New Zealand

Jason and I had a great time touring New Zealand! We spent 7 days there, but we probably could have spent an entire month.

Click on this link to see where all the photos are located - PHOTOS FROM NEW ZEALAND

Day 1 – Christchurch:
We arrived in Christchurch on Saturday night around midnight and went immediately to our hotel. When we woke up Sunday morning, we decided to formulate our plan for the week and started calling around to the companies that rented campervans on the South Island. After deciding to pick up a campervan later that afternoon and stay one more night in Christchurch, we headed out to the city center of Christchurch where we saw a really cool Anglican church, walked around a botanical gardens and milled around a market on a day that couldn’t have any better weather. Once we were done, we headed back toward the airport to pick up our campervan, have dinner, and go back to the hotel.

Day 2 – Christchurch to Franz Josef Glacier:
On Monday morning, we loaded our belongings into the campervan and headed to the grocery store to stock up for our adventurous week. From Christchurch we drove through Arthur’s Pass toward the western side of the South Island – stopping along the way for a few of Jason’s famous picture taking side trips. The closer we got to the glacier, the more overcast the weather became and we arrived there around dinner time. We checked into the holiday park and made our first campervan meal of the week- spaghetti with meat sauce!

Day 3 – Franz Josef Glacier to Wanaka:
On Tuesday, we got up and decided to head toward the Franz Josef Glacier. About the time that we arrived there it was really starting to rain, but we braved the rain and headed down one of the walkways to at least view the glacier. We didn’t think that we had enough time to take a half day walk our on the glacier and drive further toward Queenstown, so a view of the glacier was good enough for us. It was truly a fascinating sight and more interesting to see how the glacier has retreated over the past 100 years or so. Once we finished at the Franz Josef Glacier, we headed up the road to the Fox Glacier where we repeated the same steps. This time we seemed to be able to get a little closer to the glacier until we reached the river that is caused by the water melting off the glacier. I decided not to brave crossing it but Jason hopped across the rocks and water and took a few closer photos of the glacier. It most likely would have been much easier to get closer if the rain coming from the sky wasn’t also contributing to the river coming from the glacier. From here we drove for the rest of the day, stopping off in a few beautiful places for some photos and finally stopping in the town of Wanaka for the evening.

Day 4 – Wanaka to Te Anau:
On Wednesday, we drove from Wanaka to Queenstown where Jason had to check out some of the bungy jumping sites. I really think that he wanted to try it but I think that I somehow successfully talked him out of it. The place that we stopped off at was the first place in the world to do commercial jumping from a bridge. As we drove further past Queenstown to Te Anau, the weather vastly improved and we set up a nice picnic lunch on the edge of a lake also overlooking the mountains. It was such a beautiful setting, I could have just sat there in the cool sunlight for the rest of the day! But we drove onward toward Te Anau where we set up a tour for Doubtful Sound in Fjordland National Park for Thursday and also booked a tour of the Glowworm Caves for later Wednesday night. The Glowworms were very cool. They took you on a high speed boat across the lake, where you got off the boat on the other side and then walked into a cave where the opening was only about 3 feet high. Once past the first 10-15 yards of the opening, the cave opened up and you walked along the inside next to the water rushing through. Making your way into the cave, you finally reached another point where they loaded us into a smaller boat and onto the water in the cave. The boat took us further into the cave where they no longer had lights and the glowworms were all over the ceiling like a mass of green stars. It was very cool and if someone in the boat would make a noise, the glowworms would sense it and some of them would become more dim. It was a very neat experience!

Day 5 – Te Anau and Doubtful Sound:
On Thursday we met up with the tour that we had booked to take us out to Doubtful Sound. Doubtful Sound is one of 2 of the popular fjords to visit in Fjordland National Park and the only one that we had an option to book because the other one (Milford Sound) was inaccessible because of an avalanche blocking the only road to and from the Sound. I’m not sure if I’d hate to be stuck on the other side of the avalanche or not…. Stuck out in the beautiful country might not be a reason to complain! Anyway, we took a boat across a lake and then boarded a bus that would take us on a tour of an underground power plant and finally on to our boat that would tour Doubtful Sound. The weather out in the sound was off and on rain but there were enough clear times that we were able to stand out on the deck of the boat and get some really great photos. The really cool thing about this area was that it was a cool climate rain forest, so while the scenery and rainforest looked like it could have been in Hawaii, it was no where near as warm as Hawaii would be! Truly amazing! We even saw snow when we were on the bus crossing over the mountain that the power plant was dug into.

Day 6 – Te Anau to Geraldine:
On Day 6, we decided to drive the route from Te Anau back to Christchurch that went past Mt. Cook which is the tallest peak in Australasia. If we had time to stop or the weather looked good enough to make it to the mountain, we might try to drive near it. But, as usual, we got a late start (trying to wake up Jason is just a losing battle). Plus, as we drove along, we had to stop for lots more photo opportunities – my favorite being the river that we photographed a group of people doing some river surfing. I think that if I had been able to participate in that, we might have stopped longer to try it out. As we traveled along, we decided that it was too icy and too late to try to make it to Mt. Cook so as the sun was getting lower we stopped at a couple of lakes that are such an amazing color of blue we could barely believe our eyes that they were real. We read in the guide book that these lakes were this color because the rocks surrounding them left a sediment in the lake that caused the light to reflect in such a way that caused this amazing color. I think that we could have built a house right next to either of these lakes and just consider it paradise found (well, except that Jason would probably eventually realize that it was a little too cold there for his liking!). We continued on to a very small town called Geraldine about 2 hours outside of Christchurch and found our Holiday Park to stay at for the evening. It was small, not crowded at all and probably the nicest facilities of all the places that we stayed.

Day 7 – Geraldine to Christchurch:
On Friday, we got up a little earlier than usual and made our final packing to head back to Christchurch and to the airport. The weather was amazing and it was fun to watch the very mountainous country turn into mostly farmland again.

More Aussie Wildlife

On our trip to Queensland we took a tour to see some crocodiles, then while driving up the Great Ocean Road we saw both some kanagoos and some koalas along the side of the road. Here are some videos of each of them.

Crocs:




Kangaroos:




Koalas:

Snow skiing in July

The last weekend in July we got a big group of Accenture folks together for a weekend ski adventure to Mt. Buller just a few hours outside of Melbourne. It's not exactly Vail but was pretty fun to actually see snow in the month of July. Jason did some downhill skiing and as much as I wanted to join him, I opted for the safer snowshoeing which turned out to be a lot of fun! We took a 4 hour tour all over the mountain and even saw a wombat and her little wombat baby. They were so cute and just having a snack on the nearby shrubs.

Here's a picture of what the mama wombat looked like:

Here's some of the video that we took of the wombat (just click on the play button below):

Penguins and Koalas

Jason and I finally gave up on seeing some Australian animals in their natural environment, so we headed out to Philip Island (just a 2 hour drive from Melbourne) for the weekend to see the fairy penguins in their daily ritual of returning from the ocean at sunset and to a koala conservation center. It was a great time and there were tons of penguins to see! It was also the first day in a long time that it wasn't rainy or windy so it made sitting around in the cold waiting for the penguins a lot more fun. Cameras weren't allowed because they scare the penguins, but here's a picture of them that I found on the penguin parade website:
On Sunday, we visted the koala conservation center where we saw lots of cute little koalas hanging out in the trees. They are nocturnal, so most of them were sleeping the day away but we managed to snap some photos of them.

Updates......

Not much new is going on in Australia. The weather is getting cooler as it is autumn here (I keep getting yelled at when I call it 'fall'). For some reason I feel like Halloween and Christmas are right around the corner, but I know that I'm wrong. Many more months to go before those.

I also want to share a photo of my friends Jenny and Jay and their new son Thomas. Jenny is the one that made the great cake our wedding. I can't wait to go by and meet Thomas when I'm at home in a couple of weeks!

Great Ocean Road

A few weeks ago Jason and I “hired a car” (rented) and drove up the Great Ocean Road here in Victoria. Wouldn’t you know it that it was probably the first rainy weekend since I’ve been here? But I’m not complaining because Australia is in the middle of a horrible drought.

The Great Ocean Road is a road that winds mostly along the coast of Victoria for about 400km (248 miles). It travels through many towns (some of them big surfing towns), next to huge cliffs, awesome beaches, and forests (we expected to see some koala but somehow never saw one). It was built in the early 1900’s by WWI veterans just after the war.

Here’s a photo of a “Kangaroos ahead” sign (we didn’t see any Kangaroos though):

And here is a picture of us in front of the 12 Apostles, one of the most visited landmarks along the Road.

The rest of the pictures are uploaded here: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762401655184

Tahiti and Sydney

As I told our friend Ashby, the honeymoon was “freaking awesome”. He really seemed to like that description.
After finalizing a few things at home for about four days following the wedding, Jason and I once again packed up our belongings – set to fly to the southern hemisphere – where it’s the opposite season, the constellations are upside down and (we’re told) the toilet/bath/sink water swirls the other way, though we keep forgetting to try to verify this.
I apologize ahead of time for the length of this blog (and that it took me so long to write and finally post), but I really feel that there are quite a few details that I must share.
Headed to the airport we arrive way ahead of schedule (yes, Jason was still with me), check-in at Delta where they inform us that we can’t have our Air France boarding pass from LA to Papeete and we will need to obtain them at the Air France desk at LAX – no problem we say! We head up to the Delta Crown Room for a bit and then to the gate about 45 minutes before our flight only to discover that our flight is now delayed 2 hours which would cause us to miss the once a day flight to Tahiti. Running to the ticket desk and seeing the line we run back to the Crown Room ticket desk. The lady informs us that that because so many people from our flight have tried to do the same thing, she has only one seat available. We explain that we’re trying to make a once a day connection and we’re on our honeymoon and she says that she’ll see what she can do. While she’s making a phone call, I also try to see if I can produce some tears to help her know that we don’t really want to spend an extra night in Atlanta. She comes up with another seat, right next to the one seat that she originally told us was available. I mean REALLY, right?! We collect our new boarding passes, head to the gate, make a couple of phone calls and hop on the plane. When we arrive in LA, we think that we have 1 hour and 35 minutes to collect our Air France boarding passes and get to the gate! No problem – HA! We arrive at the Air France ticketing desk (because we must exit security to get to their terminal) to find a sign that says “FERME” – French for CLOSED! Believing this to be an impossible situation, we quiz anyone nearby (TSA baggage screeners, Air China employees, random people, etc) only to find out that the people working there had already left (at least 1 hr and 5 minutes before our flight). Someone suggests we try to find an Air France employee at their baggage services – so after about 10 minutes of trying to find that (no one even knew where it was!!!) we gave up hope and tried the folks at the TSA security at the terminal entrance. They wouldn’t let us past without a boarding pass (which we completely understand) and wouldn’t even escort us to the gate (which I also somewhat understand because if we bolted once we got past, they’d have to shut the entire airport). One girl was kind enough to call Air France and then they told her they’d meet us at the ticket desk. How nice! When we get there, we wait 3-5 minutes (seems like 3-5 hours!) and someone shows up explaining that the flight is closed and they have booked us on the next days flight. Now, for those of you who know Jason well, you may have never witnessed him getting mad. This was a site I only wish that I had videotaped to prove it’s possible! He was yelling (and possibly throwing out some offensive words) to explain that we were going to be on that flight that night. However, Air France guy wasn’t budging ONE BIT. Jason must have argued with him for 15-20 minutes and by then I realized it was now too late to get on the flight and asked that he go ahead and give us the new itinerary for the next day. He gave us some lousy printout and told us to have a nice time in LA!!!!! (The LA comment was like a slap in the face). We immediately headed to the Delta counter to complain, where they hooked us up with an evening’s stay at the Hacienda Hotel and meal vouchers for the next day (Billed to Air France, some satisfaction, I suppose). Not exactly the hotel we had paid for in Moorea, but ah, what can you do, right! So we spent the next 20 hours in LA – visited Venice and Santa Monica beaches and had dinner with Caryn, Warren and Minnu. I mean – it had been almost a week since we saw Warren and Caryn at the wedding, so thanks to Air France, we got to spend some extra time with them!
The next day, we board the flight to Tahiti and are on our way to catching up with our dream trip! We arrive in Papeete at 4:30 in the morning local time, head over to the Air Moorea ticket desk when they open at 5. They give us our boarding passes – laminated pieces of paper that it looks like they reuse daily for that particular flight. We board the plane, our pilot (who we can see through the open door to the cockpit) also doubles as the flight attendant by telling us about the flight and how it will be 7 minutes long. Jason video tapes the entire flight. We arrive in Moorea are presented with the second of 4 flower leis we will receive and head to the Moorea Sheraton.

Moorea was absolutely stunning – beautiful water, a gorgeous mountain and a wonderful hotel. We basically spent 2 days sitting on the beach, swimming and snorkeling, napping and reading. We even met a little rooster friend. We never left the resort, so that satisfied my honeymoon requirement of a stress-fee trip of not much more than hanging out on the beach. We did consider taking a 4X4 tour of the island but decided against it and instead continued to just sit on the beach. From Moorea, we took a quick 30 minute flight to Bora Bora. On the flight we met a hilarious couple from Miami – he was a lawyer and she was a former travel agent who now didn’t work and just spends all his money. Somehow we told him about our Air France whoas and he told us we should file a claim in small claims court. We’re going to look into doing this for sure.
Here are the photos from Moorea: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395297423

Bora Bora proved to be just as great as the rumors suggest it would be. I don’t know how it could be possible but the water here proved to be even better than in Moorea. The Sofitel hotel picked us up at the airport via water taxi (with another flower lei) and took us to the Sofitel Motu hotel where we would be spending the next 4 nights in an overwater bungalow. We met a nice couple from France on the taxi and talked to them as best we could for a bit. The taxi dropped us off at the hotel. We spent the first day exploring the water just outside of the bungalow (Jason was like a fish in his natural habitat) and we swam quite a way almost to the end of our little island. Then we came back and napped on the lounge chairs on the porch attached to the bungalow. The following day we decided to do some scuba diving in the morning. This scuba diving trip took us to 2 sites and we were told that at both sites we would be diving with some sharks. Jason was very excited at this prospect and I was quite a bit more hesitant. Of the 5 of us that were going on this particular dive, I made sure that I was last one in the water. All ended up going very well - and the sharks were not interested in us (though I originally would have thought differently prior to entering the water by the way that they were circling the boat!). Then for the rest of the afternoon after the diving, I resumed my daily napping schedule! The next day we decided that we had so much fun diving the day before, we would repeat the adventure. So we met up with the same dive company, where this day we did a dive through the one pass into the Bora Bora lagoon. The pass was created by the US military bombing the coral reef during WWII (presumably to create an entrance for boats to use to gain entry into the Lagoon). There wasn’t much coral to see here, I guess the bombings killed it but here we did see 2 giant manta rays so it was a very successful dive. Then for the second dive we returned to the second site from the day before for more shark diving. Again – Jason excited about seeing sharks, Michelle not so much! After the diving we stopped at a little outdoor restaurant on the main island for lunch – where Jason had a hamburger and I had a pizza. Then we went back to our little island for the daily swimming off the side of the bungalow followed by a nap! Later that afternoon however I began feeling a bit queezy and turned up with a mild case of food poisoning. Jason was the only one to eat dinner and felt bad that I was feeling bad. However in the morning, he came down with a more mild case and we were both feeling pretty crummy the entire next day – but ironically this was the only day of the trip where it was overcast and sometimes raining during the day. So we wouldn’t have been doing a whole lot that day anyway! We spent one last day in Bora Bora and then packed up our belongings and headed back to the airport on the water taxi (where we again saw the nice French couple). At the airport, we boarded our next flight to the island of Rangiroa.
Here are the photos from Bora Bora: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395412023

Upon arrival at Rangiroa, we were greeted again with a flower lei and brought to the Kia Ora Hotel where we would spend one night before heading out on a catamaran cruise for 4 days and 3 nights. The Kia Ora was again fantastic – we had a beachside bungalow with a hot tub (I might like to rename the luke-warm tub, but fine with me since it was already hot outside), a hammock and a little kitty that came to visit us! The hotel had a great infinity pool right next to the water and we had a very tasty fish meal at the restaurant. The next morning we woke up, hung out on the porch/hammock until we checked out and one of the members of the crew from the sailboat came by to pick us up at the hotel dock. From the dock, we boarded the dinghy and were brought out to the catamaran and greeted by the rest of crew. The crew consisted of a couple from France and a native guy from Rangiroa. The couple from France (Stephanie and Paschal) were in charge of the boat and the guy from Rangiroa (Emaio) was helping them navigate the waters of Rangiroa. On the sailboat trip we spent days sailing, snorkeling, eating fresh fish (all of which I believe that Emaio caught himself) and generally lounging about. On the last day we were there, we went to the Tiputa Pass for the most awesome snorkeling I have ever done! The pass was through 2 huge walls of coral where it seemed that every species of fish was hanging out. It was absolutely amazing and hopefully we can get the underwater pictures that we took developed soon. After the snorkeling we returned to the boat to gather up our things and return to the airport. The taxi that met us at the shore took us for a short stop at the Relais Joséphine – a little hotel situated right on the Tiputa Pass. While we were sitting here relaxing, we again ran into the French couple, chatted with them for a bit, decided to have our pictures taken with them and then exchanged emails. Surprisingly, they weren’t on our next flight, so as they headed off to the beach we took the taxi back to the airport and headed back to the island of Tahiti to catch our 3am flight to Sydney.
Here are the photos from Rangiroa: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395427895

Once we arrived back at the Papeete airport, we thought that it might be nice to take a taxi into the city to have some dinner (since we have 9 hours before our flight). We arrived in the downtown to find that virtually all shops were closed and only a couple of restaurants were open. We stopped in at one of the few open restaurants and ordered a couple of Tahiti beers and cheeseburgers. Once dinner was finished, we couldn’t find anything left to do in Papeete, so we got back in a taxi and headed back to the airport to wait for 5 more hours. Fun……

We arrived in Sydney around 8 in the morning, went to our hotel where we had to wait a few hours to check into our room, so we headed next door view the photographers wedding photos. Then we checked into the hotel, freshened up and headed out to Find Nemo – I mean, see Sydney. In our few days in Sydney, we took a tour of the Opera House, walked around the Rocks area, climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, saw a symphony at the Opera House, and went to Bondi Beach. Jason even did some surfing here, I basically just napped on the beach and did some people watching. Sydney was a very fun city to visit but I’ve decided that I think that I would prefer to live in Melbourne over Sydney. Melbourne just seems like a more livable city.
Here are the photos from Sydney: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/packersfaninatl/album/576460762395452063


Sorry for the long ramblings of the honeymoon, but we went to a lot of places, saw so many different things, met so many awesome people (and some not so awesome at the LA Airport….) and had an overall FANTASTIC time.