travel.urbanwide.com: May 2005 Archives

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May 31, 2005

It's grim up North

We've meandered our way up North through very changable weather and we've made it to the Bay Of Islands. We spent a week or so around Whangarei and went to see the Waterfall and the Kauri Memorial park with some impressive Kauri trees (and tropical forests) and also celebrated Deb's birthday with a lovely Japanese meal. Today, we went on a boat trip around the Bay Of Islands and went through the 'Hole In The Rock' which was quite impressive. Tommorrow we head for Cape Reinga and Ninety mile beach - lets just hope it doesn't rain !

We've almost finished the camper (just the curtains to go) so we'll put some pictures up and announce the name soon.

[2 North NZ galleries here and here]

Posted by robl at 04:15 AM | Comments (2)

May 30, 2005

30/05/2005-23:39:38

deb wears her sunday best

Posted by robl at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2005

26/05/2005-00:24:41

happy birthday deb !

Posted by robl at 12:24 AM | Comments (5)

May 25, 2005

25/05/2005-09:24:40

mmm ... sausages

Posted by robl at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

Fiji Time

Fiji was a total shock to the system for me and Rob: limited electricity, no hot water, no mobile phone reception and certainly no internet :) Once we had got over the initial shock however, we had a cracking good time.

The first island we headed for was Nanuya Lailai to visit the Sunrise resort. From here we visited the Sawailau caves which were featured in the film: Blue Lagoon (Looks a bit saucy if you ask me). We refrained from going in the Blue Lagoon itself not because of the saucy film, but because a) our first attempts failed and we didn't find it, and b) because there was a guy who had earlier got severly stung by a sting ray there that morning and his screams could be heard for miles! He got taken away in a sea plane, we saw him later and he was not screaming any more but his foot was swelled up like a melon.

We also met a couple of cool Kiwi girls (Lu and Rachel) who I reckon we will go and say hi to in Wellington.

All in all we weren't that impressed with the Sunrise resort although it was a nice island to look at.

Sunset resort on Waya was so cool we decided to stay an extra night, plus they were putting on a Lovo for the guests the next night which we thought would be rude to miss.
Our time on Waya was action packed, we never even had time to get bored sunbathing. We went on a mountain trek, went line fishing (I caught 2 fish, yipee, with total equipment of an empty coke bottle, fishing wire, hook and bate), I weaved some bracelets while Rob was made to weave a basket (you can imagine the comedy), watched a coconut being husked, went snorkelling along the coral reef (better if you have decent equipment I think) and took part in a couple of Kava ceremonies (Kids we were going to bring some home but it tasted a bit like muddy water).

The mountain trek was a lightweight roundtrip of 5 hours which Rob mostly undertook barefoot due to the number of mosquito bites on his feet. Of course everyone else thought he was crazy and was just walking "Fiji Style". During the walk, we stopped off at a mountain spring, walked through lots of grass taller than head height, and indulged in a small amount of unexpected rock climbing. However it was all worth it when we reached the top of the mountain and saw the Yasawa Island group spread out in front of us. On the way back our guide (Poni to his mates) took us via a Fijian village where the locals harvested coconuts for us to drink (very refreshing and not at all milky as expected). Everywhere on this island people were so friendly (and genuine about it too) which really made the trip for us.

[2 FijiSunrise galleries here and here]
[2 FijiSunset galleries here and here]
[2 FijiWayaTrek galleries here and here]

Posted by deb at 07:03 AM | Comments (1)

Campervan

Name that campervan ...

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Posted by robl at 06:28 AM | Comments (0)

Pimp My Ride

I know we've been a bit quiet for the last few days but thats because we've bought a camper van ! We're really busy sorting it all out at the moment but I thought I'd post a few of the pics that we had from the couple who sold it to us ... It's a 1984 Bedford CF 280 with Hi-Top and custom interior ! It's also got a manual choke :(

We're going to the DIY store tomorrow so we can do some pimping of the van, so in the meantime to keep you busy we need a name for the van - leave name suggestions as comments to this post and I'll create a poll from the best ones so people can vote for their favourite (rhyming entries will probably fare best ...)

[2 Camper galleries here and here]

Posted by robl at 11:18 AM | Comments (5)

May 16, 2005

16/05/2005-03:08:51

singing in the rain

Posted by robl at 03:08 AM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2005

Baaa !

We've made it safely to New Zealand ! It's actually a lot like England in Auckland - mainly wet at the moment. We've got lots of Fiji pictures to put up but we'll be busy searching for a camper van to travel around in so it might take a few days. Did you know there are approx 11 sheep for every Kiwi ?

Posted by robl at 06:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2005

Bula !

We've made it safely to Fiji, however the web access here leaves
something to be desired so we probably won't be posting again for the
next few days, maybe not until we reach New Zealand.

We're going Island hopping tomorrow, we start off on Viti Levu which
is where we are located at the moment - this is the largest of the
Fijian islands.

We then take a boat to the Yasawa Islands group where we stay for two
nights at Nanuya Lailai and then jump to another island by boat where
we stay for one night - Waya

After that we transfer back to Viti Levu for a couple of days
site-seeing around the island.

(Posted via gmail - one of the few sites that seems to be accessible)

Posted by robl at 05:29 AM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2005

06/05/2005-04:55:16

look familiar ?

Posted by robl at 04:55 AM | Comments (0)

Helli-Choppy

Yesterday we made the hour and a half boat trip out to the Barrier Reef. The journey out there was an experience in itself, all of us very greatful of the sea sickness tablets we had just taken! Once we got to the Reef, we were based on a pontoon which was a little more stable - much to Mum's relief.

The snorkelling out there was fantastic, and we spent a good few hours in the water before noticing it was time to come in. We took a cheap underwater camera with us and got some reasonable shots of the reef. We also took a helecopter ride over the reef - a once-in-a-life-time-type-experience... I guess the photos explain all.

Myself and Rob leave Cairns tomorrow and fly back to Sydney then head over to Fiji for a week and Mum and Dad will be staying here for another week before travelling back to the UK.

Its been great seeing Mum and Dad, almost like a mini holiday within a big holiday!

[2 Barrier Reef galleries here and here]

Posted by deb at 09:09 AM | Comments (1)

05/05/2005-07:55:22

crocs!

Posted by robl at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2005

04/05/2005-07:01:43

great barrier reef from helicopter

Posted by robl at 07:01 AM | Comments (0)

Why did the Koala fall out of the tree ?

For those of you that didn't know, we've been in Cairns (North East Auz) for the last few days. We've actually seen some rain which was a bit disappointing but at least it's given us some time to sort out and caption the pictures from Sydney. There are pictures from the Blue Mountains National Park, around and about Sydney, views from our apartment and our visit to Bondi Beach. Sydney was a real suprise in what a great city it turned out to be - I'd easily recommend it to anybody visiting Australia - we'd definately consider coming back ...

I also promised a great video of Deb - David Attenborough watch out! (mp4 format - sorry)

A late addition here are some panoramic views of Sydney and the Blue Mountains ...

Whilst in Cairns we've also managed to get out and see some of the indigenous wildlife of Australia - admittedly in the safety of enclosed environments but still it was great to see some of the local wildlife in (relative) freedom. Koala's really are very sleepy animals, Kangaroos really do box and snakes aren't slimey !

[2 Blue Mountains galleries here and here]
[2 Bondi Beach galleries here and here]
[2 Around Sydney galleries here and here]
[2 Sydney Apartment galleries here and here]
[2 Cairns wildlife galleries here and here]
[2 Panoramic galleries here and here]