Onwards, to the land down under...
AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 25 March 2010 | Views [611]
3/25/2010 10:09 AM
Off to Melbourne this morning. Woohoo. Trying to write a quick something before heading out the door …
The rest of our day on 3/23 we pretty relaxing. After a little nap, we made our way to one of those real restaurant places, and I finally got to taste some prime New Zealand lamb. Dang that was good! It wasn’t a lamb shank, nor a chop … not really sure what it was … just a bunch of chunks of lamb with bits of sweet potato and some sauce. But holy crap it was amazing. The lamb was super tender … didn’t even really taste like “lamb,” just great.
That was pretty much it for our night. We did, however, swing by a sweets shop on our way back to the hostel. They had dozens of different kinds of licorice; for some reason I wanted some nice authentic black licorice. Unfortunately, the one I chose was nothing like I wanted it to be. Doh!
Yesterday was a great day. We started out by returning our car. When we returned it, however, they were very keen on having us fill out this accident report for that “hit and run” someone did to us in the parking lot at Fox Glacier. We regret reporting the incident now because even though it wasn’t our fault, they charged us $100 NZ. We should be getting that money back as soon as the insurance deals with it all, however. But it’s just another hassle to keep on top of. Stupid car rentals places. Oh, and on top of that, they charged us $40 for some “administration” fee for our ticket. Now … that is one we can dispute heavily b/c nowhere in the contract does it say they can do that; they can only charge $40 for unpaid traffic or parking fines, and as of now, we have every intention of fighting the traffic fine. Bastards!
Anyway, by the time we finished with all that stuff, it was about 1:30pm, and we hadn’t eating a thing; so we hopped on the shuttle back to town, and swung by Fergburger. This place had been recommended to us by a few people. It’s basically a place that serves giant delicious hamburgers. Perfect. We both went for the original, and dang was that thing tasty (and huge). It’s also the first time I’ve had a burger where the bun covers the patty the whole time you’re eating it – score. Not sure if there was anything really special about it; just a delicious burger; but it definitely hit the spot. However, the fries were a different story. They’d probably be tasty all on their own, but everywhere in NZ adds probably 1 cup of salt to each batch of fries --- so it basically tastes like you’re eating a salt stick. OK at first … but unbearable a few fries into it.
Afterwards, we headed up to the gondola ride that we pushed to today. We also booked three “luge rides.” …
Well right now we’re sitting at the airport waiting for our flight to Christchurch, and then Melbourne. However, I have no idea if what I’m typing is showing up on the screen, because the screen is broken. I think I left it in a good spot last time I wrote though, so this should be showing up. Ha. Anyway, back to yesterday …
We got to the gondola place around 2:30pm, and boarded a quick trip to the top of the mountain. The view from up there was amazing. You’re about 500m above Queenstown, which sits right beside a beautiful greenish / blue lake Behind the lake are dozens of snowcapped mountains. We took a photo that looked like a postcard … or perhaps like one of those fake photos where you jut insert yourself. But man was it freezing cold when we got to the top. We headed right indoors to grab a “long black” (NZ for coffee) and a latte. After that, we stepped back out into the cold, and headed for the chairlift that would take us to the luge spot. However, on our way, we passed by “The Ledge” bungee jumping. They have a bungee jump on this mountain that is a 47m drop, but 400m above the city. Wicked! Also, you had to take a running start to jump off this platform, so it’s a little more intense then just taking a standing leap. However, bungee jumping is crazy expensive, so as much as we wanted to (and would have if we had the money) we couldn’t bring ourselves to but two tickets. Doh – next time.
The chair lift to the top of the luge stuff was even colder than when we got off the gondola. And if we thought that was cold, we were in for a treat with the luge ride down because with the wind whipping at our fingers, I’m surprised we didn’t get frost bite. Good thing we’re headed to warm Australia --- also, we just checked the weather in Brisbane, and it’s mid 80s all week … niiiiiice.
We had a blast on the luge ride; they even took our photos at the finish line. We didn’t know they were doing that at first, so we made sure to make funny faces for the second and third time --- hahahhaha … Jess’s face was freaking hilarious the second time around; she looked like a “special” 5 year old that just won a race against herself. Glorious photo.
We definitely had to buy that photo, along with one that they snapped of us on the chairlift riding up; we didn’t know they were taking a photo, and that picture just shows how ridiculously cold we were.
We bought a couple souvenirs on our way down, and then headed to the main street to do a bit of shopping. Naturally, we gravitated towards the Quicksilver store, where Jess almost bought a Quicksilver NZ sweatshirt, but we later opted for a “design your sown shirt.” It’s much more personal, and much more fun to have a shirt like that. We had every intention of making our own dinner for that night, but we stopped by a really neat bar / restaurant on the wharf. We had a couple beers, looked at the menu, and just couldn’t resist ordering some food (rather than walking all the way to the grocery store, picking stuff out, walking all the way back to the hostel, making it, cleaning up, etc.) Oh well, our last night in Queenstown, why not “go big” for only $15/pp. The dinner was delicious --- exactly what Jess had been craving all trip long. And the beer was quite good too. It was the first real hoppy beer I’d had on the south island; and naturally I found it the night before we leave! Ha. Ahh well; it’s a big brand so they might have it in Australia. (Mac’s Hop Rocker).
When we got back to the hostel, we finished getting our first week in Australia organized, booked our Melbourne stay, and then headed to the room to pack --- oh man, what a disaster!! The room was about 10x10, and there were clothes and suitcases in every square inch of the room. Haha. Such a daunting task. It took us about 2 hours to get it all sorted, but we got it done nonetheless. Then it was a quick shower and off to bed.
This morning was a fairly successful morning. We got out of the door in time to catch the bus. And we even had time to swing by town to pick up Jess’s sweatshirt from the custom shirt store. Now we’re at the airport, boarding our plane in about one hour. I just walked to the bathroom and passed by a group of officials / family members standing around someone on a stretcher. They were holding a red sheet up to shield people form watching, but it looks like they were doing some sort of reviving thing. I heard the person make a few sounds, kinda sounded like they were having a seizure or struggling or something. When I walked into a store, I asked the lady behind the counter and she said that the person had a heart attack, but they got her breathing again. Then they wheeled her out of the airport and that was the last of it. Kinda a weird experience --- I hope that person is ok, but it definitely weirded me out a bit. However, I’m sure Mike sees stuff 100 times worse on a daily basis, so … I suppose I’ll just wish the best and move on. They family didn’t look too worried anyway, so maybe that’s a good sign.
Oh, when we got into the airport, we were stopped to fill out a quick “tourism” survey on or stay in Queenstown. Jess immediately said no, but me (being the sucker for random approaching people that I am) said sure, and we got two free drinks out of the deal too. Score. It only took about 15 minutes and it was basically me rating our trip to Queenstown. Easy stuff. And … well … that’s about it. Just waiting for this plane to arrive.
Hopefully all this got jotted down ok…
3/26/2010 12:03 AM
Awesome, everything I wrote blind at the airport showed up! Ha. Save for tons of spelling errors. Anyway, the trek to Melbourne was a little rough, but not too bad. We had a small twin engine prop plane that took us from Queenstown to Christchurch. Dang that thing was loud; when we took off I couldn’t hear anything but propellers. It got a little better once we got to altitude, but by then, poor Jessie wasn’t feel too hot. We had crazy up and down turbulence on take off, so that wasn’t good. But luckily the flight was only 40 mins. We were on the ground in no time, and then the guy sitting across the aisle from us began loudly vomiting (gargling would be a good description of the noise) into his vomit bag. Arguably one of the grossest things we’ve experience on the trip so far (next to the sulfur and gannet smells). Hah – yuck. That didn’t help Jess’s motion sick situation much, but we didn’t stick around there too long.
Our flight to Melbourne was much better. Only 3.5 hours long, and quite smooth. Air New Zealand is by far my favorite airline. All their planes are new (or newly renovated). The seats are very comfy, and they all have wicked up to date electronic TVs behind the seats w/games, movies, TV shows, etc. Really cool. And we always seem to get a meal. Even on this short 3.5 hour flight, we got a delicious beef pastry thing with a risotto salad and ice cream for dessert. Sweet deal. Jess and I watched a couple shows on the plane, and then before we knew it, we were descending. And wow was that a cool descent into Melbourne. The coast looked absolutely gorgeous. Huge golden beaches, a bunch of intricate bays, really neat.
We got through customs in no time, and boarded a “sky bus” to take us to the hostel. We were very surprised at how warm the weather was. Definitely shorts and t-shirt weather; even after sundown. However, the air was very smoky because they have some crazy fires going on north of Melbourne.
We found the hostel OK, checked in, grabbed some Thai food, booked a Penguin Parade experience for tomorrow and a wine tour for Saturday … and … that’s it so far.
Kinda tired … will write more when there’s something more exciting happening.
Oh … but … WE’RE IN AUSTRALIA!!! Finally. Man we’ve wanted to see this country for a while now, and I can’t believe we’re actually here. Hope it lives up to all the hype I’ve built around it in my head!
