi y'all!

My time in Cairns has mostly been relaxing and reading books. But the first two days I was here I did have some fun tours planned.

Wednesday I had a tour to the Great Barrier Reef, three people I'd met during my Fraser and Whitsundays trip were on the same Great Barrier Reef tour, so we mostly hung out together. While we were still on the boat, we spotted a turtle near the reef. The first spot where we went snorkeling, was really pretty, although I had hoped it would be more colorful. The reef that wasn't grey was mostly yellow, I did see some beautiful green and blue spots as well, but it was mostly yellow. I saw lots of different fish though, one if them was a parrot fish, it had lots of different colors and of course I also saw some Nemo fish. The second dive was not as beautiful as the first one, but we did see a huge stingray! Head to tail, it was the same size as me, it was huge!

The next day I had a tour to the Daintree forest. We started the day with Mosman Gorge, which was really pretty, there was a walk through the forest along the river, which was really peaceful. After this, we went on a crocodile cruise. We spotted about 8 crocs and we were able to get really close to one really big one. After the croc cruise, we had lunch on the beach in Cape Tribulation. We drove to the Marrja Boardwalk, where our guide showed us around and fed some of the fish in a river. After our boardwalk we went to a place with homemade ice cream, I got a green Daintree Forest Ice Cream. On our way back to Cairns, we drove to a lookout point, which was beautiful.

The next day I had one of my many relaxing days, I went shopping, I walked on the Esplanade and read a book. Om Saturday I was going for lunch with Aaron, Will and Sophie, since all of them would leave that weekend... After our late lunch, I had about an hour left before I was going to meet up with Lisa for dinner and the new Pirates movie. I'm not going to write a review of the movie on my blog, but if you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should.

The rest of the week I didn't do much besides walking around Cairns and reading books, I went out for dinner with Lisa again on Monday and we went to the Night Market as well, which was pretty nice.

This morning I went to Palm Cove, which was a beautiful beach, with lots of palm trees. After I arrived back in Cairns, I went to get some ice cream and went back to my hostel to get my bag ready for my flight to Darwin tomorrow.

I had a really great time in Cairns! Don't forget to have a look at my new pics.

Cheers!

Magnetic Island

Hi y'all!

Sunday morning my bus to Townsville left Airlie Beach. When we arrived in Townsville, my ferry to Magnetic Island was about to depart. Once I got to my hostel, I met two girls who were going to rent a "Barbie" car that afternoon and asked me if I wanted to join them. So we went to pick up our beautiful Barbie car and drove to a spot where they had a lot of rock wallabies. They were smaller then normal wallabies and extremely cute. After spending some time adoring the wallabies, we drove to The Forts walking track. There are a lot of wild koalas you can spot during this walk. Unfortunately, we started a bit too late, so we had to turn around halfway trough, since it was getting dark. The moment we decided to turn around we spotted our first koala in one of the trees.

The next day we still had the Barbie car available, so we drove to Horseshoe Bay, to a koala sanctuary. We got a small tour around and got to hold lots of different animals. I got to hold a red tailed black parrot, a bearded dragon, a blue tongued lizard, a baby crocodile, a koala and a snake. Afterwards, I decided to walk back to the hostel, there we a couple of walking tracks that would lead me back to Nelly Bay where my hostel was. Turns out, it was actually a really long walk, so 3,5 hours, a couple of blisters, some scary spider moments and lots of mosquito bites later, I arrived back at my hostel.

This morning it was already time for me to leave my hostel, I just got off the ferry back to Townsville and am now on my way to Cairns.

Despite all the mosquito bites and blisters, I did have an amazing time on Magnetic Island. Don't forget to have a look at my new pics.

Cheers!

Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays

Hi y'all!

So Wednesday morning I arrived in Airlie Beach. I had an entire day before my Whitsunday trip would start, so me and a couple of girls I had met during my Fraser Island trip decided to have a look around the city before we could check in at our hostel.

Thursday morning my Whitsunday trip finally started. It was quite windy, so when we got out of the harbour, the boat started to move to the sides a lot. Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach. The sand was super white, it was beautiful and when we were at the lookout you could see a group of stingrays in the clear water.

Friday we had an early start, we were going snorkeling at a bay nearby. Unfortunately, a lot of the reef had been destroyed during the cyclone, but there were still a couple of beautifully coloured parts. After lunch we had the option of snorkeling again, but since we'd been freezing the first time, me and a couple of others decided to stay on the boat and sit in the jacuzzi while the others were snorkeling.

Saturday was our last day of the tour and the day with the best weather. We went kayaking in the morning and we saw a couple of stingrays and two turtles and some dolphins. Around 3o'clock we arrived back in Airlie Beach, at the end of the day we had an after party at a cafe/bar with some people from our tour, which was really fun.

Next stop; Magnetic Island, I'm excited. Don't forget to have a look at my new pics (I didn't take a lot though).

Cheers!

Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island

Hi y'all!

On Thursday my bus to Rainbow Beach was going to depart. But before it would leave I had quite some time to kill, so I decided to go for a walk in the Noosa National Park. It was really pretty and at some point I saw a wallaby crossing the path.

Friday I had my first full day in Rainbow Beach, there isn't a lot to do besides going to the beach, which was totally fine by me;). I spend almost my entire day at the beach reading books. At 4.30pm I had a safety briefing for my Fraser Island tour the next day.

So Saturday, the day that I would go to Fraser Island, had finally come. We left the hostel around 8.30am to drive to the ferry. We started our first day on Fraser Island visiting lakes. The first one we visited was Lake Boomanjin, which was supposed to be a red lake, but unfortunately you couldn't see any of the redness. When we got to the second lake (Lake Birrabeen) it was time for lunch. After everyone had finished their wraps we drove to Lake McKenzie. This was definitely the most beautiful lake of the day. We ended the day on the campground K'gari, where we made dinner with our group and had marshmallows around the campfire.

Sunday we got to sleep in a little, not that I slept much at all but that's beside the point. The first place we drove to was Eli Creek. We got to slide down the creek in rubber rings, which was really relaxing. After a while we left to go to a shipwreck, which was really impressive. We went back to K'gari to have lunch before we drove to Indian Head. We walked up and were able to spot a group of manta rays in the ocean. The last place we visited this day were the Champagne Rock Pools. We had a great view when we were standing in the pools, the ocean was right next to it.

Our last day was pretty short, but we did see a lot of cool things. We started by driving to Lake Wabby, to get to the lake we had to walk a 2km walking track. Right before we got to the lake, we were standing in what seemed like a small desert. After lunch, we started to drive to the ferry and on the way there we spotted three wild dingos, which is like super rare since there are only about 100 dingos left on the entire island. When we'd just been on the ferry for about 5 minutes, we spotted a group of dolphins right next to the ferry.

Today I had to check out of my hostel, but since my bus wouldn't leave until 7pm, I had a horse ride on the beach planned at 1pm with Rainbow Beach Horse Rides. My horse was called Destiny and he was a sweetheart. We went to the beach and got to walk in the water with the horses. I even got to do some galloping as well, which was really cool, I've always wanted to do that:). They took a lot of pictures and put them on a USB, but I won't be able to upload them yet, since I don't have my laptop with me and I don't have any pics on my phone.

Next stop; Whitsunday Islands, I'm looking forward to it . Don't forget to have a look at my new pictures .

Cheers!

Australia Zoo, Moreton Island and Noosa

Hi y'all!

Thursday I finally arrived in Brisbane. The first two days I was there, I wanted to go sightseeing. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't that great. So I decided I would go sightseeing again on Monday.

Saturday I had a trip booked to the Australia Zoo. I got to spend the entire day in Steve Irwin's zoo. I had such an amazing time and I definitely want to go again sometime. I did two animal encounters while I was at the zoo, one with a koala and one with a baby wombat. First of I had the koala encounter, it was an amazing experience, I got to hold the koala (Annie) and her keeper told us a lot about wild koalas and how they live here at the zoo. They also have a lot of rescued koalas and Annie was one of them. Almost right after my koala encounter I got to go to baby wombat Wottle. I got to pet her and her keeper told me a lot about wombats and how they survive in the wild.

Once I had finished al my encounters I had a chance to walk around the zoo before the 12o'clock Wildelife Warriors Show would begin. It was a spectacular show, with lots of birds, a couple of snakes and of course a massive crocodile.

The next day I had to wake up really early because I was going on a day trip to Moreton Island. The ferry dropped us off at the beach, where our tour guides were waiting (two of them were Dutch ). We started the day by snorkeling around the shipwrecks that are just off the coast. After everyone was starting to get a bit cold we went back to the beach, where we took off our wetsuits and got right into our transparent kayaks. We went kayaking around the shipwreck and you could see all the fish beneath you, which was really cool . When we got back to the beach we had some lunch and got to lay in the sun for a bit before we were going sand boarding in "the desert".

Monday the sun was shining so I went into Brisbane to do some sightseeing, after a couple of hours I decided to go into the Wheel of Brisbane, from where I could see a really big part of the city.

Tuesday I had to check out of my hostel, my trip up to Cairns was finally going to start. At 2pm the bus to my first stop Noosa was finally going to leave. Around 4.30pm I arrived in Noosa, after checking in at the hostel and settling, I decided to go for a walk around Noosa to see where everything was. After I got back to the hostel, one of the girls in my room asked if someone wanted to go and have dinner together. Me, her and another roommate went for dinner in the main street, we had a lot of fun and stayed at the restaurant until they were about to close.

Today the three of us decided to go to the beach together. We first went to the shops to get some snacks for on the bus tomorrow. Once we were finished we went to the beach and we spent almost the entire day there.

I had an amazing time! Don't forget to have a look at my new pics

Cheers!