The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

Jim & I are celebrating Thanksgiving today even though there is, of course, nothing happening in regards to it here in Indonesia. Another lazy day for us here by the pool.

Tomorrow night we leave Bali for Singapore but it’s been great fun. We didn’t appreciate the beach scene quite as much as we would have had we simply come here for holiday since we just had 1month of great beaches in Australia. But, the Balinese are simply lovely people.

Lovina ended up keeping us there for 5 nights, longer than planned. There was very little to do except take walks along the beach into town (what there was of that), watch the sunset on the beach and try every one of the restaurants on our little street. As I had mentioned, this place, more than some in Bali, has been hit hard by the lack of tourists since the bombings and so we made a point of never purchasing more than one thing from any one person and never eating in the same restaurant twice so we “spread the wealth” a bit. The people of Lovina were wonderful lovely and we spent most dinners and parts of our day simply talking with them. Certainly, they were trying to sell us some things, but they also were truly interested in just practicing their english and hanging out with us. I’m sure many travelers here don’t take the time to actually converse with them about anything but the price of what they’re buying.

We were the only people who spent 5 nights at Suma Hotel. Most people, it seems, come up to Lovina just for 1 night in order to go out dolphin watching. We did go one morning as well and it was spectacular. There is a lot of reef offshore so the water is almost completely flat and we were out on it by 6am. The sun was coming up and it was actually a pleasant temperature and, to our great surprise, we actually saw dozens of dolphins! There were large pods of them that would circle around all of the boats of tourists, coming right up near us. After that we took an hour or so for some snorkeling. It’s so warm here that truly, the water is like lukewarm bathwater and it was surprisingly clear with a good variety of fish. Near shore the water always appeared rather murky but a short distance out was great visability.

After Lovina we just really weren’t sure we wanted any more beach time. We had planned on heading south to Candidasa or Padangbai but we decided in the end to head back to Kuta for our final 5 nights to do some of that exciting shopping for new toilitries, getting more pages in our passports, etc. One plus, even though Kuta is still really warm, it’s definitely cooler than Lovina!

We checked back into the Sorga Hotel, which after Sania House in Ubud and Suma House in Lovina now did not seem as nice. We did stay 2 nights and then decided to treat ourselves for Thanksgiving and moved to the Kuta Puri, more of a resorty type property. Our cottage is lovely with an ENOURMOUS bathroom with mood lighting and the whole bit! We did go to the US Consular offices but found out that they had to send our passports to Jakarta and it took a few days so we’ll just get more passport pages when we hit Bangkok. Our time here was spent lazing about mainly, lots of walking about, swimming, reading, etc. We’re feeling a bit like slugs but on Sunday when we hit Cambodia we’ll be very busy touring the ruins at Angkor and going to the Killing Fields and so on so it’s probably good we’re resting up now.

I had really not wanted to spend much time in Kuta. I’m not a nervous person but 5 bombs going off in a 2year period in the very area we’re staying isn’t particularly comforting either. It was certainly eye opening to get the locals perspective of what happened and the aftermath as opposed to just reading about it in the papers or on the internet. Fortunately, although there is always unrest in Jakarta all here has been quiet and peaceful.

Hope this finds you all healthy and happy. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Cheers – Jim & Rhonda

Well, we are just loving Bali!

Ubud was fantastic. We ended up staying 4 nights in our lovely little cottage at Sania House.

A couple days were just lazing about, doing some Christmas shopping and lounging by the pool. However, on Sunday we took a full day eco tour/ mountain biking tour which was just wonderful.

We first headed about 45minutes north of Ubud to the Batur volcano for breakfast at a restaurant on the rim of the crater. This is still an active volcano, as are a few others on the island, and last blew in 1973. The BIG eruption that caused the huge crater, however, was from 1917.

After breakfast we headed to an eco-tour farm to see some of the thousands of culinary and medicinal plants that are grown in Bali as well as where they were making coffee. Jim was in heaven since we’d only been drinking tea and nescafe for most of the last month! The balinese coffee is very good although they grow so little they really never export any to speak of.

Then, on to our bikes. The tour is designed to be easy so is basically 25km of an easy level or downhill road. We stopped a couple of times to see some boys handcarving wooden buddha statues for export and for a snack and went through dozens of small villages and compounds. We stopped at one to walk through it so our guide, Darma, could explain the Balinese way of life. It’s quite a fascinating culture where all families live in a compound. Each family has one house for as many of their family members as exist to live. Darma, for instance, lived in a 3room house with his parents, wife and children. The community is all important and even though young people can leave home for education, etc they are expected to return at some point and the community leaders can decide how long they can stay away. Each compound has it’s own temple and then there is the village temple as well. Offerings to the Hindu gods (Bali is a majority of Hindu) are made at least once a day and sometimes more and the women spend hours each day crafting small plates out of banana leaves on which to place the offerings of fruits, rice, and flowers with an incense stick or two burning on top. This happens all over the island, even in a touristic city such as Kuta.

One very interesting thing about Balinese is that the YOUNGEST son is the one who is obligated to stay home and take care of continuing the family line and taking care of the parents whereas most western countries, of course, the oldest is considered the “heir” if you will. Darma, our guide, was the youngest so he lived in the compound with his parents and his two older brothers were making money on Java so they could start their own compound, otherwise they too would have to live in the same 3 room house with the rest of the family.

After the compound visit we continued through more villages, rice paddies, etc. It was absolutely unbelievable to be slowly breezing along through such remarkable scenery, smelling the flowers, fruit and incense, and high-fiving all of the children who ran out to greet us with great excitement. The Balinese people are incredibly friendly and anxious for visitors since tourism is down by a huge percentage after the bombings of the last few years. It has greatly affected their lifestyle in the towns. However, I will say in the villages we went through they kept right on as they always have. Life appears to be quite hard although I think there must be a reduction of some of our western stresses to not worry about where you’re going to live or who will take care of you when you’re old because that is pre-determined.

Just as we were finishing  our bike ride we had to pedel across a bridge over a dam and down a small hill and Jim’s front tire completely collapsed sending him head over tail down the hill!!! Luckily, since it’s rainy season the ground was quite soft and other than a sore neck for a couple of days he is fine. We were sure I would be the one to crash since I’m not a very experienced bike rider but it was all him.

A lovely lunch followed at the company’s private restaurant with sticky rice, crispy duck, crispy chicken, tempeh, fried tofu, noodle salad, bok choy & spinach salad and fruit for desert. They have really nice food here, spicy but not so hot it burns your tongue off!

Anyone interested in this tour: It’s called PT. Bali Budaya Tours and the phone number is 0361 975557. Email is bulanindah@dps.centrin.net.id

There is another company trying to copy their program but we heard it wasn’t as good of a day so make sure which company you really book with. If in doubt ask for Darma as a guide. He was extremely informative.

We got back into Ubud at about 3:30pm and had time to shower before we headed off to our appointment with Lionk at Creative Tattoo. We had both been wanting to get a tattoo to symbolize this trip and he is a great artist who has been written up in quite a few magazines. We had decided on the Maori tribes fishhook which means life well lived and travel over water. I got mine on my left ankle and Jim on his right shoulder and we are thrilled with the result. After dinner we were certainly ready for bed after that adventurous day!

We got all of our Christmas shopping done in Ubud and shipped home along with still more things we realized we don’t need here. We’re reducing our packs more and more as we find out what we’re really using and what we just were packing around.

Tuesday we headed north, again by taxi, to Lovina. The drive was almost 3 hrs of breathtaking beauty. This is such an incredibly lush countryside! It is HOT in Lovina, perhaps even hotter than in Kuta. We’re literally melting as sunscreen, etc just slides right off your skin! It’s a nice , very laid back town that has really been hit very hard by the lack of tourists. We are staying at Suma House in another beautiful cottage with lots of carved wood, 4 poster bed and a veranda. Our room is HUGE and since they’re so slow the owner started out asking 60euro/night and ended up at $25USD a night. Quite a difference! There is a nice pool & it’s right on the beach. The beaches up here are black sand and the water is extremely mellow! Unfortunately, with fresh tattoos we can’t get in for another day or so!

We’re spending 4 nights here as well and then heading  around the east side of the island to Amed or possibly all the way to Candidasa or Padangbai to spend Thanksgiving and then have a flight to Singapore on 23November.

Internet connections here are few and far between so will publish again as soon as possible.

Cheers – Jim & Rhonda

Well, we made it to Indonesia. We arrived into Denpasar at around 9pm on Wednesday night and boy, we are certainly not in Oz anymore! It was a great ride from the airport seeing all of the temples, smelling the spicy Indonesian food, and seeing a huge crush of cars, people, and motorbikes spilling from everywhere! Oh yea, not quite in Asia yet but we’re getting close!

This is more the type of destination Jim and I normally look for in our travels. We enjoy a more third world experience with a more exotic lifestyle. I do have to say, it is STEAMY here. We’re almost right on the equator and hot hot hot is the word for it.

We had found a guest house named Hotel Sorga in lonely planet and then booked it on line and it was lovely. A series of buildings built almost like temples set around the pool and beautiful gardens.

Thursday we wandered all around the maze of backalleys that makes up Kuta and had our first massage for a whopping $7 USD. It was a fab way to rejuvinate after being really sore from our riding experience on Tuesday! We had a nice lunch and some pool time and spent more than we should have for dinner but it was this cool restaurant on the beach with big lounge pillows to eat at. Couldn’t resist.

Friday we headed out of Kuta to Ubud. We’d gotten a private taxi to take us up and were able to stop along the way at a batik school as well as an art school where we bought a dragon painting done by one of their students. They’re really talented kids and some looked as young as 7 or 8 years old.

In Ubud we are staying at Sarnia Cottages and it is amazing! We have a cottage with intricately carved wooden doors, a 4 poster bed and a huge veranda including breakfast for about $25USD/night. These are the sort of prices I like! For lunch Jim got the indonesian sampler tapas platter and everything we’ve tasted here is fantastic.

It’s rainy season in Bali so we’ve been caught in more than one torrential downpour but since it’s so darn hot here they’re actually really refreshing!

Tonight is a fire dance show and tomorrow we’re taking a full day mountain biking trip into the rice paddies and villages around Ubud to see a different side of things. Next post will probably be from the beach in Lovina on the north side of the island.

Cheers! J&R

We had a very busy last few days in Australia while staying with our friend Sara and her husband Jason and son Cody. Sara and I met while both working for the same company about 6 years ago and even though she moved back home to Australia we’ve kept in touch. It was lovely to see a familiar face again after two months on the road.

Sara & Jason own the Wonga Beach Horse Rides just north of Mossman in tropical Queensland so in addition to seeing them we got to ride and play with their dogs, a good thing since being around our pets is one of the few things we miss about home (other than family & friends).

We got to their house on Friday afternoon and just spent a quiet evening. Saturday was spent on errands and running about and then Sunday, my 40th birthday was a busy day. We headed into Port Douglas for their markets in the morning and did some shopping, spent the afternoon in the pool, and went out for a very nice dinner in town that night.

Monday was a very fun day with Sara, Jim & I heading north to Cape Tribulation, in what is considered to be the worlds oldest rain forest and a world heritage site. We went through the Daintree center canopy walk, had a great lunch, and then did what they call jungle-surfing , what we had known previously as zip lining. They strap you into harnesses and you zip along the line between big trees in the forest. Very fun.

Tuesday was Sara’s birthday and Melbourne Cup day. We started the morning with a ride on the beach and in the surf with some of their horses and then had to get ready for the party! This horserace is known as the “race that stops the nation” and literally, almost no one works and everyone dresses up and goes out for elaborate luncheons. It was a ball and we met some of their friends as well. One of our favorite days in Australia, I’d have to say.

Wednesday we were up bright and early to drop off Sunflower, our hippie van, and head to the airport. Due to no inexpensive flights directly from Cairns to Bali we had to first fly 2 1/2 hrs back south to Sydney and then fly 6 1/4 hrs north to Bali. Not too bad though and certainly shorter than the flight over to this part of the world.
In retrospect, I’ve got to say that Australia still didn’t win any big piece of my heart. We had moments of brilliance within our 5weeks there – Sydney, Byron & Airlie Bay, camping with the locals at Carnia Gorge, and lots of fun with our friends, but I’m not sure I’ll head back anytime real soon. That said, it was much better than sitting at a desk at home! Not too tough being Jim and Rhonda these days!

Next post from Bali. Cheers

Hello all! We’re here in sunny Cairns, except, today it’s raining!

After we left Airlie Beach we had 4 nights to get up to Cairns. We spent one night just at a campground en-route and then arrived in Mission Beach. Mission Beach is a small town, similiar to Airlie Beach but MUCH smaller and near some good whitewater rafting and trips out to Dunk Island, etc. We wanted to spend our money in Cairns and with the US dollar dropping against the Australian dollar on a seemingly hourly basis we spent our time in Mission Beach around the pool, taking long walks on the beach, and finally getting some New Zealand photos on the blog. Then, up to Cairns and one night spent at a camper park on the edge of town. We got a cabin yet again (haven’t slept in Sunflower since before Airlie Beach) because it is so damn hot. Around 92-94 everyday and nearly 90% humidity. We have certainly hit the rainforests of tropical Queensland for sure!!!

Cairns is not quite what I expceted. Not knowing anything but it’s reputation I thought it would resemble Cancun, or even the Gold Coast here in Australia with lots of high rises, ritzy casinos, etc. but it’s actually a very laid back town. The downtown area and esplanade reminds me more of Maui, just larger. There is a large manmade salt water lagoon for swimming right on the Esplanade due to no actual beaches in Cairns proper (another surprise) and loads of restaurants, internet cafes, etc.

After 1 night we moved into the timeshare and settled in for 4 nights. We’re now on our 3rd day there and enjoying the 3bdrm they gave us! More than enough room for the 2 of us for sure. Yesterday we took a day cruise out to the Great Barrier Reef, something we’d both been looking forward to. We signed up for an introductory dive and then snorkeling for the rest of the time. Unfortunately for me, it was a pretty rough, choppy day and when they were giving out seasickness pills as we left port I knew I would be in trouble. I did take the pills but still got sick a couple of times. I’ve been seasick before… always when we’re far enough out that I can’t see land – my body just does not like that!!! I never get sick while the boat is actually moving and in Fiji we had fairly choppy weather but were in and amongst islands and I was fine.

We did our lesson on the way out and got to the first dive spot. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing anyway, not the actual being in the water part, since we’ve snorkeled all over the world, but having water get in my mask and having to practice taking the breather out while underwater and blow the water out as you put it back in. That, combined with the really choppy waves got me a bit freaked out and I chose to opt out of diving and just snorkel instead. Jim did dive and even took a second dive and absolutely loved it. He is definitely a convert!! I certainly want to try it again but done as a normal class or even resort intro where you practice the stuff in a pool first before heading out into the ocean.

That said, even the snorkeling was amazing!! What a huge variety of rainbow colored fish of all sizes and shapes, black tipped sharks, and Jim and I snorkeling together even saw a sea turtle which is a little bit unusual. While diving Jim also saw a huge clam that was almost 8ft across! If I hadn’t been sick a couple of times it would have been an incredible day (and Jim DID have an incredible day!) We did the cruise out of Port Douglas so had about an hour drive back home but it’s certainly the most scenic drive of our entire time here in Australia. Outside of Cairns the road ends up driving right along the ocean and is really beautiful with the rainforest coming right down to the beach.

Today, as I said, it’s raining and we’re doing some stocking up shopping for sunscreen, shampoo, etc before heading to Bali next week. Tomorrow night we are going to the Tjakupai cultural park for the evening aboriginal show and dinner and then Friday heading up to Port Douglas again to stay with our friends and celebrate my 40th bday on Monday and Sara’s birthday on Wednesday and see what they have planned for us. I’m sure we’ll be busy so most likely you can expect my next post to be from Bali!

Cheers for now – Jim & Rhonda

Here is the best of the bunch from New Zealand. We ended up with about 250 photos and couldn’t put them all up but enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimandrhondartw/sets/72157602077811796/detail/

First of all, after re-reading my last entry I know I should not do a blog while really tired! Probably with no explanation the breathilizer comment made no sense eh?

Well, before the uneventful bridge climb in Sydney they actually give you a breathilizer test! But, we passed with flying colors:)

We headed from Hervey Bay to Carnia Gorge… about 3 hours inland. It was finally some of what we were looking for in Australia. The campground was in the gorge NP and had some great hiking trails. Jim and I, naively, chose to walk to the dam not realizing it was 10km!!! We were dying by the time we got back! We were the only non-locals there, it’s a popular site for camping for a few days by people who live in the area and there was a pool, winetasting in the evening and outdoor movies. All in all a great time.

Then a LONG driving day (about 7hrs ) to Mackay just for 1night in a cheap hotel just to break up the drive to Airlie Beach.

We’re here in Airlie for 3nights and got a cabin at the campground so we do have a bed and ensuite toilet/shower but can still save $$ by cooking our own means, etc. Airlie is a great little resort town and the gateway to the Whitsunday islands.

Yesterday we did a full day cruise to go snorkeling and explore some of the islands. Crystal clear turquoise water, powdery white sand beaches, etc. A wonderful day. It is, unfortunately, jellyfish season so we had to wear VERY sexy (NOT!!) stinger suits but it was wonderful snorkeling.

Today just chilling, laundry, you know…all the fun stuff, before heading north again. We’ve got 4 more nights in the hippie van and then 4 nights in the timeshare in Cairns and 5 nights with our friends in Port Douglas and then the Australia odyssey of our trip is over. And, thank goodness Wille’s prediction didn’t come true and we have not, at least yet, been eaten by crocodiles!

Cheers to everyone and more later! Love , Jim & Rhonda

Well, first to apologize for waiting 2 weeks to do a blog entry but hey, we’re on holiday here!

Sydney was great, and coming from someone who isn’t normally fond of big cities that is saying something! We had originally booked 2nights at the Glenferrie Lodge in North Sydney and extending for 3 more nights. It was a 78room huge old victorian house that they made into a lodge with bathrooms down the hall and complimentary breakfast (which, of course, just means we paid for it in the price of the room!) The best thing about it was the location. It was about a 3minute walk to the ferry terminal and then a 5minute ferry ride right to Circular Quay in Sydney harbor with the Opera House on one side and the Harbor bridge on the other. Right at The Rocks for bars, restaurants, shopping etc and a main hub for the train / bus to other parts of the city.

The one big thing we wanted to do was the bridge climb on Habor bridge because we’d heard how wonderful it was. Well, it’s not. It cost us $225 USD per person and took about 3 1/2 hrs and was, sorry to say, really anticlimatic. Basically, you’re just getting a slightly higher view of exactly the same thing as you see just walking across the bridge. Big bummer. But, other than that we did enjoy Sydney. We spent one day out at Bondi Beach, some time in the Kings Cross area…sort of the backpacker hub of the city, lots of times at pubs around The Rocks, went to the zoo which is great… right on the harbor with a great design. And, we walked and walked and walked. Other than the 1009 steps we did climbing the bridge we walked a good 4-5 hours a day along with lots of stairs. Our dogs were feeling it by the end of our Sydney stay!

We had been unsure what to do around the area that wasn’t horribly expensive and pretty close to the city. Other than Blue Mountains we just weren’t too excited about anything except Melbourne which was too far and too much money. So, we once again extended our campervan and changed our flight to fly up to Brisbane on 10Oct.

This time we rented a Hippie van and boy, is it different than the Maui camper we had in New Zealand. It’s basically just a van with a small fridge and sink when you open the back door. Very tight quarters and, unfortunately, pretty cheaply made…with plastic blinds instead of fabric curtains, for instance. We knew instantly that it was not going to cut it for the month but… we didn’t want to pay to upgrade to a bigger van with more room so decided to make the best of it and just occasionally throw a few hotel nights in with our campground stays. All part of the joy of traveling!

We drove south first, to Byron Bay for 3 nights. Byron is an old hippy hangout and a very chill spot. The campground was on the beach and right next to town so really easy to get around. We did not much of anything except swim, read, and hang out.

Then, we decided to start heading north towards our final destination, Cairns. First stop was Bribie Island for 1 night before our 3 nights booked into Jim’s parents timeshare at the worldmark on Golden Beach. It was a fairly short drive and Bribie is beautiful. Lukewarm water, no waves and a cute little place.

On the way to Golden Beach we stopped at Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwins, “Australia Zoo”. It didn’t have nearly as many animals as the Sydney zoo but was really nicely laid out and very cool in that you could play with the kangeroos, pet the koala’s, hold a snake, etc. And, yep, some enormous crocs live there!

The worldmark resort was a nice break from the camper …right on the beach with a pool, ensuite bathroom AND tv…oh yea, we were living large! HA HA., Now, we’re at Hervey Bay a bit futher north. On the way today we stopped by the Wednesday Eumundi markets wanting to browse and get some fresh produce for dinner. We didn’t think it would be too busy being a Wed. afternoon but it was PACKED. This is one big market, over 200 booths, lots of food stalls and masses of people. Very fun.

We’re at the campground here in Hervey for 2 nights. Oceanfront space which is great. The facilites at this camp are not fantastic but we’re just going to chill out on the beach tomorrow and see how much the ferry is over to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. We’d love to do a 2night trip out there but 4WD is required and it’s pretty spendy to do a tour so we may just try and take the passenger ferry over for the day.

So far, got to say it, I’m a bit underwhelmed with Australia. We did love Sydney and I’m sure we’ll love the Great Barrier Reef and seeing our friends. But, the rest of it is just ok. We’re going with a positive attitude and hoping we get a little more enthused. If nothing else…hey, it’s way better than being at home and work!!

I’ll do my next blog in a more timely manner! Cheers – Jim & Rhonda

Well, here we are on our final day in New Zealand. It’s been a really fantastic month and we’ve enjoyed the country as much as we were told we would!

We dropped the campervan on Tues. in Christchurch and checked into our hotel. The Ibis is newly opened and a great location right on Cathedral Square. We did have a snafu upon checkin… seems the online company we booked (and paid) the hotel through is not quite up to snuff. I’m not sure they’re completely fraudulent but basically, we checked in to have the hotel tell us they never got paid by Agoda and so we would need to pay again until it was sorted out. The manager of the hotel was very helpful and between she and us we did get it straightened out but she said she’d had bad dealings with them in the past as well. Live and learn but at least was successfully resolved in the end.

We just finished getting our final flights and things booked in Australia. We fly into Sydney tomorrow, 5 Oct. Fly from Sydney to Brisbane to pick up our Hippie campervan on 16Oct and drop it off 7 Nov in Cairns…fly back to Sydney and catch our flight to Bali! Lots of stuff going on for the next 30 odd days! We have 3 nights reserved in Sydney and are just going to swing it from there.

We feel like we pretty much really covered New Zealand. Turns out we drove about 2280 miles! We never did make it to Milford Sound and I’m sure it’s just beautiful but, everything we saw was and you just can’t always make time for everything!

The New Zealand people are certainly some of the friendliest we’ve ever met and there is a great level of customer service (and they don’t tip in this country so it’s not to try and make a buck) that is definitely lacking in the U.S.

So, goodbye New Zealand..it’s been great, and we’ll definitely be back again someday! Next post from the land of Oz!

Cheers – Jim & Rhonda

Ok, I’ll catch you all up on the last week in a minute. But first I must tell you about our afternoon on Thursday which has to be one of our cooler experiences so far.
We’d driven from Dunedin on the coast north to a little town called Omaru which is famous for it’s Blue Penquin Colony’s night march. First off though we stopped by where the very rare, yellow-eyed penquins nest in the hopes of seeing one. We’d been told they were very shy and odds of seeing them weren’t great. Imagine how excited we were when we not only saw 5 of them BUT one of them walked right up to where we were all standing and basically posed for about 15minutes! Just amazing as he did his mating calls and fluttering about.
Then it was time to head over to the blue penquins, also called fairy penquins since they’re really small. They have quite an amazing little community where they each have little homes, they generally mate for life and every single day one of the spouses goes out to sea to feed while the other attends the nest. At around sundown each night the penquins who had gone out that day come back in, walk up a little hill and go home to their mates. What is so amazing, as if that isn’t amazing enough, is that the spouse at home waits outside the nest and calls to the returning penquins. It was just so cool to watch them all walk up the hill from the beach and greet their spouse, some of them even doing a little happy dance upon getting back with their significant other. Then, in the middle of this, the full moon started to rise up over the Pacific ocean and was the most incredible bright orange. We’d never seen the moon rise from the sea like that before and was just the capper on a great experience.

So, before that… I think I left off in Queenstown. What a great town, we could certainly live there. We stayed 2 nights and then headed to the beach to Dunedin. Dunedin is about a population of 120,000 – quite a few of whom are students at the Otago University. It was unseasonably cold when we arrived….REALLY cold actually and with the windchill was around a high during the day of 42-43f. We bundled up and spent much of the first day wandering about town and then had tours of both the Cadbury candy factory (free chocolate! Oh yea), and the Speights brewery (and free beer! yea) Cadbury was fun, the smell of chocolate was almost too much though, I’ve got to say. I know, you never thought you’d hear me say it but I’m not sure I could work with that smell all day!
Speights was fun, interesting to see how they did their brewing and it’s pretty good beer. They don’t export at all so we hadn’t heard of them before but have certainly been drinking it for a few weeks now. After the tour a rather amazing thing happened… the tour guide said, “the taps are yours, you can taste all 6 or 6 tastes of one or whatever you want – and I dont’ really count how much you’re tasting”. Jim was in hog heaven! Free tastings all around.

The next day we headed out to the Otago Peninsula in an attempt to see the rare Royal North Albatross. They have a colony and they’re BIG birds… around 22 lbs with a 9ft wing span. Alas, no albatrosses were around but we did have an interesting tour of the old fort with some cool guns that dropped back into the ground…sorry, can’t think of what they’re called right now. After that we drove up to Omaru as I’d mentioned in the first part of the post.

After Omaru we headed back towards the mountains and up to Mt Cook National Park. We lucked out with a gorgeous, clear day and after having lunch in the village went for a hike for a couple of hours. This is a World Heritage area and you can see 22 of the 27 mountains in New Zealand that are over 2500m from the park. Much shorter overall than many places in the world but just seeing that really long mountain range all in a row is really amazing. We camped at the closest campsite to the mountain and actually used our camp chairs (it’s been too cold for most of the trip to really use them) to have a sundowner and watch the sun set over the mountain range.

Today, unfortunately, started out really windy and pretty darn cold. We were really lucky to have seen Mt Cook area yesterday when it was sunny and calm. We drove a short 1hr to Lake Tekapo where we’re spending tonight. It is one of the mountain lakes that is an amazing turqoise color due to some rock bottom glacier movements thousands of years before. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. The color is caused by some sort of sediment from the rocks rubbing which causes clouding and reflects the light. I don’t get the whole scientific explanation but it’s really gorgeous.

Tomorrow we start heading back towards the coast to eventually end up on Tuesday in Christchurch and drop off Betsy, the campervan. Although it’s been fantastic I must say I’m looking forward to 3 nights in a hotel room:) 6 more days and we’re off to Australia and warmer weather.
Cheers – Jim & Rhonda