Round the World with Ann and Katie

We spent our last morning in Melbourne at the aquarium which was quite interesting and entertaining. The best thing was watching divers feeding the sharks and rays. Our flight to Christchurch was OK except that there was no food provided. On a previous flight which was not supposed to have food we had a very nice meal and free wine but we had to buy a rather miserable sandwich on this one. We arrived in Christchurch at about 11pm and had to unpack all our stuff again to have our boots and tent checked (biosecurity). So it was very late when we finally arrived at our hostel. There is not a huge amount to do in Christchurch really. Once you have had a look at the cathedral and been to the museum that is about it. But in the afternoon we went to the Royal New Zealand Agricultural Show which was good fun. It was huge and you could have spent the whole day there. We watched some sheep dog trials and looked at all the livestock. The merino rams were enormous – more like bears. And there were loads of tractors of all vintages – (Charlie eat your heart out!). There was a huge parade of all the animals that had won prizes and they paraded around to a pipe band – home from home.
The next day we caught the bus for Queenstown. It was a very scenic run which took about 6 hours and we saw Mt Cook in the distance. We had a hostel right on the lake with excellent views. This was to be our jumping off point for the Milford Track. We had a walk up Queenstown Hill which gave great views over the mountains including Ben Lomond which we determined to climb on our return to Queenstown. Then we started our long-awaited trip to the Milford Track- we had booked our places on 1st July on a computer in St Petersburg! We caught another bus to Te Anau where we spent the night at the YHA before catching yet another bus to Te Anau Downs where the boat leaves for the start of the Track. The boat trip takes just over an hour and then we were on the track. We got off the boat just after 3pm and it was only a short walk to the first hut -about 4km. The track goes through beechwoods for a lot of the time. The trees are covered in moss and lichens and the undergrowth is more dense than in the Chilterns beechwoods. It was very green: they get up to 7 metres of rain a year here. But we were on the trail for 4 days and had no rain at all. We were so lucky because sometimes you have to wade down the track or it becomes impassable altogether. We arrived at the hut at about 5pm. There were two big dorms and a well equipped kitchen. Gas rings are provided but you have to take your own pans etc. There is cold water only but the huts are very comfy. We were getting to know our fellow walkers when it became apparent that a lot of people had left the dining room. They had all gone to bed and it was only about 8.30pm! Anyone who has been away to a hostel or bunkhouse with me will know that I generally turn into a pumpkin well before everyone else so I was staggered. But a few of us stayed up until it got dark and went out for a short walk to see some glow worms which were really pretty – just like little fairy lights. On our return to the dorm everyone was asleep so I couldn’t find my ear plugs in the dark and the guy next to us snored all night long. So we got very little sleep, especially as people started to get up well before six. The days walk was only going to take about 6 hours at the very most so this struck us as quite unnecessary. But we got up – well you might as well after the door has been slammed a few times and people have been rustling plastic bags for ages. The walk to the next hut was mainly flat on a well-made path and stayed close to the river most of the way. Again we were mainly in the woods but there were occasional clearing where you could see the surrounding mountains still with snow on the tops. There were several areas where we weren’t allowed to stop because of the danger of avalanches. Although we had left well after most people we arrived quite early at the next hut and grabbed a couple of bunks in the corner to try to avoid a recurrence of the previous night. The day had been hot and sunny and as we arrived there was an avalanche on the mountain opposite the hut. We were recommended to walk up to the top of MacKinnon Pass that afternoon in case it was cloudy in the morning. So we tackled the zig zag path up to just over 1000m and were rewarded with spectacular views of snow-capped mountains and lush green valleys far below. And lots more avalanches – crack! whoosh! One of our fellow trampers was a guy called Neil who had bleached blonde hair arranged in a sort of a cap of 2″ spikes all over his head. Appearances can be very deceptive as he turned out to be very nice and good fun. The next day we did manage to stay in bed until about 7.30am and were one of the last to set off. It was cloudy so we were glad we had gone up the pass the previous day. We arrived at the top to find everyone trying to take photos in a cloud. The cloud did clear though later and it was another sunny hot day. There is a hut on the pass where you can make hot drinks but we didn’t bother. The path down was quite rough and we had to take a detour to avoid the risk of avalanches. One feature of the pass was mountain lilies which are in fact the world’s largest buttercups. Once we reached the valley floor we were back in the woods again, this time beside the Arthur River. There were lots of rapids and waterfalls on the way down to a day shelter where we had lunch. After that we had a bit of a detour to the Sutherland Falls, the highest waterfall in NZ and the 5th highest in the world (I think). It was very dramatic, roaring down and bouncing off rocks at the bottom. I had a refreshing cold shower in the spray. We then carried on to the last hut where there was a very naughty kea ( a big parrot) that took peoples boots if they didn’t put them out of reach. He strutted about looking for trouble all evening and the following morning. We decided to have a dip in the river but it was freezing. I stayed in for about 20 seconds – Katie got in as far as her knees, the wimp! Again people went to bed at 8pm! We had to be at Sandfly Point to catch the boat across Milford Sound by 2pm but it was only about 5-6 hours walk again so why they all had to get up before 6am again I really don’t know. You don’t want to get there too early and end up waiting for the boat for ages as it is called Sandfly Point for a reason. They are tiny black flies that give you an irritating bite if you are not careful. The walk on the last day was again mainly through woods. It was a lovely walk but if I have one criticism it would be the fact that most of the time you are in woods with very few open views.By the time we caught the boat the weather had deteriorated somewhat and it was all grey and cloudy. But by this time it didn’t really matter. We stayed the night in Milford Sound Lodge and came back to Queenstown this morning. We had dinner at the pub (The Blue Duck) in Milford. It took an hour to get our food (Gordon Ramsay would have delivered a few expletives I’m sure!) but it was nice to have something meaty that we had to chew as a change from porridge and noodles. And the beer wasn’t bad either for the Antipodes.
Tomorrow we intend to climb Ben Lomond and then on Saturday we will be off to Wanaka and will be climbing Mt. Aspiring next week (with any luck!)

The rain didn’t let up all Tuesday night. Call us wimps if you like but there comes a point when camping ceases to be fun anymore. So on Wednesday morning we bailed out (almost literally) and converted the two nights camping we had paid for in advance to one night in a cabin. Bliss! It had its own bathroom and kitchen and a heater (and an electric blanket – which we didn’t use I might add). But it was great to have somewhere warm and dry to sit and not to have to paddle on the way to bed. After transferring our gear to the cabin we set off for the caves at Jenolan about 75km away. We had booked tickets in advance and as part of the deal we got an audio guide to do a self-guided tour of two caves, the Devil’s Coach House and Nettle Cave. The Devil’s Coach House is a huge open cave and the audio guide filled us in on the formation of the caves and on their discovery. They are, in parts, about 130 million years old (I think I have remembered this correctly) and were extensively explored by candlelight originally. In Nettle Cave we saw lots of beautiful crystal formations including some stromalites which looked like lobsters. Those of you who have been paying attention will remember that stromatolites are formed by cyanobacteria (see previous entry on Shark Bay). All the “lobsters” are orientated in the same direction due to the direction of the light in the cave. In the afternoon we had a guided tour of one of the show caves, which we had booked – the River Cave. This took about 2 hours and wound its way through lots of caverns, up and down steps and ladders. There were lots of stunning crystal formation of all different types and colours and, as the name of the cave suggests, an underground river and pools. There are about 10 different caves which are open to the public so the whole complex is very extensive. After that we had a walk down the river (outside the caves) where there were supposed to be platypusses but we didn’t see any. Back at the cabin it was still raining and the cloud was down again so we were really pleased to be able to snuggle into our nice warm bed.
We abandoned the Blue Mountains (still raining) the next morning and headed for Botany Bay. When we got there the sun was out and it was warm so we stripped off all our layers of fleece and put the tent up to dry it out. Botany Bay (as you probably know) is where Captain Cook first landed in Australia. You can see the actual spot. It is all very industrial in the area now but there is a national park as well with monuments to Cook, Banks and Solander. There is also quite a god exhibition called “8 days that changed the world” because that was the length of time they spent in Botany Bay. When the tent was dry we had a short walk along the coast and then had great trouble finding somewhere to stay. Having got the tent dry we didn’t want to get it wet again so we decided to go to a hostel – fully booked. After driving round in ever decreasing circles in the rush hour we finally ended up in a motel for the night.
In the evening there was a programme on the TV about the origins of the Australian accent. It seems that it was the children of assorted immigrants who developed the distinctive Aussie sound. Interestingly they referred to a book called “Let’s Talk Strine” which I remembered from my youth and mentioned that wonderful phrase “Emma Chisset”. The next day it was raining (surprise!) so we decided to go to Featherdale Wildlife Park. We still hadn’t seen any koalas or wombats and this was our last chance. Anyway, there were more koalas than you could shake a stick at, all propped up asleep in trees – magic! And several wombats and a yard full of kangaroos that you could wander through. Some had Joeys in their pouches. It was quite entertaining watching the pouches wriggling about prior to a little head popping out. We also saw an echidna (not being terrorised by a dog this time!). And lots of birds and reptiles. Then Katie drove us into Sydney and we took the car back and found our hostel which was about half an hours walk from the opera house. And we managed to get tickets for a concert! There was a series of concerts conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy – all Rachmaninov. We could only get two separate tickets in the cheap seats right up in the gods. We strolled around the harbour and round an area called the Rocks which is all market stalls and pubs and cafes before heading back to the hostel for dinner.
Saturday was sunny! So we headed off in the direction of Darling Harbour and the National Maritime Museum. The best thing there (for us anyway) had nothing to do with the sea at all. When we had been to the Dolomites a few years ago we had passed through Bolzano where they have a museum containing Otzi the Iceman but it was closed. So we thought we would never get to see the exhibition but there it was in Sydney. Otzi was killed on his way over the Alps about 5300 years ago and was discovered in the early 90s by some moutaineers, well- preserved with all his clothing etc. The exhibition covered all the research they had done on the body trying to find out where he had come from and what his life was like and how he had died.
Then we had a tour of an actual sized replica of the Endeavour, built in the late 80s/early 90s. It was actually quite a small ship. Inside it loooked amazingly clean with hammocks hanging up for the crew and tables laid for dinner – rather cleaner than a lot of the hostels we have stayed in! The officers’ quarters were very cramped with low ceilings and tiny little doors to each of the cabins. They take the replica ship out to sea sometimes.
For a bit more culture we went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales where there was an exhibition of the works of Sydney Nolan. If you are as ignorant as me you probably won’t have heard of him but he is one of Australia’s greatest artists. He was born in 1917 in Victoria. Some of works are of the Goulburn River near where he was born and are really beautiful, including one which is made up of panels which go round nearly 360 degrees. He painted mainly in enamels, PVA and spray paint so the colours are very strong and vibrant. I think he is most famous for his paintings of Ned Kelly but he has also done lots of landscapes of Australia and other parts of the world including China. I thought the paintings were wonderful. To round off a very full day we attended the concert which I mentioned earlier. We heard “The Rock”, the fourth piano concerto and the second symphony. It was brilliant and it didn’t matter that we were so far from the orchestra as the acoustics were very good.
On Sunday we were feeling quite lazy so we walked to the harbour and bought day trip tickets for the ferries. You can have as many rides round the different parts of the harbour as you like. First we went to Manly, which has a famous surfing beach. There were all sorts of competitions between the local surf life saving clubs going on which was quite entertaining. After lunch on the beach we headed back to the quay and got a ferry up river towards Parramatta. This took about an hour and we admired all the expensive houses around the harbour and the yachts and motor boats. I think you have to be quite well off to live in Sydney but we agreed that it was the nicest of the Australian cities we have visited. On our return to Sydney we walked across the Harbour Bridge from which you get good views of the city – somewhat obscured by the fencing to prevent people jumping off.
For our last day in Sydney we decided we had to go to Bondi Beach. Can you visit Sydney and not go to Bondi Beach? It was a bit disappointing though as it was a nice beach but no better than others we had been on (and certainly not a patch on Cable). The waves weren’t even very big. We had a walk along the coastal path where there were about 100 scupltures on display. The path was clogged with coach trips of pensioners and school parties looking at the sculptures. We watched the surfers for a bit before getting the bus back to Sydney. We strolled around the Botanic Gardens for a while before heading back to the hostel to collect our gear to catch the overnight bus to Melbourne. The journey took about 12 hours and we arrived this morning (Tuesday) at about 6.30am. We will be here until tomorrow when we fly out to Christchurch, NZ. So we have to say goodbye to Oz which is a shame as it has been a great place. But I am sure we will be back to see all the things we couldn’t see this time (most of the east coast, Kimberley, the Bungle Bungles, Tasmania………………)
Continuing our theme from China we thought we would list our five best things in Oz.
1. The weather (Blue Mountains excepted!)
2. The Outback
3. The beaches
4. The wild life
5. The wine

There aren’t five bad things that we could think of.
1. There are so many things that want to kill you (jellyfish, crocodiles, spiders, snakes)
2. The beer – nothing but lager
3. Unsealed roads which you can’t go on in a hire car

We picked up the new car which is much smaller than our previous one so we have things piled up on the back seat. It has the same problem as the other one though -the windscreen wipers and indicators are on the wrong side so when you want to turn a corner you generally turn the wipers on. We drove up to Trawool last Monday and spent a couple of days staying with Heather’s sister and her husband, Gerhard not to mention their dog, Black Jack. They live in a lovely valley and have a beautiful house which they built a few years ago. They keep some cattle on about 100 acres of land which includes a stretch of river. They made us feel very welcome and it was great to have some home cooking and some nice comfy beds. Although that part of the country is a lot greener than other parts of Oz that we have visited they have been suffering from drought for a long time. We had some walks in the hills near their place and there were some Highland cattle in one of the fields – just like home! The dog found an echidna so we have been able to tick off another species. There were lots of wombat holes around as well but we didn’t see any wombats.
On Wednesday we drove up to the Mount Buffalo National Park where we should have been able to camp but the campsite in the park wasn’t going to open until Friday. So we camped in a place called Porepunkah just outside the park. We had time in the evening to go into the park and do an interesting walk which involved scrambling down a steep gully with a ladder on a short section. The next day we did the Big Walk which is about 11.5 km one way – we had to do it both ways as we had left the car at the bottom. It is a superb walk, climbing about 1000m through a variety of terrains. The views were great.
During the night it absolutely poured with rain – the heaviest we have had since we set out. Hopefully, some of it fell on Carolyn and Gerhard’s place as well. We had intended to drive to the Snowy Mountains next and do some walking there but the weather forecast was not good so we decided to abandon the walk and just drove through the mountains and camped at a place called Jindabyne on a huge lake. The drive was most enjoyable and Katie tackled her first hairpin bends. On the way we stopped off at the Snowy Mountains hydro electric and irrigation scheme visitor centre where we had a very interesting guided tour and learned about the construction of the scheme. It took 40 years to complete and is huge. On Saturday we continued on to the Blue Mountains, quite along journey. We arrived at Katoomba in the late afternoon in thick fog but eventually managed to find the campsite. There was another huge storm in the evening and night with torrential rain. Katie decided to sleep in the car but I kept faith with the tent and didn’t get wet at all. The following morning was bright and sunny though windy so we decided a walk was in order. The campsite is only a short walk from the cliff top trail which runs for several kilometres. Katoomba is on the edge on the escarpment and there are spectacular views across the Blue Mountains as you walk along the edge. We started out early and had it all to ourselves for a while until we came to a place where coaches can drive up to a lookout. This was of course teeming with Japanese tourists. From the lookout you can see the Three Sisters, three columns of rock on a ridge. We then parted company with the other tourists and headed off down the Giant’s Staircase. This was very step and there were lots of ladders on the steepest bits. We arrived at the bottom of the cliff and found ourselves in temperate rain forest. There were lots of tree ferns and huge eucalyptus trees. We wandered along for several kms before doubling back on a different path until we reached the bottom of the scenic railway which takes all the lazy people up and down the cliff. It is the steepest such railway in the world and was originally used to as transport for the coal mines which used operate in the area until 1945. We climbed to the top of the cliff via steps and ladders and had good views of Katoomba Falls on the way up. I now have lots of photos of waterfalls! After lunch we went back to the campsite and left several fleeces and our waterproof trousers behind as he weather now looked settled. We then had another good walk which visited a place called Lyrebird Dell – but alas no lyrebirds were in residence. This brings us up to yesterday (Monday) when we had a bit of a false start as the trails we originally wanted to use were closed.It also started to rain just as we were about to set out so we had a coffee until it cleared a bit. We had another good walk through the rain forest – a more challenging walk than the previous one both in terms of terrain and navigation but we did see a lyrebird. In the evening we decided to go out for a meal having had enough of camp food for a while. We found a good pub in Katoomba that did food upstairs. We had a pizza and salad but we didn’t realise that the accompanying chips and potato wedges were both enough for 4 people so we rather over-ordered. Oh I nearly forgot – Katie picked up a couple of small leeches in the rainforest so we are now equal in the respect!
Today it has rained again.We went to the nearby Botanic Gardens which would have been really nice on a decent day but was OK. It has continued to rain on and off all day: another night in the car for Katie I think! Tomorrow we are going to the limestone caves at Jenolan and then on Friday we hit Sydney.