Travelling Post No. 60 - Around the World in 424 days!

Whilst it might not quite be so impressive as 80 days, and I didn't visit as many countries as Jules Verne's hero, it is still impressive by my standards.

I have been home for over 3 months now, and yes, you lucky readers, I have finally gotten around to finishing my blog.

Before I tell you the highs of my trip it is it time to tell you how I arrived home. On 29th December I flew from Vancouver I flew to LA, from their I flew to London arriving n 30th December; then after a long wait at Heathrow I boarded my final flight to Manchester where my Aunt Catherine (with whom I am indebted) picked me up and drove me to her house. It was one long trip!

As far as I knew the only people that knew were my Aunt and a couple of others; I was aiming to surprise not just family but friends. My plan, since August, was to arrive the day before, get a good nights sleep and surprise people on New Years Eve, sadly a certain brothers girlfriend keeps secrets as well as a sieve holds water, so most of my friends knew as did my brother. What is that phrase? - Best laid plans and all that! The secret had been kept from most of my family though, my mum's shrieks as she saw me proved that, and I had a great return home NYE.

So now onto the best bits of my trip. Like all good awards I have left my reasoning unexplained, for the most part anyway.

Best City

Sydney

Runners Up: Vancouver, San Francisco, San Diego and Portland

Worst: LA


Best Country

New Zealand

Runner up: Australia

Worthy mention: Hutt River Province for just being so Australian without actually being part of Australia. Even though the Australian government doesn't recognise you I do.


Best trips within the trip
(my coach trip around NZ doesn't count)
3 day Ayers Rock tour

Runner Up: Seven day tour of Australia's West Coast

Worst: Fraser Island - what was the point of going there?


Best Day Trip
Swimming with Manta Rays and on the Ningaloo Reef

Runners Up: Hunter Valley Wine Tour, Ice climbing, Milford Sound

Worst: Great Barrier Reef, just because it was so disappointing, avoid and go to the West coast if you can

Best activity that wasn't quite a day trip, thus does not count for that category

A two way tie between the 10 second Bungee jump and the 5 minute Skydive

Runner Up: White water rafting, Sheep Shearing

Best Museum, as visits to these do not count as activities or day trips they are 'visits'
Musical Project & Science Fiction Museum, Seattle

Best Hostel

The Green Turtle, Seattle
(Free all you can eat breakfast of fruit, brownies and more every morning)

Runner Up: YHA Cairns
(When I arrived after 3 days of being on a coach I had sausage butties ready for me, thank you Lucy & Ruth)

The Worst: The Fat Camel, Auckland (lets hope that isn't classed as libelous)

Best cinema

The open air cinema in Sydney of course.


(some of the) Best photos that I took (so none of me)

Hong Kong Gardens, Nov '06

Sydney Opera House at night, Nov 2006

Hillside cemetery on the path from Coogee to Bondi, Jan '07

When England gloriously beat Australia, Jan '07

At the butterfly palace in Melbourne Zoo, May '07

Dolphins at Monkey Mia, Aug '07

Yardie Creek Gorge, Aug '07

Mindil Beach, Sept '07

Jumping Crocs, Northern Territories, Sept '07

Uluru at Sunset, Sept '07

Sunset in the Outback, Sept '07

Opera House and Bridge, Oct '07


Sydney at night from the Skytower, Oct '07


Rotorua Mud Pools, Nov ,07


Waiotap Thermal Wonderland, Nov '07


Gollum's Pool, Nov '07


Pancake Rocks, Nov '07


Lake Matheson, Nov '07


Wanake, Nov' 07


Mirror Lakes, Nov '07


Milford Sound, Nov '07


Stewart Island, NOv '07


The steepest street in the world, Nov '07


Random lake on the way to Christchurch, Nov '07


Balboa Park, San Diego, Dec '07


San Francisco, Dec '07


San Francisco in the rain, Dec '07


Alcatraz, Dec '07


Seattle at night, Dec '07


Vancouver, Dec '07

Vancouver vs Calgary, Dec '07

Travelling Post 54 - The South Island in pictures, just the odd highlight

Travelling Post 53 - Around the North Island

I'm just going to briefly go over what I've done on the North Island since the Hot Water Pools.

From Hahei we headed to Raglan for the second night of the tour and then Maketu [spkn: Mak-e-tu] for the third. At Maketu we were treated to an excellent cultural evening. A local family performed some traditional dances for us and then taught the lads the Haka and girls the Poi.

The following night I hopped off the bus and spent the night in nearby Roturua. Roturua is situated on a a bed of geothermal activity and smells very badly of sulphur. Before getting back on the bus I walked around Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where I saw Lady Knox Geyser erupting [pictured] and an array of heated water pools of varying colours and smells plus boiling mud pools. All very different to anything you'll find in Oz or back home.























After being driven to Taupo I spent the afternoon relaxing and the next day I completed a couple of easy, short walks around a Tongariro National Park.

From Tongariro National Park the bus headed to Wellington, the nation's capital and a much nicer city than Auckland. I had intended to spend part of my birthday doing a Lord of the Rings tour, but it wasn't running that day so I did that the day before. Satisfying my inner geek, the tour was interesting - for me anyhow - and from both the tour and my views of just the North Island's landscape it is easy to see why LOTR was filmed in NZ.

Next Stop: The South Island

Travelling Post 52 - On the road again.

After 3 nights and 2 days in Auckland I left the city behind for the rest of NZ. I'd booked myself on a Stray bus, which is a hop on hop off tour. The tours first destination was Hahei which we got to via a lucky tree and windy roads. We arrived in Hahei in the late afternoon and went on a coastal walk to Cathedral Cove, before having a BBQ dinner. Late evening we boarded the minibus for Hot Water Beach. This was pretty great, we dug holes in the sand and due to geothermal activity the water was hot, in some points to hot to touch. Certainly one of the more different evenings I've spent on my travels.

Above, digging the hole.

Below, Relaxing after the work was done, sadly the beer in the picture is not mine I forgot to bring some.

Travelling Post 51 - Auckland

I landed in Auckland sometime in the mid afternoon and eventually ended up at my accommodation a couple of hours later. My first nights stay was at the Nomads Fat Camel Hostel and, thankfully, I only booked one night. It took ages for me to get checked in as the staff were slow and they only had one machine to encode the key cards, then they sent me to a room where I had to ask fellow backpackers which bed was free and strip it myself. When i made my bed I discovered they hadn't even given me all the sheets I needed so had to go back to reception for more, and then the people in my room were amongst the biggest idiots I've had the experience of meeting on my trip so far. At 1.30 they came in drunk and loud, then left again, then came back and so on for the next hour before I gave up and went downstairs to read before they went to sleep. Safe to say I checked out there early the next morning and moved to Auckland City YHA, which was a vast improvement, but my first night in NZ didn't look like a good omen.

After not getting a good nights sleep I still couldn't waste the day so I wandered around town, looking in an Art Gallery (not my thing) then checked out the excellent Maritime Museum and the equally excellent Auckland Museum,

On my second day in Auckland I took a free Stray tour of the city where I learnt Auckland has the 4th biggest city sprawl in the world. Their comparatively small population of only 1.4million obviously has a policy of 'why build up when you can build up across' and why not I say, it makes for a good view. I got to see someone bungee jump from the Skytower, the highest building in the Southern hemisphere which was OK. The tour also drove us around the city, pointing out places to get a cheap or free haircut, and other such useful information as well as stopping off at Mt Eden for some great city views, a memorial for the first NZ Labor Prime Minister, and I got to walk along the Harbour Bridge to watch a free fall bungee jump. The tour was really interesting and great value, unlike some things I've paid for whilst away a didn't want to I wouldn't have minded having to pay for this.