John (& Sarah's) journeys.

Enjoying the Shenandoah Valley with an old friend and some new ones!

john_hockley — Mon, 7 May 2012 01:09:00 GMT

Having experienced the dubious pleasures of the Greyhound bus, we were relieved to arrive in Charlottesville. With no idea of where to stay we headed to the cupcake shop opposite the Greyhound station where a very friendly cupcake girl with excellent local knowledge, directed us to the Redroof Inn in the centre of town.

After checking in we headed downtown and marvelled at the polar difference between some of the poor, and predominantly black, towns we had visited in the Deep South and the very affluent university town of Charlottesville. As we sat outside having dinner at a local student hangout, we could not help but notice the preppy uniform of the male students (every guy that went past was white, rich and was wearing beige chinos, navy sports jacket and a tie, despite being late teens or early twenties). The only black person we saw in Charlottesville was our taxi driver from Togo in West Africa. He was immensely friendly and was delighted when we guessed that Arsenal was his favourite football team!

At Charlottesville airport we picked up our next hire car. The guy at the desk offered us an upgrade and as soon as he said "Dodge", John was sold. We went outside expecting some slice of Americana but were greeted with a huge bus of a people carrier with as many gadgets as you can shake a stick at! Thankfully gas is cheap over here and the Dodge is really nice to drive.

We set off for Waynesboro in the Appalachian Mountains as we needed some camping supplies and John could remember a good outfitters there. Fully stocked up we stopped for an enormous fried shrimp lunch and headed into Shenandoah National Park. We drove up the Skyline Drive which almost follows the Appalachian Trail through the park. There are multiple overlooks and amazing views frequently along the road. We stopped at Loft Mountain Wayside and did a circular hike, taking in a couple of miles of the AT. It was pretty cold in Shenandoah and when we arrived at Big Meadows Visitor's Centre there was still snow from a huge snowfall they had had 4 days before. Recoiling from the snow, Sarah favoured a motel rather than camping that night so we stayed the night in Elkton just outside the Park.

The following day we were due to meet one of John's Virginian friends Sharkey at Skyland Resort in the late afternoon. Sharkey is hiking the AT again this year with his friend Suzy and hoping to do a "yo-yo" (hiking all the way from Georgia to Maine, then turning straight round and hiking back again!). We went back to Big Meadows to get some maps for our day of hiking and got chatting to a ranger who suggested an excellent hike and told us to be on the lookout for a bobcat which was hanging about by the road. After an excellent few hour hiking along a series of waterfalls we arrived back at the car and drove up to Skyland Resort.

On finding Sharkey's room we were greeted by a very bearded Virginian and much reminiscing began. We went to the bar for a few beers before having an excellent meal with wonderful views as the sun set over the Shenandoah Valley.

Somewhat surprisingly, Sharkey and Suzy were not keen to hike the next day so we all drove into Front Royal so they could resupply. We all booked into a cheap motel and spent the afternoon wandering around the town and enjoying a beer in the local saloon. That evening we went back to the same bar for a fine meal, a few drinks and some great conversation.

The next day we decided to help Sharkey and Suzy "slack-pack" (this is what thru-hikers call hiking without their rucksack, which is deposited at the end of their day's hike by any means possible! In this case our Dodge Grand Caravan did the job! After a leisurely breakfast, we dropped them next to the AT and drove 18 miles up the Skyline Drive. We headed off on a 10 miler through "prime bear country" (as advertised by the flyer we picked up in Elkwallow Wayside information centre. Having not yet glimpsed a bear, Sarah was both nervous and exciting by this almost guaranteed bear experience. 10 miles later, following a lovely hike, no bears had been seen. However, other wildlife included a snake that John nearly trod on, several deer and a tick that became both physically and emotionally attached to Sarah whilst she sat and ate her lunch. After feeling physically exhausted by our 10 mile jaunt, we found ourselves back at our rendevous point, almost as Sharkey and Suzy skipped in after 18 miles. We all tucked into some deep fried goodness and said goodbye to Sharkey and Suzy, who shouldered their packs and headed off to make camp in the woods. As we were driving back to the motel in Front Royal, Sarah noticed something large, black and furry by the side of the road. We screeched to a halt and sat watching a large black bear foraging for food in the fading evening light.

After a night in Front Royal, we headed a bit further north to Harper's Ferry in West Virginia. This is where Sarah had met John during his AT hike in 2008, and is the psychological half way point of the trail. It is also the site for many civil war battles and where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet before flowing down into Washington DC. It's a beautiful town with lots of historic buildings and a couple of nice restaurants. After grabbing some supplies, we left our car in the carpark of the AT headquarters and set off along the trail, crossing over into Maryland. A VERY steep climb rewarded us with wonderful views back up the Shenandoah Valley. After 7 or so miles we finally reached the Ed Garvey shelter and sat chatting for some other hikers for a while before pitching our tent and cooking dinner. A peaceful night, with no bear attacks.

Following a very leisurely start to our day's hiking, we headed back towards Harpers Ferry, aiming to reach there for our lunch. As the miles went by we started getting hungrier and hungrier, until we remembered the pulled pork sandwiches available at the BBQ shack in the centre of Harper's Ferry. At which point we started salivating like some of Pavlov's dogs and picked up the pace again. We marched our way back to Harper's Ferry and distracted ourselves by thinking up trail names for Sarah. John had retained his 2008 trail name of TEG (The English Guy) but Sarah was yet to be christened. A number of options were considered but 2 that can be shared on this blog are Tick-magnet and Slow-start!

On reaching Harpers Ferry...disaster! The BBQ shack was closed for renovations! So we made do with a regular cheeseburger and fries from a courtyard restaurant and sat enjoying them in the sunshine. In the afternoon we drove south again back to Elkwallow where we had spied a perfect campsite during our hike 2 days before. The light was fading fast so we grabbed our packs and headed off into the woods. A mile or so in, John stopped dead on the trail with Sarah nearly crashing into him. The reason for the emergency stop......a black bear ambling across the trail 30 yards ahead. We stopped and watched in awe as he checked us out and slowly resumed his foraging, not bothered by us at all. Eventually he disappeared into the woods and we carried on another mile to our spot under some pine trees where we made camp. Sarah was a little nervous having seen a bear so close to where we were camping, however it was a beautiful spot and a lovely moonlit night. As we were pitching the tent, two deer almost stumbled over us. We cooked up our dinner in the dark and enjoyed a very peaceful night with no bear visits.

The next day we hiked back to the car and drove further south to Loft Mountain. After another day's hike we camped up at the deserted campsite with deer watching our every move from the bushes. One was particularly perturbed to find us in what was obviously his feeding spot and made several attempts to scare us off by snorting and pawing the ground, before reluctantly retreating. We watched a truly beautiful sunset over the Shenandoah Valley that evening.

After hiking back to the car the next morning, we headed out of the Shenendoah National Park and drove to Sharkey's house, nestled at the foot of the Appalachians. Whilst Sharkey is hiking the Appalachian Trail (yet again!) his friend and colleague, Meagan, is house-sitting and looking after his online business. Sharkey had offered for us to stay at his place for a few nights, and had phoned Meagan to warn her that we were on our way! She could not have been more welcoming and our first evening was spent with her at the Blue Mountain Brewery up the road, enjoying some good ole Virginian ale. We spent the next few days at Sharkey's house chilling out, enjoying the hot-tub, looking out on the Appalachians and putting the world to rights with Meagan. One night was the Cinco de Mayo Mexican festival and Meagan and her friends from Charlottesville put on an amazing Mexican feast and we ate, chatted and drank beer into the small hours.

Sweet home (defiant) Alabama

john_hockley — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:28:00 GMT

We arrived in New Orleans after driving through some tree-lined avenues with beautiful old colonial houses. This was a pleasant surprise as in most of the American cities we've been through you can come across some pretty dodgy neighbourhoods! We were a bit dazed when we hit the centre......being in a big city after a few days of the rural Deep South was a bit of a shock....but we dumped the car and wandered down to the Mississippi where there was one of the huge, iconic paddlesteamers moored on the river bank, along with 3 navy frigates.

We had a typically Louisiana dinner of fried catfish, shrimp and creole rice sitting outside in the lovely heat and wandered through the French Quarter of the city. There was lots of jazz being played in the bars and restaurants and we stopped to listen to a bluegrass band playing on the street. We walked down Bourbon street.....which is pretty much as it would have been in the 1800s we imagine. As there were 3 navy ships in port the street was filled with sailors chatting to the "local ladies" (one of the ships was Royal Navy....disgraceful!), loud music and drunken people staggering out of the many bars! We had planned on staying in New Orleans for a couple of nights but we decided it was a bit big and noisy so we headed on out of the city that night and stopped in a small town over the border in Mississippi for the night.

The next day we crossed the border into Alabama and stopped at the visitors centre to pick up some information. We were greeted with this defiant state motto.....

To avoid the massive city of Birmingham, Alabama, we took a cross-country route and stopped in Talladega National Forest for the night. We camped by a beautiful lake and enjoyed the luminous acrobatics of the local fireflies once it got dark.

The next morning we set off for Northern Alabama and stopped at a local drive-thru for breakfast. We were clearly now in truly foreign territory as, not only were we the ethnic minority, but the accent had become so strong that we could not be understood and we could certainly not understand our Southern friends!

We continued through rural Alabama, heading towards the Unclaimed Baggage Centre. This phenomenon is a huge thrift store filled with unclaimed lost airline baggage from all over the US. Sarah had seen this mentioned in a travel book and had a bargain in her sights! The centre has been featured on a number of American TV programs and has grown exponentially over the years. Sarah treated herself to a $14 outfit of jeans and a top and John replaced his knackered sandals for 99c. It should be mentioned that we did not find the $10 laptop or other bargains that we had hoped for....but Sarah thoroughly enjoyed herself anyway!

Crossing yet another state border into Georgia, we made it to Chatsworth for the night. We parked up our Chevrolet Sonic amongst the pick-up trucks and headed to a restaurant entitled "Pork and Beans".....the clue is in the name and we had a fine dinner of southern cooking consisting of pork and beans (and a multitude of other things including fried chicken, sweetcorn, cornbread and coleslaw).

We were very close to Amicalola Falls State Park and, based on our calorie intake of the previous evening, some hiking was in order! We headed to the park and the start of the Appalachian Trail. John was very grateful that he was dropped off at the top of the falls at the start of his 2008 hike as the climb up many, many steps following the falls was pretty tough, even without a full pack! We had the dubious pleasure of seeing 2 very venomous Copperhead snakes, one of which was guarding one of the bridges on the way up the falls....thankfully a rather brave/foolhardy local borrowed one of John's hiking poles to remove a very angry Copperhead and send him off into the bushes (only after he had tried to strike the guy with his venom-dripping fangs.....).

On reaching the top of the falls, we found, somewhat to our disappointment, a carpark! However we carried on hiking on the Appalachian Trail access route through the woods. We sat down to a fine picnic of BBQ chicken saved from our previous night's meal (it is quite normal in the US to ask for a takehome box for any of the remaining enormous dinner you are unable to consume there on the spot). It wasn't til we were halfway through scoffing our delicious chicken that we realised the aroma was probably permeating most of Georgia, and attracting all bear life from miles around! With this thought we hiked rapidly back to the start of the trail.

On leaving Amicalola State Park, we crossed the border into North Carolina and stopped for the night in a small town called Murphy. Our car was due back in Knoxville the next day and we thought we were plenty close enough to be there by lunchtime. We set off from Murphy, taking the 129 north towards Knoxville. This turned out to be a very famous North Carolina road, called the Tail of the Dragon, which winds its way through the Smoky Mountains. It's so famous that even John has heard of it because it is so popular with bikers and sports car enthusiasts. Feeling somewhat out of place in our Chevrolet Sonic, we "raced" along at 35mph (the actual speed limit). We were pretty embarrassed to be photographed several times by the local paparazzi who position themselves along the road taking pictures of the cars and bikes for purchase on their websites. Needless to say we have not spent the $6 to purchase our photo that was nestled nicely between superfast sports bikes, corvettes, mustangs and the like!

Due to our slow progress along this windy road we were somewhat late returning our hire car.....but pleading British ignorance of the roads we got our fine for being late rescinded.

We spent another night in Knoxville and caught a complicated series of buses (designed by Sarah to be as cheap as possible!) to Charlottesville in Virginia.

Getting up close and personal with gators in The Deep South.

john_hockley — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:30:00 GMT

Before leaving Helena we noticed a raised earthen mound alongside the river... a levee! So we drove our Chevy to the levee but who would have guessed it....the levee was dry (for those confused by this previous statement... think Don Mclean and American Pie)... this amused Sarah immensely!

From Helena we headed across the border into Mississippi to Vicksburg where there is a scenic drive past many old civil war sites. Unfortunately we never found this scenic drive but created our own anyway.

We then crossed another state border into Louisiana! We stopped the night at Lake Providence and feasted that evening on Jambalaya and Gator balls! The next day we tried to visit the Louisiana Cotton Museum but unfortunately it was closed. As we headed back through the town we decided we needed some cash so decided to try the drive thru bank experience.... it is great, you drive up to the ATM, get your cash and then if you are American.. you are ready to visit your drive thru fast food outlet.

As we left Lake Providence we noticed a rather different attitude to hitch hiking than we had experienced elsewhere in the world... a sign instructed us "Prison Area. Do not pick up hitch hikers".... we did wonder whether it might be more effective to prevent prisoners escaping rather than rely on passing motorists not giving them lifts.

We continued south towards New Orleans and started to notice increasing swampiness! There were a number of indicators that we were really entering The Deep South; the huge Antebellum houses of the rich (or once rich) contrasted with the two room shacks of the poor (usually surrounded by old cars or pick up trucks and an array of other "shack tat".....2 examples shown below), the increasing number of swamps,the increase in temperature and .... a change in roadkill species. We were now seeing dead snakes and armadillos on the road,as well as the usual raccoons, posssoms and other assorted unidentified species. It was about now that Sarah seemed rather disturbed by John' preoccupation with spotting and subsequent species identification of the assorted roadkill! (JH: I think it is important to have hobby.. and it was a long road trip! Also, because in most areas the Americans hunt anything that moves this may be the only way to observe nature....though admittedly not at its best!

Another night in rural Louisiana and we were almost in New Orleans. Before hitting the city we wanted to see some proper swamps with alligators and swamp people... so we got directions from a tourist centre and were off swamp bound. We stopped enroute for lunch and enjoyed gumbo whislt watching the alligators in the swamp outside the restaurant window. We found the swamp people and booked a tour on an airboat despite having just seen gators at the restaurant... we wanted to get up close and personal! The airboat is essentially a small aluminium dinghy with a huge fan strapped on the back that can skim across the water and swamps and speeds upto 60mph. After a very nice introductory talk from the boss swamp person... which we understood not a word of... we climbed aboard the boat. The trip was excellent and our boat driver swamp person could actually speak english... and was pretty funny! We saw a number of alligators including a female who we fed some chicken to and who almost climbed on the boat and a huge 13 foot male who was quite tame. We also saw a range of other wildlife including several bald eagles and a huge beaver like rat that is considered vermin in the swamps after it escaped from fur farms during a hurricane. The boat driver caught one of these 2 foot long rats to show... it was hiding in the swamp with its tail sticking out.... and was none too happy when our swamp guy grabbed its tail and yanked it into the boat! Apparently there is a bounty on the varmint's tail ($7 per tail) and a good proportion of the locals spend their days in boats, drinking beer and shooting large water rats.

After our swamp tour we completed the last bit of the drive to New Orleans.

From The Smokey Mountains to the home of the Delta Blues (via Uncle Jack's).

john_hockley — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:26:00 GMT

After the craziness of Las Vegas we decided that what we really needed was to sit in a tent somewhere quiet for a while......so we picked up a hire car in Knoxville and headed for the Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. John obviously knows this area pretty well having hiked through the Smokies during the early part of his Appalachian Trail hike. We drove through beautiful scenery to Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. We hiked up the short hill, passing obese Americans having a series of coronaries, and up the observation tower. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had far-reaching views across the mountains, a slight contrast with John's AT hike when he could only see around 3 foot in front of his face!

We hiked a small portion of the AT before heading back to the car and driving to Gatlinburg. This small town is the gateway to the Smokies and has the dubious honor of having Dollywood, Dolly Parton's theme park, a few miles down the road (anyone who read John's AT journal may remember this place!). In order to keep the ying and yang of the universe in order, John decided that Sarah should see this "interesting" place before we went out into the wilderness of the mountains. We found a cheap motel and had dinner at the "Texas Roadhouse" serving huge portions of pretty unhealthy, fried food....you know the stuff that is delicious at the time but leaves you feeling like you have consumed an entire slab of butter. Anyway, after dinner we took a stroll through the neon-lit, gimmick-laden streets marvelling at how people could be that fat and still manage to transport themselves along the sidewalk. It was a relief to get back to the motel.

The next day, armed with a map, tent, some food and a bear rope (and after dropping a random AT thru-hiker from Florida back at the trailhead), we set off into the mountains. We had a gorgeous hike through woodland alive with spring flowers and surprised ourselves by managing almost 10 miles before we set up camp in a secluded grove by a river.

During our hike, Sarah had seen rock-bears, log-bears and dark-coloured-bush-bears at every corner but we had not actually seen a real bear. The camp had a bear wire up in the trees from which we could hang our food so we didn't need to worry about finding a low-hanging branch from which to throw our bear-rope (a lot easier, according to John!). We even managed to get a fire going to keep warm while we ate dinner.... though it could not really be described as a blazing inferno and if we are honest Ray Mears would have been pretty disappointed by our attempt! As far as we know, no bears entered camp that night.......(though Sarah insisted on company when she needed to leave the tent in the middle of the night.... half asleep though, John was not really any added security from free-roaming nocturnal bears).

We enjoyed another 10 mile hike the next day to get back to our car and we drove through Gatlinburg on our way across Tennessee (it should be noted that despite restoring our spiritual well-being the 20 mile round trip hike had caused some serious aches and pains to our out of condition bodies that would linger for several days). However, we only got about 3 miles out of Gatlinburg (close to Dollywood you'll be interested to know) when we got caught in a massive, slow-moving traffic jam. Turns out there was a hot-rod show on and we got caught up in a parade with many souped-up old and new American cars. Someone even commentated on what a nice exhaust we had on our Cheverolet Sonic.......(a car that is essentially as similar to an American "muscle car" as a VW Polo!). Whilst this did slow our progress somewhat, we did some see some very fine examples of hillbilly/redneck transport and some of the many pick-up trucks were even adorned with the Confederate flag (there is a good chance some of these guys do not actually agree that the South lost a few years back during the American Civil War).

We had thought that we would probably head to Nashville but instead we located the small town of Lynchburg in Southern Tennessee and headed there as it was enroute to Memphis.....to anyone who is not familiar.....this is the home of Jack Daniel's Tennessee bourbon and we wanted to tour the distillery.

The tour of the distillery was excellent and Ron, our white bearded, dungaree wearing very southern tour guide was both funny and knowledgable. It was a very proud moment for the only two Brits on the tour (us), when Ron informed us that the Uk was their number one export destination! Unfortunately, the tour was marred slightly when the tour ended and we entered the Jack Daniel's hospitality room to be served...... lemonade!! What idiot would set up a distillery in a dry county! Feeling somewhat cheated we left and drove to Savannah TN to stay for the night on our way to Memphis.

We were meeting a friend of Sarah's in Mephis so we found a hotel in the centre of the city (opposite the Memphis Redbirds baseball stadium). We had the afternoon to ourselves so we headed down to the Mississippi (a large rather brown sluggish river rather reminiscent of the Mekong!) for a walk along the river. Afterwards we visited the National Civil Rights Museum, housed in the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

In the evening we met with Matt and Bryony (some English friends that Sarah knew from ICR). We had a couple of drinks then onto a Southern restaurant for dinner before heading back to their flat for some serious cocktails. On our walk back to the hotel we wandered down Beale Street, which is famous for its bars and music. We picked one at random and were treated to some fine blues music from some guys who looked and sounded like they had been playing all their lives. Sarah ordered two badass beers which cost $14 and were the size of buckets!By the time we finished these the music had stopped and everyone was going home.

The next day, slightly hung-over, we headed over the border into Arkansas and down the Mississippi delta. We thought we had seen poor rural areas in Tennessee but Arkansas REALLY is poor, especially in this farming area of the delta. We took a slight detour to Helena, the home of the Delta Blues. The town was once a thriving hub of blues music but is now sadly quiet and rather run down. However they do have a really interesting cultural centre which is home to the broadcasting studio for the King Biscuit radio show (a very famous and long running radio show showcasing the best in local blues music). It is named after its sponsor the "King Biscuit Flour". The cultural centre also had an exhibition on the provision of medical care to poor delta communities and it was both fascinating and shocking that the supposedly most powerful nation on earth still has such abject poverty in some of its rural areas... in fact it reminded us somewhat of Laos!

We left the home of the delta blues both enlightened.... and armed with a genuine (made in China) delta blues harmonica... which we both have been attempting to play on a long road trip.

Desert and Decadence

john_hockley — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:22:00 GMT

After hiking through the pine forests of Yosemite we set off towards Las Vegas. The high roads crossing the Sierra Nevada were still closed due to snow so we skirted round the bottom and up the eastern sides. As soon as we rounded the mountains the scenery suddenly changed to dry, arid desert and we stopped for the night in Mojave.

Mojave was a somewhat strange, bleak town surrounded on all sides by desert and blowing an absolute gale. We have since come to the conclusion that the desert environment either attracts strange people or people go a bit strange from living there.....John went into a gas station to fill up the car when he was accosted by a gentleman who demanded a lift to a town further down the road. When he said no and that we were staying in Mojave for the night, the man mimicked his English accent and then proceeded to abuse a couple in a van waiting on the forecourt before swaggering away. The only consolation was that the locals in the garage also thought he was very weird. The motel we stayed in was delightful.....apart from being right on the railroad tracks so we spent the night listening to the huge trains honking as they passed through!

We hastily left Mojave the next day and drove to Death Valley which holds the triple accolade of being the hottest, driest, lowest place in the USA. As we arrived the car temperature gauge was showing 84 (the country which describes itself as a world leader still uses the imperial system so we have no idea what this means.....but Sarah was happy so it must've been warm). Death Valley lies across the states of California and Nevada and experienced a gold rush just as the rest of California did in the 1800s. However no significant gold was found so the boom towns were soon abandoned leaving ghost towns standing in the middle of the desert. We visited Rhyolite and the only building still mostly standing was the casino...... However, the slightly less valuable borax was found in large quantities and this was carried across the desert on huge 20-mule trains to the railroad at Mojave.

After a night in Beatty we headed across Death Valley taking in some of the sights including the remains of a borax works, a hike up Cathedral Canyon and a vast area of salt crystal left by a dried out lake and looking a little bit like coral reef. We also stopped at Badwater basin....so called because one of the early explorers could not get his mule to drink from the water there and labelled it "bad water" on the maps. Turns out the mule had the right idea as the water is incredibly salty and forms one of the largest salt flats in Death Valley. It is also the lowest point in the USA, at -85m below sea level. Despite these pretty unpleasant conditions, life does exist in the salt water....well at least a tiny snail calls it home.

As we left Death Valley, we were lucky enough to see a coyote padding across the desert in the evening sun. We crossed the border into Nevada and stopped at a casino town called Pahrump. It seems that in this area if you want somewhere to stay, you're staying in a casino. After the usual huge American buffet in the hotel restaurant we decided to save our gambling for Las Vegas.

The next day we drove the last leg to Vegas through yet more desert. As we entered Las Vegas, we could see it was everything you would expect....big, brash and busy and of course we had not realised it was a Saturday. This meant hotel prices were pretty high however we eventually found ourselves booked into the Treasure Island casino. Many floors up we were lucky enough to have a huge corner room with panoramic views of the Vegas skyline. We spent three nights in a city that only the Americans could have built, it's extravagant, overindulgent and in poor taste.....in fact it possibly represents everything that is wrong with Western culture! However, to fit in, we indulged with the best of them and although we didn't leave as millionaires we enjoyed ourselves! By avoiding too much gambling and taking advantage of the free drinks and cheap food that the casinos offer, you can have a pretty good time without spending too much.

Each hotel/casino has its own theme and we wandered through most of the famous ones. We saw the fountain show set to music outside the Bellagio and the mock-Roman Caesar's Palace, the pyramid-shaped Luxor and several others. Our hotel had a wild west saloon and a bar on a pirate ship, and every night fireworks would be set off from one of the lower rooves, which was quite a sight from our hotel room.

After 3 days of this madness we were ready to move on and head towards the south east of the states. We booked the cheapest flight we could, which happened to be to Knoxville. Our only information about this destination was that it was in Tennessee, and that was where we wanted to be. The next day, via a very ricketty old Delta plane, we flew from Las Vegas to Knoxville.

The Rock and a mountain escape

john_hockley — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:01:00 GMT

Let's not say it's easy crossing the International Dateline...in fact after the delays to our connecting San Francisco flight at LA airport, it's fair to say we were lagging well behind the jet! Hungry and tired we made it from San Fran airport by means of a subway train and the lovely old San Fran trams, to our accommodation at Fort Mason, right on San Fran Bay. From our bedroom window we had views across the bay to Alcatraz and part of the Golden Gate Bridge. We managed to stay awake somehow and even found our way up the famous San Fran hills to Chinatown for dinner that night before we finally collapsed.

We spent the next couple of days exploring San Fran, including the world's most winding street, riding the trams and streetcars and wandering round Pier 39. We also visited the infamous Alcatraz prison. It was a choppy boat ride out to the rock, followed by an interesting audio tour of the prison island; including the solitary confinement cells as well as a rerun of the most famous escape attempt. The story goes that no-one escaped Alcatraz and whilst a number were drowned, shot or recaptured... three escapees remain unaccounted for...

Whilst in San Francisco we caught up with a friend of John's from hiking the Appalachian Trail four years ago. Pearl was hiking the AT with her then 11 year old daughter Avery. The 2,200 mile hike was a challenge for anyone but even more so for an 11 year old! It was great to catch up with Pearl and reminisce about hiking "the Trail".

We picked up a hire car and soon we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and heading for the Napa Valley. Having visited vineyards in both Australia and New Zealand, we felt it was important to complete our tour of New World wineries! We visited one of the many Napa Valley vineyards set in beautiful gardens. After sampling some of their excellent produce we sat outside in the sun for a while listening to a Louisiana Blues band that just happened to be playing.

Just by chance we found yet another motel with a hot spring/spa pool so relaxed that evening in "the tub" whilst chatting to a quite mad guy from Sacramento!

The next day we headed off towards Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada, stopping at Oakdale overnight where new hiking shoes were purchased for John. It was a fairly steep drive up into the national park and on seeing a little motel just before the park entrance in Groveland, we pulled in and booked 2 nights in a little cabin. With accommodation sorted we headed down into Yosemite Valley. Imagine our surprise after the hot Californian sun in the Napa Valley to be confronted with a significant amount of snow at the higher elvations. As a result of this many of the more remote areas of the park were closed with noly the Valley open. After gaining height we then had to lose height and the road began a steep but spectacular descent into the valley. We enjoyed the valley in the most American way.....from our car.....but it allowed for some lovely scenery and we were able to plan our hiking the next day. On the way back to our cabin we stopped for a short hike in the snow but this was discontinued when Sarah's feet became cold and wet!

Waking up to beautiful blue sky we headed once more down the precipitous road into Yosemite Valley and in non-American fashion, took bipedal transport on a hike taking in the half-dome mountain (from the bottom!) and the many waterfalls in the park. We also had to ford a mountain stream which was somewhat 'refreshing' on our bare feet!

That evening we visited the oldest saloon in California with an interesting array of stuffed fauna, including a massive moose head and a whole bear....the food and beer was quite good also!

Thermal inactivity

john_hockley — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:10:00 GMT

Rotorua is a major centre for Maori culture so whilst we were there we decided to visit the Te Puia Moari Arts and Crafts Institute. Here they teach traditional Maori arts such as wood carving and weaving, and have a replica Maori village. The centre is also set in a thermal valley, with hot mud pools and the famous Pohutu Geyser, which means "big splash" in Maori. We had a guided tour with a great Maori lady who told us Maori stories and explained some of their beliefs and rituals. At the entrance to the centre are several huge, intricate wood carvings of some of the main Maori gods, an impressive welcome.

During our tour we were lucky enough to arrive at the Geyser just as it was erupting. It was a pretty windy day and every so often we got soaked with surpisingly cold water, it obviously doesn't take long for it to cool down!

We also watched a Maori show with a traditional Maori welcome (slightly alarming!) and songs and dances, including the haka war dance (even scarier!).

That evening we swapped our Hyundai Getz for a horrific Kia with the worst gear box either of us have ever had the "pleasure" to drive......not being able to find 1st or 2nd gear when pulling out at a roundabout not the most ideal situation. We decided to stick with it and the next day headed for Whakatane on the Bay of Plenty. We had been told by one of our lifts that a trip to White Island, off the coast of the Bay of Plenty, was well worth a trip. It is New Zealand's only active marine volcano. However, with prices starting at $185pp we decided to give it a miss! This being our only reason for visiting Whakatane, we returned to our horrible Kia to drive further along the coast....only it wouldn't start. Unfortunately one of us (no naming names) had left the lights on whilst we wandered round Whakatane and the battery was flat. John commandeered the help of some locals in a bar and we tried bump-starting it with no luck. Eventually one of the guys brought his car round and we managed to jump-start it. We kangarooed off down the road, shoving the gear stick in the direction of 2nd gear, and decided to return to Rotorua to swap it after discovering it had a leak and water was cascading into both the passanger seat well and the boot.

Armed with yet another car, this time a Daihatsu Sirion, we drove to Tauranga....another town on the Bay of Plenty. By this point it was pouring with rain so we stopped at a random motel (with a hot thermal pool). After a quick soak we followed the landlady's advice and drove down the road to the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet!

The next day we drove to Mount Manganui, a town on the coast close to Tauranga with a beautiful beach. We climbed Mauao, an extinct volcano which rises in a cone shape above the toewn and has great views over the surrounding area and then settled on the beach afterwards for an afternoon of sunbathing & watching the surfers in the sun.

We drove on to Katikati, a small town at the western end of the Bay of Plenty close to the beginning of the Coromandel Peninsula and the next day we drove onto the peninsula itself, stopping at Waihi to see the working gold mine situated in the town.

We stopped for a picnic on the beach

before stopping at a campsite at Hahei beach for the night.

The next day we walked along the clifftops to Cathedral cove. A fine walk along the cliff edge was rewarded with a lovely white-sand beach and a natural rock archway....the Cathedral. Getting to the beach on the other side of the archway required splashing through the frigid waves. Now aware of just how cold the water was along this coast, we turned round and headed back to the car.

From here we took a circuitous but scenic route back to Tauranga along the famous winding and mostly gravel 309 road on the Coromandel Peninsula. The decision to return to Tauranga was based partly on an all you can eat Chinese buffet and partly on the presence of hot spa pools at our planned accomodation!

As the holiday park in Tauranga was in such a nice location, Sarah decided to stay here whilst John visited Waitomo Caves,nothing to do with claustrophobia you understand. The caves were well worth a visit and the guided trip took you down deep into the caves and included a boat trip on a subterrainean lake with millions of twinkling glow worms above you. Whilst visually very pleasing, the lifecycle of a glow worm seemed rather pointless....the insect that produces the glow worm larvae never leaves the caves and after pupation from the glow worm, it flies around laying many eggs on the roof of the cave before effentually being caught in the silken threads of the glow worm larvae and eaten....hmm,, intelligent design? John returned from the caves the next day to find Sarah still sat in a hot pool!

From Tauranga we returned our hire car to Rotorua, made a brief stop to buy a Maori wood carving from Te Puia and caught the bus to Auckland airport. After a night at a cheap airport hotel, we found ourselves on a plane bound for LA.

Thermal activity!

john_hockley — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:33:00 GMT

We got up at the unholy hour of 6.15am to catch the 7.30am shuttle to the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The crossing is a 19.4km hike across volcanic terrain along the slopes of Mt. Ngauruhoe (the volcano used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings) and Mt. Tongariro, past many volcanic features. We had checked and double-checked the weather the day before and were assured a fine day, but with some possible drizzle in the morning. We arrived at the start of the track to heavy "drizzle" and only had around 20 metres visibility. We donned waterproofs and set out into the rain, along with around 50 others who had also caught various shuttle services from the surrounding area. We couldn't see very much, although we could tell we were hiking along pretty barren landscape.

After a while the track started climbing and we assumed we were now on the slopes of Mt. Ngauruhoe, and a sign soon informed us that we were hiking through a pyroclastic flow. This was the wonderful view we had of it.....

We reached the top of the ridge and hunkered down behind some rocks to get out of the ever-increasing wind to scarf down a banana. We were amazed how quickly we became really cold but couldn't stop to put on our thermals which we had dutifully packed in our daysacks due to the wind. We carried on, hiking through a huge crater....one minute you could see where you were headed:

and 2 minutes later you couldn't:

The track then led us up to the top of another ridge but when we reached it the wind was so strong that we couldn't stand upright. We decided it would be a stupid decision to carry on so we turned back (a number of other hikers had already passed us having made the same decision). We had hiked to about halfway down the slopes of Ngauruhoe when the sun suddenly came out and the wind dropped. By this point we were starving so we stopped, had some lunch and Sarah put on her thermal gear. As the weather suddenly seemed to have improved, we decideed to have another go at the ridge to see if we could get over this time. A repeated attempt found two women sheltering behind some rocks and another couple returning down. We deliberated over whether to carry on but didn't want to make the headlines in the local paper as the stupid tourists who attempted the crossing in horrific weather! So again, we returned down the mountain (when we turned around and crossed an open ridge on our way back down Sarah was struggling not to get blown over the ridge by the wind). By the time we got to the bottom, the sun had well and truly come out and we had warmed up. We could also see the terrain we had bee hiking through in the mist that morning...we had no idea we were surrounded by these mountains!

We made it back to the start and got a lift back to the main road. We called our shuttle which stopped to pick us up and take us back to our motel and more specifically the spa pool, where we sat recovering for an hour! It was a shame that we didn't manage to complete the hike as just after the un-crossable ridge you got to walk around the edge of the main crater, see some active volcanic vents and an emerald lake filling another crater. But....we will be back sometime to try again! NB. A few days later we noticed a story in the local newspaper about an American girl who had to be airlifted off the volcano because she had lost her way and slipped down a ridge... maybe we made the right deciaion to turn around?!.

The next day we decided to hitch out of Ohakune to Lake Taupo, slightly further north. Our first lift was a guy working on one of the wind farms closeby and he dropped us at the intersection of the main road. We were then picked up by our first Maori, a lovely guy who worked for Maori TV! The road we took travelled alongside the Tongariro National Park and we were dismayed to see that hiking conditions were perfect with not a cloud in the sky! In fact, we could clearly see the ridge on which we were stuck at the day before. Oh well, bet it was still windy up there though. Our lift took us all the way to Lake Taupo and dropped us off in the centre. We hiked a little while out of town to a Top10 holiday park where we pitched up the tent. Most of the holiday parks in the area take full advantage of the geothermal activity and provide heated swimming pools and spa pools, so while John went off for a walk, Sarah spent the afternoon swimming and wallowing in the hot water.

The next day we hired mountain bikes from the park and cycled the Rotary Track along the river to Huka Falls (after getting slightly lost and ending up on a motorcross track....). The water at Huka Falls was the most lovely colour and we had lunch watching one of the adventure jet boats scream it's way right up to the falls and then hare off back the way it came!

We cycled on to a place called Craters of the Moon, an area of intense thermal activity and craters, named for its other-worldy environment. When we arrived you had agood view of the whole site and could see steam coming out of the ground in many different places! We walked round the designated boardwalk, with many warning signs telling you to stick to the paths or get burnt feet, and had a look at the various craters.

On the way back we cycled through some lovely pine forest

The folowing day we hitched a ride from Lake Taupo to Rotorua with a lovely lady who actually shot straight past us..... then reversed back up the highway shouting "sorry, I thought you were 2 guys hitching" (SB: hmph!). On the way to Rotorua she showed us all the sights, including a natural thermal pool on a farmer's land.....something only a local would know about. Driving through Rotorua there is steam coming out of the ground all over the place though the local council have done their best to fence in all the main areas. Jenny dropped us at the holiday park, after a comprehensive tour of the area, and we booked into a cabin (after 2 days of camping we felt we deserved some "luxury"!). In the evening we walked to Kuirai Park, where many of the steam and mud pools are located and had a wander round.

After a pretty long walk round Rotorua, we returned to the holiday park and spent 10 minutes soaking ourselves in their outdoor hot mineral pool before cooking our dinner.

Today we woke up and it was pouring with rain so we partook of the mineral pool once again before waiting out the rain in our cabin. It showed no signs of abating so we braved it and walked up the road to a car hire place, Rent-a-Dent, to see if we could score a bargain! We turned up soaked through, despite waterproof coats, and the guy took pity on us/wanted our business and so he gave us a week's hire for the price for 9 days. We drove away in another Hyandai Getz! This time only for the evening as we are hopefully going to swap it for a manual tomorrow.

Hello North Island!

john_hockley — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:00:00 GMT

We arrived into Wellington at 9.30pm on Saturday and jumped onto the shuttle bus to take us to the centre. The driver was most perplexed that we had not booked anywhere to stay but we assured him that it had worked for us for the last 5 months and he eventually agreed to drop us in the centre of town. We started walking to find a hotel and found ourselves in the main bar and restaurant area of Wellington. We felt pretty out of place in our hiking gear with our huge rucksacks on our backs as the drunken stag and hen parties veered round us! After almost an hour of wandering we found a hotel with rooms free and gratefully crashed out.

The next day,after an extremely leisurly start even for us, we headed out into Wellington. We walked over to the current Parliament building, known as the Beehive, a concrete creation which is juxtaposed next to the elegant old Parliament building.

Our hotel had no cooking facilities, which was an excellent excuse to go out for dinner, so we headed out for a Chinese buffet, costing us only $30.....a bargin!

We decided that we were going to hitch north out of Wellington and see how far we could get. We wanted to end up at Tongariro national park in the centre of the north island. With some clever map reading we managed to find a slip road onto the motorway heading north. Our first lift was a very pleasant, but slightly mad Fijian lady who proceeded to tell us her life story and we learnt a surprising amount about the history of Fiji. She had come to New Zealand as a nun many years ago but was now settled here with her husband. The next lift was equally religious but with a slightly more intense attitude. Joe was in his thirties and was on his way to do some tramping and possum hunting! We had been in the car 20 minutes making polite conversation whe he uttered the immotal words "do you guys believe in god?" John diplomatically answered "well, um, we would have to say no". Here followed some interesting discussions in which neither party really conceeded ground on the issue. We were also told that as scientists we probably believe "crazy ideas" such as we are decended from monkeys and the earth is more than 10000 years old....that Darwin, what an idiot huh?! Let's hope we never get a lift from someone who utters "do you believe in god" and "I'm off hunting possums" in the same sentence again!

Our final lift was from a kiwi guy working on the railways and he took us all the way to Ohakune in Tongariro national park with no reigous utterances whatsoever. We booked into a cheap but lovely motel in Ohakune. Yesterday we hired some mountain bikes....more expensive than those in Laos but 1000 times more reliable....and cycled the Old Coach Road, part of an old drove road linking Wellington to Auckland before the railway was completed in 1908. It was a beautiful, if steep, ride through forest amd with little pieces of railway history along the way. On returning the our motel we jumped straight in the spa pool to try and negate any aches and pains!

After waking up slightly saddle sore today, we have just completed a lovely forest walk in the Tongariro national park. Now it's back to the motel and spa pool to try and get rid of those aches before we attempt the Tongariro Alpine Crossing tomorrow!

Milford Sound and leaving the South Island

john_hockley — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:29:00 GMT

After leaving Queenstown we headed to Te Anau, picking up yet more hitch-hikers on the way (stockpiling our good karma!) Te Anau is the start of the scenic drive to Milford Sound, and is considered one of the best drives in the world. After a brief stop in Te Anau to gather information, we set off. By this time it was mid-afternoon so we decided to stop at a DOC campsite along the way, and we pitched up next to a stream with beautiful views of the mountains that would become Milford Sound. Before cooking up a feast on the trangia,we took a wander through the forest and came upon the crystal clear waters of Lake Gunn. After a while we bumped into a very nice kiwi girl whose boyfriend came from West Byfleet! We chatted to her for some time before her boyfriend appeared....he'd been trout fishing but seemed to be lacking any trout. After our dinner of pasta, we walked back to Lake Gunn for sunset.

The next day we had a hearty breakfast of pancakes and coffee and continued our drive to the end of the road.....Milford Sound. The scenry was truly breathtaking and the mountains towered above us. It also wasn't raining, a rare occurance in an area that receives 200 days of rain per year. We decided to push the boat out (ha ha) and took a cruise out into Milford Sound itself. It's actually truly a fiord and is so deep at the beginning due to glacial erosion that the water appears black. It was pretty impressive sailing under the towering cliffs with waterfalls cascading down. We made it out to open water before returning back through the sound past fur seals lazing on the rocks.

From Milford Sound, we headed back along the only road out with a stop at Gertrude Valley for a walk in the mountains.

We stopped in Te Anau for the night before heading accross to Dunedin the next day.

Dunedin demonstrated much Scottish heritage and as we drove into the city the mist and drizzle were truly reminiscent of Scotland! The next day was spent exploring the Otago Peninsula to the east of Dunedin. We drove to the end of the peninsula where we saw Royal Albatrosses gliding on the somewhat strong breeze. We stopped for a walk at the Okia Flats hoping to spy some penguins or sea lions on the beach. We were out of luck with the wildlife but we did get to climb a volcanic vent, long since out of use!

We drove on a bit further to Allen's beach, and as we approached there were clearly sea lions, or possibly logs, on the beach. Our previous atempt to see seals further south has entailed us creeping up on what turned out to be large lumps of wood. However on this occasion the large brown lumps were indeed sea lions and we got within about 10 metres of them and managed to get some great photos of yawning male sea lions.

The evening was finished with a rare treat since we left south east Asia....a meal out. So what did we go for? Thai!

The next day we were back on the road heading north. We covered many miles as we had to get the car back to Motueka in a day or so. We stopped again at Hanmer Springs in a lovely little holiday park on the edge of Hanmer forest. We managed a short walk the next morning before heading off again. Our route took us across the northern Southern Alps through Lewis Pass. Needless to say, Sarah did the driving. Whilst there was limited traffic, a significant percentage of it consisted of huge double trailer lorries which were slow uphill but incredibly fast downhill. We stopped for a lovely picnic in the sun at a campsite towards the end of Lewis Pass.

We managed to get to Motueka by the end of the day and dropped off our trusty Toyota Camry.

The following day we were heading to Picton to get the ferry across to Wellingtongton on the north island. We utilised the cheap form of transport known as hitch-hiking. Our lifts included a couple of Canadian guys working on an apple farm and several older, retired Kiwi guys one of whom changed his route to accomodate us and insisted we stopped along the way for photo opportunities.

Our hitch-hiking was so successful that we managed to book ourslelves onto the 6pm crossing to the north island. We lazed in the sun for a couple of hours in Picton harbour and were soon on our way through the Marlborough Sounds. The ferry crossing took 3 hours and we were lucky that the ferry was almost empty.

Mouse madness in the mountains!

john_hockley — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:13:00 GMT

After leaving the glaciers we headed south enroute to Queenstown. There is only one road along the west coast of New Zealand and it passes through Haast and then crosses the Southern Alps via Haast Pass in Mount Aspiring National Park. Although it was pouring with rain the mountain scenery was moody and impressive and we stopped in Haast Pass whilst John braved the rain and went for a short walk. During the afternoon the weather improved and we stopped at a DOC campsite on the shores of Lake Wanaka. We went for a short walk into the mountains but decided to return to the campsite to put up the tent as the rain slowly came in. We camped underneath some pine trees which was fairly dry and the pine needles gave us a lovely soft bed!!

After a somewhat chilly night sleeping in all of our clothes (even John had his thermals on!) we awoke to a lovely sunny day and had our coffee and breakfast on the shores of Lake Wanaka looking up to the snow-capped mountains behind. We got back on the road and drove from Lake Wanaka to Lake Hawea, with wonderful views the whole way.

We wanted to do a bit of hiking and so drove up a gravel road alongside Lake Wanaka into the mountains. We parked up and walked a short way into the hills with lovely views of the lake behind us. Unfortunately we couldn't do the loop as the river in the valley was flowing at it's full rate meaning a river crossing to get back to the car was impossible without getting significantly wet!

We drove on on the road to Queenstown and passed the Kuwara Bridge bungy where John did his bungy jump a "few" years ago! It's credited as being the first bungy in the world, where it all started! We wandered in to see if anyone was going to jump and there was a girl all ready to go......but unfortunately she chickened out at the last minute (SB: kudos to her for even getting up there in the first place in my opinion!!). John was considering another jump but decided that he'd done it once before and that was quite enough (JH...and I think the skydive demonstrates that I still have at least some sense of adventure!).

We arrived in Queenstown and booked into a Top10 holiday park (rapidly becoming our favourite place to stay in NZ as they do backpacker cabins for $60..but this time we stayed in their lodge. What luxury!). We wandered round Queenstown, which is on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and is a lovely town with loads of adrenalin-fuelled activities. Whilst Sarah went for a massage, John had a look round the outdoors shops. In one of them he bumped into a cyclist we had noticed on our travels who had the flags of many countries attached to the back of his bike. John spoke to him briefly and asked how long he had been away for...."10 years" came the answer! He was from Argentina and figured that he ahd about another 2 years of cycling to do before he got back home!

The next day we took the Queenstown Gondola up to the Skyline complex on top of one of the mountains. This is a glass-fronted building containing a restaurant and cafe with brilliant views across Queenstown and the surrounding lakes and mountains. There was an outside viewing platform where you could watch people doing bungy jumps over the side of the moutain. There was also a lovely walk through alpine scenery which Sarah managed to persuade John to do as we had got the scary steep mountain climb out of the way on the gondola journey!

There was also a luge track down the mountain which Sarah was actually brave enough to consider... after a practise on the "scenic route" we progressed to the advanced track. (JH - The gauntlet was clearly laid down when Sarah said "I want to go first so I am not stuck behind you!".... rapidly she was overtaken and all I could hear was the rapidly fading screams behind me as she crested the brow of each slope!). Much fun was had by both participants and there then followed.... an extreme cup of hot chocolate before heading back down the mountain!

Another reason for spending a few days in Queenstown was.. vermin control! When camping at Lake Wanaka we were awakened in the middle of the night to a rustling in the food bag we had stupidly left in the "porch" at the front of our tent. On investigation with our head torch a very guilty mouse was seen exiting the crime scene! The food was moved into the sleeping compartment and we continued our chilly slumber. Next morning we packed all our gear into the boot of our hire car and thoughht no more about the mouse. However when we got to Queenstown we found a mouse sized hole in our loaf of bread which had remained in the car while we were camping! Somehow (possibly in one of our rucksacks) a mouse had hitched a lift into the boot of the car... and then set up home behind the back seat where we could not get at him! We removed all our gear and food from the car to deprive him of sustenance and then plotted his downfall.

We were lucky that the campsite had a mousetrap we could borrow and this was loaded with a hunk of cheese slathered in peanut butter for extra mouse attraction. 2 hours later we returned to find Micky had licked all the peanut butter off the cheese and scarpered without setting the trap off! Again it was set and we retreated to mission control... again we returned to find the peanut butter gone but no mouse, on the 4th attempt with much tactical planning and use of bottles and boxes to direct Micky's entry point to the front "action" end of the trap.... one dead mouse!

With the death of Micky and the glory of the hunt still fresh in our minds we left Queenstown and headed further south to the very famous Milford Sound.

Heading south to the glaciers

john_hockley — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 18:57:00 GMT

After our return to Motueka, we sorted out a hire car so we could explore the rest of the south island. Unlike our Hyundai Getz in Australia, this was more of a "rent-a-dent" and we ended up with a 14 year-old Toyota Camry (nope, we'd never heard of it either). We popped in for a cup of tea with John and collected our belongings we had left with him whilst hiking and hit the road, heading towards the west coast.

After our first afternoon of freedom, we stopped for the night at a holiday park in a very cheap and cheerful hut described to us as a "twin" but was in fact bunk beds....again who said romance is dead?! The next day we acquired a Hungarian hitch-hiker (to pay back the good karma of our previous lifts we are determined to almost abduct any hitch-hiker we see whilst we have a car!). We stopped at Pancake Rocks, a strange geological phenomenon where rocks had been laid down in layer....like pancakes!

After lunch, we continued on to Greymouth where we deposited our hitch-hiker and drove to a campsite at the site of an old goldmining area (Goldsborough). We attempted a couple of walks exploring the mining area but had to turn back due to flooded streams and tracks. However we did get to meet some real life gold miners here! These were predominantly retired Kiwis and Aussies with massive camper vans/ buses who spent the summer panning for very small quantities of gold and enjoying the peace and tranquility of the area. One of the miners showed John some of the gold found.....but they certainly weren't striking it rich!

From here we headed further south to Franz Josef Glacier. We booked into a motel and did the short walk up to the terminal face of the glacier. Unfortunately, things have changed since John was last here and you can no longer walk on the ice without a guide. However, the glacier was still impressive and well worth the walk. In the evening we treated ourselves to some fine New Zealand cuisine......our first Indian curry since leaving the UK!

The next day we drove the 25km further south to Fox Glacier. We spent a couple of days hiking in the area and enjoyed intermittent views of the glacier with Mount Cook and Mount Tasman behind it.

John took advantage of a bright sunny day to do a tandem skydive over Mount Cook and Fox Glacier. With astounding scenery and a reasonable price, it was too good an opportunity to miss. It was booked at 11am, and by 1pm he had jumped....a little different to the last time in the UK. The first 10 seconds of freefall are still truly terrifying however it was a great experience with amazing views from the plane and during the jump.

We also drove back to Franz Josef for a walk and to take advantage of the glacier hot pools in the town. Sarah had been wishing for a bit of heat and seeing as the weather in New Zealand could not provide it, this was a good compromise!

The hiking sommeliers!

john_hockley — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:12:00 GMT

We managed to hitch a lift from Picton to Blenheim, where we had booked a wine-tour through the famous Marlborough wine county, with an English guy who had emmigrated to NZ 15 years ago. He was very friendly and when he spotted us an hour later waiting for the bus to pick us up for our wine tour, he pulled over and offered to take us with him to the beach where he was headed for the afternoon!

The wine tour took us to several different wineries where we sampled lots of different wines, including the sauvingnon blanc which Marlborough is famous for. We were on the tour with 4 medical students from the UK who had just finished their elective in Auckland and were really good company for the afternoon. At the last winery we tasted their wine then had a blind taste so see if we had learnt anything and could identify the mystery wine. John's "mature" palate won the day and he was rewarded with a lollipop for his correct guess! We finished up the tour at a fudge factory (the winery next door was sadly closed for the day) and tasted the most delicious cremem brulee fudge. After an afternoon of wine-drinking our ability to cook dinner was somewhat diminished so we settled for fish and chips with a glass of our newly aqcuired Sauvingnon Blanc and creme brulee fudge for pudding.

The next day we decided to head for Nelson, the access point for the Abel Tasman National Park. We had been told by many people we had met that this was an excellent area for hiking and were keen to see for ourselves! We managed to get a lift to Renwick and were then picked up by John, who agreed to drop us in Nelson. We chatted for most of the journey, discovering that he was a builder by trade who owned a small farm in the hills with his partner near the Abel Tasman National Park. He was very friendly, and as we approached Nelson he asked us back to his house for a cup of tea and said he could drop us in Motueka, even closer to the start of the trail. We arrived and met Liz and Miley the Huntaway dog. We had a cup of tea with them, after which they invited us to stay for dinner and then the night. They were lovely company and we really enjoyed taking Miley for a walk round their picturesque farm (where she caught a rabbit, which had to be skinned and gutted before she would eat it). John is currently building a beautiful house with wonderful views, how lovely to have useful skills! (Scientific research not being renowned for its usefulness in everyday life!!). John also had several old cars he was rennovating and some dirt bikes.

John dropped us in Motueka the next day and we set about buying supplies for our hike. There are two trails in the Abel Tasman National Park, the extremely popular coastal track, and the harder and not so crowded inland trail. We decided to go for the inland trail as we'd already hiked the Queen Charlotte Trail, which is on the coast, and to try to get away from people a little bit.

We caught the bus from Motueka the next day to the start of the trail and set off accross the Motueka estuary.

We turned off after about 3km to the inland trail, which climbed steadily higher with lovely views over the Abel Tasman coast.

The hiking was really hard and we were climbing up stream beds, over tree roots and over boulders. This was aggravated by the fact that we had brought loads of food....we'd been a bit hungry on the Queen Charlotte Trail and were determined that this would not be the case this time!!. We arrived at Castle Rocks Hut and pitched the tent in the grasslands. An American couple, Casey and Melissa, were staying in the hut and we wandered over to eat dinner with them. They were both planetary scientists and as we sat outside the hut in the fading light, they pointed out some of the emerging stars, and Melissa and Sarah commiserated one anither on the undertaking of a PhD!

We woke up the next morning exhausted. An examination of the map showed that we could reach the very basic Moa Park Shelter in 2 hours.... we made it in 3 - it was only 3.5km! We flopped down outside the hut and decided we wouldn't go any further that day. After lunch Sarah promptly got into her sleeping bag and went to sleep for the afternoon whilst John read and then investigated the grassy plateau we were on. After dinner we set our mats up on the floor of the shelter...who said romance is dead??? (the shelter had been downgraded from a hut and therefore the bunks had been removed).

Feeling lovely and refreshed (but a bit chilly)the next day we awoke to see our breath condense as we looked around our luxury abode! It was obviously a bit colder at these higher elevations and a steaming hot coffee was required before any hiking! However, once we got going we were on more level ground all the way to Awapoto Hut, where we pitched the tent and spent an hour reading in the sunshine. A really lovely couple, Kirsty and James from Bristol, were staying in the hut and they soon got a very welcome fire going. We ate dinner inside, chatting to them and to a French guy and his Quebecy girlfriend. Andre has travelled to New Zealand via Burma and it was really interesting hearing his experiences there.

The final day was blessedly downhill! It was positively easy! We only lost the trail once, on a steep downhill section, and were quickly swallowed by the forest, ourselves and our bags getting trapped by creepers growing through the forest.....but we quickly found the trail again. We slowly decended to a road where a huge landslip had taken place and we had to edge round. Just before Christmas, the Abel Tasman area had a huge amount of rain, resulting in lots of landslips. On this particular road, a family were traveling in a car to a campsite on the coast when one landslip occurred behind them and another ahead of them. Apparantly their car is still trapped there, although they were taken to safety. It was interesting to note that there is much controversy over whether there is sufficient money and justification to repair the road (the only road into this area of the coast).... we have travelled along many scary mountainous roads in Laos that were continuously affected by landslips and rockfalls and in Laos where they are not "hindered" by any health and safety regulations and where lives rely on the open roads, these roads just "get fixed" quickley and with no obvious signs of any system or method. This entails many bulldozers, diggers and probably very minimally qualified Laos workmen flattening a new bit of the mountain side just wide enough to get the bus you are travelling on past the landslip/rocfall! You then edge past very, very slowly!

We followed a path which led from the inland trail down onto the coastal trail. We arrived at Totaranui camp site that evening and just managed to pitch the tent before the rain came down. We were considering hiking back to the start of the trail along the coast track but decided to see what the weather would be like the next day.

Predictably, the next day we woke to torrential rain. As the road was closed due to the landslips, the only option to get back to the trail beginning was by watertaxi. Fortunately they just turn up on the beaches at certain times during the day so we managed to get on one within half an hour. We then hung on for dear life as we shot through the water, stopping at each bay on the way, before we were dragged out of the water and driven along the road to the taxi office by a tractor!

The Queen Charlotte Track

john_hockley — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:18:00 GMT

We travelled to the start of the Queen Charlotte Track on the mail boat, which delivers mail to the remote houses on the Marlborough Sounds as often there are no road connections. It was a beautifully sunny day and the skipper/postman gave us a great commentary about life in the sounds and pointed out various wildlife including New Zealand Fur Seals relaxing in the sun on the pontoons of the local salmon farm! We arrived at the start point, Ship Cove, about 4pm and began the hike to the first campsite at Resolution Bay.

The hike only took us an hour and we arrived at a lovely campsite right on a small bay (Schoolhouse Bay). We dropped our packs to have a look around and immediately a flightless, chicken-type bird flew out of the bushes and began to investigate our packs with no fear whatsoever! We got the tent out and were in the process of putting it up when we heard a frantic rustling behind us and turned to find the bird making off with our bananas in a plastic bag! We later learned the bird is a Wika bird and they are notorious thieves....we saw many of them along the trail. (P.S....we did get our bananas back, albeit slightly pecked!).

The following day we woke up to drizzle and spent most of the day hiking through the rain. Fortunately the trail is mostly through forested hillsides so we were slightly protected from the rain. Despite the wet conditions we had some fabulous views over the sounds as we were hiking pretty high up. We managed 22km and at that night's campsite (Camp Bay), we got the tent up in the rain as quickly as possible and headed five minutes down a track to a very welcome bar where we feasted on panini, chips and several beers, and chatted to our new hiker friend Amelie, a meteorolgist from Cambridge (who spends a good percentage of her work year at an antartic research station!).

The next day was also pretty wet, and also very steep! We were mostly hiking along the ridgeline of the mountains and we slowed to the pace of tortoises whilst going uphill! We eventually made it to a deserted ridgetop campsite (Black Rock) where we spent a chilly night. Waking to sun the next morning, we fully appreciated our position.....on top of the ridge, with wonderful views of the sounds either side and no-one else around.

(JH - NB. During the night I woke frequently to what seemed like the sound of scratching under the tent! At one point I even thought there was some animal in the tent with us... as usual Sarah slept thru all this! Next morning as I was packing the tent away I found numerous holes under the ground sheet of the tent and several squashed Ciccadas! It seemed they emerge from the ground at night and several had got their timing rather badly wrong... so as we rolled over in the nighth we were squashing these horrible insects under our tent... quite dusgusting, and annoying that the Ciccadas find yet another way of causing problems! I have to say that when you try to get away from it all and enjoy nature at its best.... nature can be quite annoying and unpleasant at times!)

We hiked in the glorious sunshine taking in the breathtaking views until we came to Mistletoe Bay. We were only about 12km from the end point of the trail, and about 9km from the next trail campsite but our feet were pretty tired and we had run out of water. There was a turning off the QCT which advertised a private campsite and we hiked down a really steep slope to emerge into a grassy campsite right by Mistletoe Bay. All thoughts of wildcamping that night went out the window and we pitched up and spent a couple of hours lying in the sun! We even managed to have a 2 minute shower ($2 does not get you very long under the jet!).

Cooking dinner that night we got chatting to a couple who had been camping at the site for a week and had been spending their time out on their boat fishing. Dave and Megan were really good company and even gave us a couple of glasses of their bubbly Pinot Noir wine, yum! We were joined a bit later by the managers of the campsite, each with bottle in hand, and spent a lovely evening drinking and chatting. another highlight was wandering up the drive to see glow-worms on the bank twinkling like little stars.

The next day was just as sunny, and after an invite from Dave and Megan to visit them at home when we arrive in Nelson, we set off. After an easy 12km, we arrived at the end of the trail, feeling very pleased with ourselves.

We didn't really want to pay the $38 each to get the water taxi back to Picton so we decided to hitch a lift. We were picked up by a minibus pulling a trailer full of kayaks......the local tour company had just finished a day's work and were heading back to their warehouse with the boats. They were extremely generous and gave us tea, sandwiches and beer back at the warehouse whilst they cleaned the boats off then gave us a lift back to our hostel in Picton!

We are spending today in Picton relaxing our aching legs and feet and we are hoping to go to Blenheim tomorrow to sample some of Marlborough's finest wines during a vineyard tour.

Christchurch and the Marlborough Sounds

john_hockley — Thu, 9 Feb 2012 08:20:00 GMT

We arrived in New Zealand to a rather chilly Christchurch night...13 degrees. John revelled in finally feeling cool for the first time in a while whilst Sarah immediately started putting on a variety of fleeces from her pack. We arrived at our hotel, a lovely mock tudor building paid for by John's credit card points, and fell into bed at about 2am.

We went off to explore Christchurch the next day and were shocked by how much damage remains from the earthquake that hit the city in Feb 2011. We also didn't realise just how many quakes the city has endured....highlighting the fickle nature of the world's media. Most of the city centre was closed off and there were many beautiful old buildings and churches damaged and sealed off.

We spent the next couple of days chilling out and wandering round the city. The council have been ingenious and set up a new shopping street full of portacabins but there has been a lot of controvesy over whether they are going to rebuild the old high street which has been badly damaged. We also took a wander through the lovely botanic gardens (Mum B, this photo is for you!)

Sarah also used the time to purchase a lovely warm jacket for the chilly weather (!!).

It was Waitangi Day (no idea what this is, we just know it's a public holiday!) on Monday 6th Feb and to celebrate there was a classical concert on Sunday evening in one of Christchurch's parks. We went along and had a lovely time chilling out listening to the music. There were also fireworks at the end of the evening but seeing as it doesn't get dark until 9.30pm here, we got too cold waiting and headed back to the hotel!

Whilst in Australia, we had heard about some $1 campervan and car rentals in New Zealand so we decided to check it out on the internet. It turned out to be vehicle relocations where the hire companies need their vehicles to be taken to another part of the country for the next hire. They charge very low fees for travellers to take them so everyone wins! We booked a 2 berth campervan which needed taking from Christchurch to Picton and included free fuel and insurance and did not cost us a dime! We were slightly nervous about the laid-back attitude......we had to make our way to someone's driveway where the van was waiting with the keys hidden in the letterbox at the end of the drive and no-one had taken any details of our license, passport etc.......but it worked out totally fine and we delivered the van to Picton on time and without it having cost us anything!

As we left Christchurch we spotted a hitch hiker with a beautifully crafted sign saying "Hamner".. which just happened to be where we were going. So we picked up Jan the German and gave him a lift to Hamner Hot Springs. Jan had been in NZ for 9 months and was soon heading home to Germany for Uni. We felt good after we had dropped him off as this would help our "good Karma" after all the lifts we got in Thailand (mainly crammed in the back of pick-up vans with an assortment of Thai families)!

The scenery on the drive was absolutely spectacular, with pine-covered mountains and glacial valleys reminding us of Scotland. We stopped in Hanmer Springs which, as the name suggests, has hot springs which have been channeled into several pools of different temperatures and mineral content. We spent a lovely 3 hours wallowing in the gorgeous warm water and having lunch.

We arrived in Picton in the pouring rain and swiftly found ourselves a room for the night in a self-contained flat owned by a backpacker hostel. There were 2 bedrooms but we were lucky that there was no-one else there so we had the whole flat to ourselves!

Picton is the start point for the Queen Charlotte Track, a 71km track following the mountains along the Queen Charlotte Sound. We decided that we would attempt to hike it carrying all our stuff, so we spent yesterday sorting out provisions and booking the ferry that would take us to the start of the trail. Fortunately the hostel has agreed to store some of our uneccesary gear which has somewhat lightened our packs!

Yesterday afternoon the sun came out and we hiked some of the walking trails around Picton. There were some spectacular views out over the sounds, and there were no mosquitos, leeches, enormous flies, snakes or lizards to contend with!

There were however CICADAS! These horrible insects are a hybrid of a massive fly and a grass hopper and they make an insufferable clicking/buzzing noise in the trees. We assumed that we would not have to worry about any unpleasant fauna in NZ (after the tigers/elephants/leaches/ticks/mozzies/cockroaches/dogs etc in SE Asia & Oz), however these ciccadas are our new nemesis! We think they make all this noise in the trees to attract a mate, then mate and drop down dead! As you are walkig along they will fall out of trees onto your head and it never fails to shock and surprise! (They have other modes of causing distress which John encountered on the hike along the Queen Charlotte Track - see next entry!). However despite the cicadas, we were suitably enamoured with the Marlborough Sounds to consider hiking the Queen Charlotte track. This afternoon, we set off!

Photos: RTWT 2011-2012

john_hockley — Thu, 9 Feb 2012 08:10:00 GMT

It's raining, it's pouring.........

john_hockley — Wed, 1 Feb 2012 19:02:00 GMT

We've been really unlucky with the weather here in Australia. It's been extremely wet, resulting in quite a lot of flooding in Queensland and this has meant we haven't been able to do everything we wanted to.

We arrived at the Mon Repos turtle hatchery just outside Bundaberg in a monsoonal storm with rain pounding down and were hoping that this may have kept some of the tourists away. Unfortunately this was not the case and we were allocated to group five. We took seats in the information centre and settled down to wait. The first group went off and returned an hour later soaked through but having seen a turtle nesting. Despite looking, as Bill Bryson puts it "like a giant blue condom" in our head-to-toe waterproofs, we were extremely glad of them, even just to get from the centre to the toilets! Slowly the other groups were called to visit the nesting turtles until it got to 10pm, when the rangers announced that the road back to Bundaberg was rapidly flooding and they were closing the centre. So, we never did get to see the turtles....next time. The drive back to the motel was interesting as there was loads of water over the roads, we only had a Hyundai Getz and Australians insist on driving their utes with a closeup view of the inside of your boot!

Fotunately there was not too much flooding on the major roads so the next morning we headed for Maryborough, the first settlement in Queensland (and the only big town between Bundaberg & Brisbane so we hoped it had a cinema if the rain started again!). We went off on a self-guided walking tour of Maryborough, given to us by the slightly over-zealous owner of the caravan site we were staying in (NOT camping, too wet for that). There are several colonial buildings in Maryborough, which also has a claim to fame as the place where the author of Mary Poppins was born. The next day looked slightly less wet so we went in search of somewhere to walk. Unfortunately everywhere was so saturated with water we either couldn't walk there or were attacked by mosquitos so we beat a hasty retreat to our lovely cabin in the caravan park and drank tea and slept the day away!

The next day we saw some blue sky and were so excited we drove to Noosa, a lovely seaside resort on the Sunshine (ha, ha some kind of joke??) Coast. We had a lovely walk round Noosa National Park and the sun appeared! We also saw our first snake which disappeared into the bushes pronto when it heard us coming along the path. It was fairly sizeable and we were later told that it was "probably just a python".

From Noosa we headed along the Sunshine Coast trying to find somewhere to stay. This area is pretty built up and we ended up driving into the Northern suburbs of Brisbane where weariness made us take up the most dated, dirty and dodgy motel room yet! The bed had a radio in the headboard, the tv could only cope with 2 channels and there were the same tiles in the bathroom as Sarah's parents had in the original bathroom of the old house! We left pretty early the next day and headed to D'Aguila National Park, only 10km from the centre of Brisbane but feels very rural. We drove high into the mountains and stopped for a walk only to get covered with leeches.....yes you've guessed it, a result of the recent heavy rain. We backtracked to the car and drove back down the mountain where we managed to find a nice walk minus any leeches, but with 3 huge goannas (much better).

We are now in Brisbane and have returned the plucky little Getz to Europcar. We had a wander round the city, walked in the botanical gardens, had a swim in the lagoon at the city beach and rode down the river on a City Cat. We are now off in search of a kangeroo steak for dinner (or failing that then just plain old beef steak) before heading off to Christchurch, New Zealand tomorrow!

Heading South to Brisbane

john_hockley — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:41:00 GMT

We left Airlie Beach after the cruise to begin our long journey southwards to Brisbane, from where we are due to fly to New Zealand in a week. After an overnight stop just off the Bruce highway, we headed inland to see some of Queensland away from the coast. The drive was amazing, with hardly any cars on the road we felt like we were properly in the "outback"! We also saw many wild animals that we would definitely not have seen on the main highway.....roos, a huge (squashed) snake and some emus.

We arrived in a non-descript place called Marlborough, back on the Bruce Highway, where we stopped for the night in a $40 motel room (bargain!). The next day we decided to stop in Rockhampton to purchase another camera and to triple back-up our other photos to prevent another lost-photo panic situation! After buying a sparkly new, GPS-enabled, waterproof, dust-proof, shock-proof (& hopefully John-proof) camera, we stopped for a coffee to sneakily charge the new battery and then it was back on the road.

We headed to Agnes Water and Town of 1770, which is where Captain Cook first landed in Queensland in ....1770! After a quick walk on Agnes Water beach, where we watched people surfing, we headed to 1770 and found the Captain Cook memorial. We had a lovely walk along an almost-deserted beach, interspersed with rocks. The water was really calm as the beach is partway between the open sea and a river estuary. We were thinking of camping, however the dark rainclouds approaching convinced us that it was worth another night in a motel!

The next day it was slightly less rainy so we decided to go to Deepwater National Park to camp on the beach as we'd heard you could watch nesting turtles after dark there. Unfortunately, from Agnes Water this meant a huge detour south as only 4WD vehicles could access the park from the town. The road we were driving along kept warning of floods but each creek we passed was well below the level of the road. We eventually reached a small flood but our Hyundai Getz gamely took on the waters and we got through only to be confronted with a much deeper flood. A local guy in a V8 ute pulled up behind us and informed us that we might get through this flood but definitely not the one after that....or the one after that (our Aussie summer was starting to seem almost as wet as the UK ones... though a lot hotter!). So we abandoned the idea of heading to the park, retraced our steps to the main road and headed instead for Bundaberg.

It happened to be Australia Day, and it was lovely to see all the Union Jacks on people's cars and in their front gardens....shame they spoiled it by putting it onto a background of weird stars. The sun finally came out for the afternoon and we went for a walk along the coast from the Mon Repos turtle hatchery, where we booked tickets to see the turtles nesting and hatchlings making their way to the sea tonight.

We woke up this morning to black clouds and it has been raining most of the day. However, this presented us with the perfect excuse to visit the very famous Bundaberg Rum Distillery, an excellent indoor attraction! We had a tour of the distillery and tasted the molasses used to make the rum, and then the finished product itself. We tried some of an $80 reserve rum, a red rum and a rum liquor before we remembered that someone had to drive and we should stop there! Tomorrow we're back on the road south.

Wonderful Whitsundays and spectacular Great Barrier Reef!

john_hockley — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:53:00 GMT

We made it to Airlie Beach, the main stopping-off point for the Whitsunday Islands, and popped into the National Park office for advice on which of the 74 islands to visit. The islands are within the Great Barrier Reef marine park so we wanted somewhere with good snorkling and good bushwalking which was also quiet! We settled on South Molle island, closest to the mainland and only a 15 minute boat ride away. We were told it had fab bushwalking and we could snorkel off the beach. After checking tides (boats can only land on the beaches at high tide so they don't damage the coral) we were told we had to be at the marina for 6.15am the next day! We spent the afternoon swimming in the Airlie Beach lagoon, a gorgeous man-made swimming lagoon right next to the beach.....the reason for not swimming in the sea will become apparent soon!

We arrived at the marina the next morning and were advised that we needed to hire "stinger suits" for snorkelling due to the presence of marine stingers in the water this time of year. The suits turned out to be incredibly sexy lycra all-in-ones complete with hood and mits and a photo may well become available for your amusement soon! The stingers can be potentially deadly and need immediate medical attention...so considering we were camping on a deserted beach and had no mobile we decided to hire them (as well as purchasing a litre of vinegar to treat the stings).

When we got to the island, we had just put the tent up when it began to pour with rain so we spent an hour dozing with fingers crossed that it would pass over soon. Fortunately it did so we donned our stinger suits and went into the lovely warm water. The snorkelling was fantastic and we saw loads of different types of coral (stag-horn coral, brain coral) and quite a few fish. We did see one small jellyfish but we floated over the top of it so no problem!

Seeing as we'd had such an early start, we still had loads of the day left so we followed one of the bush trails into the centre of the island. South Molle Island is mostly national park so the walks were really well signposted. We decided to walk to the other side of the island, about 4km away, where we'd heard there was a resort and so potentially an open bar serving cold beer (did we mention it was hot???). The tracks wound their way through eucalypt forest and over open grassland with wondeful views of the other islands, until we came to the resort. However, there appeared to be no-one there and we wandered around calling hello until someone at reception answered. They told us that they were in the process of shutting down for the wet season but that the bar would open in 10minutes for the sail-boat crews who moor off the resort beach. 2 cold beers later we were ready to hike back to our camp and cook our dinner of chilli-con-carne (tinned) on our trusty trangia! After we had eaten we saw several flying foxes leaving their colony on the island to feed.

The next day we woke early and were out on the bush trails by 8am.....our plan was to get going in the early morning to beat the heat! We hiked to a look-out called Spion Kop from which we had great views of the other Whitsunday Islands. Back at our beach camp we put on our suits for another snorkling session. We'd been in the water about 5 minutes when John felt something brush along his arm....on closer inspection, it turned out to be a jellyfish (of the dangerous box-jellyfish type!) about 15cm in diameter. Cue much panic and inhaling of salt water as we hurried to turn and swim in the other direction! We saw another of these in that direction so we tried a third direction only to see a HUGE jellyfish about 40cm accross....we quickly decided that was enough snorkelling for the time being and splashed our way back to dry land! N.B We did manage to go in again later when the tide was out and again had spectacular views of the coral.

Due to the tides, the boat picked us up the next morning at 7.30am and we were back in Airlie Beach by 8am. We had enjoyed the snorkelling on the island so much that we decided to fork out to go on a trip to the Outer Great Barrier Reef, where there are many more fish and more undisturbed coral. We left the following day and cruised out on a high-speed catamaran through the Whitsundays. As soon as we left the protection of the islands, the sea became a bit choppy and both of us were feeling rather green for a while! When we got to the reef the boat moored to a permanent pontoon, with an underwater observatory, semi-submersible boat and huge snorkling area. Almost immediately we were lucky enough to see 3 sea turtles swimming around in the azure blue water. We were told later that after they hatch they head out to the open ocean for 30-40years before they head back to breed so the ones we saw must have been at least that old! Heading down into the underwater observatory, we saw an amazing colourful variety of fish....it was almost like being in a sealife centre! This made us desperate to get into the water so off we went (complete with sexy suits!). Because we were snorkling offshore there was a huge current which took us a bit by surprise but there were ropes to drag yourself along by so we eventually managed to get away from the pontoon. Once we did we were rewarded by views of the most spectacular fish, including irridescent Parrot Fish, which have a parrot-like beak they use to eat the algae on the coral (we could hear them doing this!).

On returning to the boat we were ready for the buffet BBQ lunch and having worked up quite an appetite we proceeded to devour an significant proportion of Queensland's beef output (plus a little bit of salad). We decided that we needed to wait a while before snorkelling as it is likely we would have just sunk or been harpooned by scuba divers, therefore we did a short trip round the reef in the semi-submersible while our lunch was ruminating. We were both more confident on our second snorkelling session and despite the strong tides we investigated the shallow reef and the coral shelf that dropped down into the deep blue abyss... here we saw huge black ugly groper fish. There were also many beautiful and very large giant clams on the reef....their "lips" were a multitude of irridescent colours. We managed to take a few pictures of the reef with our "waterproof" camera.....unfortunately once back on the pontoon, we discovered it is no longer waterproof (thankfully we later found out that we hadn't lost the pictures).

Australian adventures!

john_hockley — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:32:00 GMT

There are 2 main things we have noticed about Australia......it is EXPENSIVE and not many places have free internet so we are now going to try to remember all that we have done over the last 2 weeks in the next couple of journal entries!

We landed in Sydney at 7am on Wed 4th Jan and caught the train into the city ($16 each! and we couldn't haggle them down.....we tried $8 for us both but sadly they wouldn't have any of it). Our hotel room wasn't going to be ready until 2pm so we wandered into the Botanical Gardens for a fabulous view of the Sydney harbour bridge and opera house. It was still pretty early and not many people were around so we found a nice quiet shady spot under a tree and both fell asleep for a couple of hours. We spent the rest of the day wandering round Sydney, which is actually quite a small city and deciding what we were going to do the next day.

The following day we caught a ferry through Sydney Harbour to Manly, with great views of the opera house as we sailed right past. At Manly we wandered over to look at Manly beach, known for its great surf. The beach was packed as many Aussies were still on their summer holidays so we beat a hasty retreat and began the 9km Manly walk, which follows the ins and outs of the harbour round to Spit Bridge. It was a fantastic walk, taking in great views of the harbour, past Aboriginal carvings of Kangeroos and fish, and through bushland (even though Sydney is fairly built-up, Sydney Harbour National Park is really well preserved and has retained some of the natural bush). We saw plenty of lizards and were constantly on the look-out for snakes!

The next day we visited the Hyde Park Barracks museum, which is where many of the convicts brought to Sydney from England were taken. Some convicts were transported to Australia for really small crimes such as stealing a cow! They also had databases where you could search to see if you had a convict ancestor. The search for "Hockley" brought up no matches but there were 9 matches for "Bryant".........

That evening, we headed to Surry Hills in Sydney to stay with the lovely Sharon, a friend of Sarah's from university, for the weekend. She & Cillian have a gorgeous apartment and they took us out for dinner that evening at a lovely Japanese restaurant. We then met up with Dhiren (another friend from uni), who we were not expecting to see at all! Many beers were consumed and a good evening had by all!

Waking with slightly sore heads, we had a leisurely morning and spent the afternoon wandering round Sydney with Sharon & Cillian, who showed us many of the sights we had missed whilst on our own.....including a fabulous Irish teahouse which did the most enormous scones with jam, yum!

On Sunday morning, we said goodbye to Sharon and Cillian and headed off on the train into the Blue Mountains, 2 hours west of Sydney. We arrived in Katoomba, found a hostel and set off to look at the spectacular views John remembered form his last trip here. We found a walk following the clifftops, but unfortunately a section of it was closed due to bushfire so we had to walk part on the road (we later heard on the radio that the police had arrested a man for deliberately lighting it). When we got back on the trail it hugged the incredibly high cliffline, and several minutes were spent with Sarah trying to persuade John to come down onto the path. Alas, she had no success and they agreed to meet at the Echo Point lookout, which John could reach via the road (JH - it seems that my vertigo is determined to persist despite numerous attempts to scare it away! I actually have no fear of heights... it is the fear of falling and dying that seems to bother me!). Echo Point looks out over the Three Sisters, three enormous rocky outcrops set against the magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The Blue Mountains also do look blue! Apparantly this is due to the oil from the Eucalyptus trees in the air.

Katoomba was a little bit touristy for us so we left the next day and made our way to the quieter Blackheath, where we booked into a lovely camping ground close to some good bushwalking. We set off through the bush towards Govett's leap, which was on the cliffline. We saw some gorgeous red and green parrots and hundreds of lizards. However, we climbed steadily higher, and came round a corner onto the cliff path. The views were amazing (SB - I don't think I have ever been that high and still been on solid ground!). But John could be persuaded to go no further so he waited on a rock whilst Sarah walked round to Govett's Leap, a huge waterfall cascading over the enormous cliffs. Needless to say we headed back to the campsite the way we had come!

We wanted to do a slightly longer hike the next day (after all, there was...and still is....the SE Asian weight to lose!) but we got spectacularly lost trying to find the trail and walked round a good deal of Blackheath! Finally we found it and headed off into the "Grand Canyon". We walked through the canyon but again the trail started to twist higher so John headed back to the road and Sarah carried on. John then spent the next hour in a panic assuming that Sarah had somehow slipped off the cliff, and that he shouldn't have let her go on alone, and was relieved to see her at the agreed rendevous point!

We had decided to hire a car as we wanted to try to get to some more out of the way national parks in Australia and we only had 1 month to get up into Queensland before we fly to NZ. So the next day it was back into Sydney to pick up the car.