TravelStream™ news feed for member tommy_sar on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tommy_sar en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:44:43 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1188746940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1188746940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1188746940/tpod.html Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:44:43 -0500 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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London, England, United Kingdom

It's the 2nd September and we fly tonight! We both woke up this morning feeling really nervous with anticipation, but after we had packed and checked-in online felt REALLY excited!We had our leaving party at Mum and Dad's yesterday and it was such a lovely day. Loads of people came and we had a great time telling everyone about our plans. Thanks to everyone who came - it made it a really special day for us. We're going to miss all you guys!It's been a hectic few weeks finalising plans, packing, and catching up with people before we leave and we can't believe the day has finally arrived where we actually fly. We are so looking forward to our travels and to seeing so many friends in different countries.We'll keep you all updated with our news, and promise if we are going to do anything scary we'll post it on the blog afterwards, just for the parents peace of mind!!! Please keep in touch we'd love to hear all your news. See you all in a year :-)Love Tom & Sar
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219606980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219606980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219606980/tpod.html Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:07:59 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

And so it ends...... But what a place for that to be, in Rio de Janeiro. As we mentioned in the last blog, we booked a great hotel to spend the last five days of our year long trip pretending we were on holiday. I guess actually we ARE on holiday! It´s just sometimes travelling can seem a little far removed from holidays and nice things! Not that we regret any of it.Rio is a very pretty city with green rainforest covered hills framing the many bays. The icons of Sugar Loaf mountain and Christ the Redeemer statue look awesome when bathed in the tropical sunlight. Our hotel is on Ave. Atlantica which runs along Copacabana beach. We have these amazing views of the beach and Sugar Loaf mountain and the misty hills from our hotel room window and it looks good!We´ve visited the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugar Loaf mountain, we´ve sunned ourselves on the beach, drunk coconut water from fresh coconuts, we´ve strolled along the promenade and enjoyed the hotel pool and steam room. There are many other things you can do in Rio, but we decided that we mostly wanted to relax for the time here so we have been happy to do just that.It´s slightly surreal to think that ´´this is it´´ in terms of finishing travelling and returning home. We´ve had an awesome time away. That´s an understatement because to sum up all the experiences we´ve had is almost too difficult. A year at home brings many challenges, changes, highs and lows, and a year travelling the world brings all that too, it just seems more concentrated because you feel the affects more when you´re not in the familiar surroundings of home. We have been blessed to have had so many friends along the way, old and new, and we just want to say thanks again to everyone who had us to stay, fed us, and acted as tour guides! It has also been amazing to feel such protection and provision from God throughout the year, we have felt on many occasions answers to our own prayers and know that lots of other people have been praying for us too.We do plan to do blog entry from home and our ´´re-entry´´ (as Sarah calls it) into life in England which will undoubtedly have a few top 10 lists or something like that from our year around the world.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219350780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219350780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219350780/tpod.html Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:18:12 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Puerto Iguazu, Litoral, Argentina

After our few days exploring Buenos Aires and visiting Uruguay we headed on to the tropical region of the Iguazu falls. We arrived in the town of Puerta Iguazu where the falls border the Brazilian side of Fox de Iguazu. After a relaxing afternoon by the pool at our hostel and a Parillida, an Argentinian BBQ they had arranged for that evening. It is a great way of meeting other travellers and comparing stories over the local beer and steak. As we were towards the end of the trip by this point and had booked a nice hotel in Rio for the last few days, we took a dorm room for the two nights in P. Iguazu. It was nice to know it would be the last time we were sharing a room with other people we didn't know and sleeping on questionably ´clean´ sheets. We also thought it would make the hotel room seem even sweeter!Our first impression of the falls was how incredibly large they are. You hear the thunder first before you get to see them, it is a truly powerful sound made even more amazing when you get your first glimpse. They stretch extremely wide - 2.7km consisting of many falls, and are surrounded by dense jungle. You can feel the mist in the air without getting too close but there was one platform that is located right next to one of the largest falls and if you are brave enough to walk up to it you get soaked. The falls are located in a large National Park and we were surprised by how big it was, we spent the whole day looking around the various walkways and platforms of the falls. One of the most spectacular, although not our favourite view, was the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) where you are literally on top of the waterfall looking down. It was quite an amazing feeling. We´ll let the photos show you.Emotionally, we felt both relieved and sad at the same time that our travelling had come to an end. This was because the stop in P. Iguazu was the last before Rio, where we planned to be on the beach and planned to treat the time there like a holiday rather than travelling. So for us Argentina signified the end of our ´travelling´. Having said that, a 24 hour coach journey still awaited us in order to reach Rio! Argentina was a great place to visit and we only included it last minute, it was not originally part of our itinerary. We are so glad we added it in!Next and last stop........the beaches of Rio de Janeiro!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218646680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218646680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218646680/tpod.html Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:30:50 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Buenos Aires, Capital Federal District, Argentina

After our time in Bolivia, Argentina was a welcome taste of home. We arrived in Salta from Sucre and immediately felt better. We found that although our money didn´t go as far, and we could only afford the most basic accommodation, the towns were cleaner, the food amazing (particularly the steak!) and the wine is first rate.We had read that Argentina has a European feel to it and we were not disappointed. Salta was a lovely warm, sunny town and the central plaza had cobbled streets and was surrounded by restaurants, cafes and Artisans shops. On our first night our hostel organised a BBQ so we didn´t have to think about anything which was good as we were exhausted after our 30 hour journey from Bolivia. Wine, salads and all the meat you can eat were included in the price and there really was a lot of meat! Another night we had a cold meats and cheese platter sitting outside on the plaza, can you tell how excited we have been about the food here!!! So we spent a very relaxed few days in the town. We took the cable car up to Cerro San Bernardo, a park up the top of a hill at the centre of town with gorgeous views over the city, and had a leisurely walk back down. We also booked the rest of our coach journeys to get us to Rio which made us feel organised but sad at the same time to realise how close to ending the trip we are.I (Sarah) had been thinking it would be fun to go horse riding, it´s one of the activities promoted for this area of Argentina as there are so many ranches in the countryside. I managed to talk Tom into it so we booked a half day. At first we wondered how it was going to turn out. Our promised transfer from our hostel arrived an hour late and turned out to be a battered looking taxi. When we arrived at the ranch 40 mins later there was no one around and out taxi driver started saddling up the horses. Anyway, it tuned out to be a great experience, our guide turned up a few minutes later on horseback from the fields beyond and was great at instructing us what to do, this being our first time at horse riding! We had two hours riding through the Argentinian bush up and down thin tracks passing huge cacti with views of the valley below. Towards the end when we had reached the bottom of the valley again and were riding along a larger, flat path we stopped for a moment. My horse, who had been quite restless decided she had had enough of me. She lowered herself to the ground, then, thankfully just after I´d managed to get off realising something wasn´t quite right, she started to roll onto her back! The guide said he´d never seen this happen before and that she was normally quite docile. I swapped to his horse and he took the rolling mare instead. Seems she just didn´t like me!! Despite this strange horsey behaviour we had a great time and felt like real Argentinian Gauchos.Buenos Aires was our next stop. Here it was colder and not as sunny but has been a great city to explore. We have wandered around markets in the Artisan area of San Telmo where you stop every so often to watch Tango dancers in the streets, been to the cinema to see Batman (in English, Tom was very excited!) and had more BBQ meat at a restaurant in BA´s newest area, Puerto Madero, a renovated docklands (the largest indoor BBQ we have ever seen, about 30 x the size of ours at home!) It was interesting to visit Cementerio de la Recoleta - a huge walled cemetery full of large ornate stone tombs where Argentina's elite are laid to rest. It took ages to walk round, you could easily get lost in there! A highlight was definitely going to see a Tango show over dinner at the BA institution, Cafe Tortoni. We were led downstairs to a cosy brick walled room filled with small round tables facing a stage. For an hour and a half we were entertained over dinner and wine by Tango dancing and music formed into a show. Although we didn´t really understand the storyline as it was all in Spanish, it was a great evening.We also took a day trip to Uruguay to bring our passport stamps to a total of 20 countries, but that´s another entry...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219168860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219168860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1219168860/tpod.html Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:15:04 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

From Buenos Aires you can take a ferry across the Rio de la Plata to the town of Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay. So we thought, why not? It´s a very old town, originally built by the Portuguese in 1680 so that they could keep an eye on the Spanish across the water in Argentina. Then the Spanish took control. As a result you have the Barrio Histórico, an area which is made up of convent ruins, cobbled streets, old fortifications, old houses, a lighthouse and a port.It´s a scenic place but there´s not that much to do there! We walked around the old town, had coffee and browsed some of the ubiquitous souvenir shops that every tourist place has. We had a great steak lunch and walked a good few kilometres along the beach. It was an overcast day so no sunbathing, but it was a relaxing day and it´s a another stamp in the passport and another pinpoint on the blog map!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218036240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218036240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1218036240/tpod.html Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:53:43 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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La Paz, Bolivia

Bolivia. What can we say? Well we didn´t really have a good time, at all. We would like to say it´s because we were ill for 5 of the 7 days we were there, and that had a lot to do with it but that´s not all. Bolivia is a developing country and has ´third world´ standards, and to be honest we were fed up of that.We left beautiful Peru behind, and took a ´direct´ coach to La Paz as our plan was to travel through Bolivia in order to get to Argentina. Turned out our coach wasn´t that direct! We stopped first in Copacabana on the other side of Lake Titicaca after crossing the very busy and chaotic border post and had to wait 2 hours for the next bus to leave. It was a very busy day there, a Holiday of some sort and the streets were crowded. We walked down the main street and realised there was raw sewage flowing in the street. We had our Teva sports sandals on. Yuck. The public toilets there do not need describing except that they were the worst ones we´ve used anywhere.So, the direct coach made another stop at a port where we had to get a ferry over the other side of the water. We were glad not to be on the same boat as the coach as all it consisted of was a floating platform. The photo shows what it was like. However, the scenery we drove through, high up at altitude where we saw snow-capped mountains, more of Lake Titicaca, and alpacas and llamas in the fields made the journey worth it. We arrived in La Paz early evening and found a hostel to stay at.The next day we walked around the centre of the city to explore it. Apart from a few colonial churches and buildings, it didn´t do much for us. The markets were interesting, a lot of the stalls sold these dried up sheep or alpaca foetuses which we presumed are used for medicinal purposes. Again, see the photo!The next day we fell ill, and spent the day in bed but we desperately wanted to leave La Paz so we blocked ourselves up on immodium and took an overnight coach to the town of Sucre in the south of the country.Sucre was a pleasant place, much warmer than La Paz as it was at lower altitude. Thing was we were both still ill, the town was quiet because the shops were shut due to an election process happening so we didn´t do much. Again the next few days were spent ill in bed. Once we felt slightly well enough we booked ourselves on a coach out of Bolivia. Thing was we knew it would be a 30 hour journey to our next stop in Salta in Argentina but we just had to leave as we were pretty miserable. Maybe it was a case of homesickness too because the end was in sight, but whatever, we just needed to leave Bolivia to feel well again.Th journey was long and bumpy but we got there. We have been in Argentina since and it´s awesome. But that´s for another blog entry. Suffice to say we´re OK now and still enjoying the last two weeks of travelling.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216929960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216929960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216929960/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:46:17 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Peru

This is a long entry, mainly because we have enjoyed Peru so much and really loved travelling here, and we finally visited two places we had wanted to see for a long time....After a last few dusty days in Chile, we decided it was time to head for the border, to Peru. We bought a coach ticket and travelled a mere 600km´s to Arica, the border crossing point from Chile to Peru. Not content at having only spent 13 hours on a coach, we thought why not travel another 6 hours and get to the town of Arequipa in Peru which we had chosen as our first Peruvian stop. It was a strange journey over the border. We bought what we thought was a bus ticket but it turned out we were going over the border in an old and battered American Chevy, with a Chilean family of three, us and another traveller! We made it though and felt exhausted when we finally found a room to stay in. We chose a ´hospedaje´ instead of a hotel/hostel because they are much cheaper but are pretty clean and comfortable. We even got a TV in our room and it was en suite, albeit no toilet seat on the toilet (that seems pretty normal here).Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and was a great place to spend a few days exploring. It is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, and the main cathedral and other churches are built from the volcanic rocks, making them a striking white colour. We met a Brazilian traveller called ´´croc´´ who wore a set of crocodile teeth around his neck which he allegedly caught and killed on his families farm in the Pantanal. Whether or not that´s true, it was a good story and he looked the part!We ate local food here, trying out Llama and Alpaca meat and also the Peruvian version of Chinese style food, something called lomo saltaldo which was a mix of chips, meat, onion and pepper stir fried and served with rice (50p each!).Next stop was to Cusco, further north and the gateway to Machu Picchu which had been on our ´to do´ list since, well forever! Again, it was a great place to stay. More cathedrals and churches, but this time they were built from stones which the Spanish took from the existing Inca structures! This is earthquake territory and the Inca walls around the city survived much better than the colonial buildings.We booked a tour to Machu Picchu with an agency as it was the easiest thing to do, rather than independently trying to book the Peru rail tickets (a notoriously difficult venture) and all the other bits.The train journey there was four hours and took us to Aguas Calientes where we stayed a night. The afternoon we arrived there we climbed mount Putucusi for views of Machu Picchu from above, we say ´climbed´ because a third of the way up it was vertical wooden ladders built into the side of the mountain! After an hour and a half of puffing our way up to the top we got to see the amazing views. It was incredible to be seeing Machu Picchu for the first time and to be able to appreciate the size of it, definitely worth the effort to get up to the top. Machu Picchu is on the top of a hillside surrounded by dense jungle and mountains. It is no wonder it became a lost city. The next morning we got up at 4.30am to get on one of first buses to get into Machu Picchu itself. We had a two hour guided tour which explained about the sight and the Incas that built it. We took loads of photos so you could all see it but as you can imagine they really do not do it justice. We had not realised how vast the city was and it is amazing to see how much of it is still standing firm after so many years. It was definitely a highlight for us and worth the journey and months of looking forward to it.Another landmark on our to do list for South America was Lake Titicaca which borders Peru and Bolivia. It is the highest lake in the world at 3800m above sea level and we travelled from Cusco to the town of Puno on the shores of the lake to see it. We took a two day tour which included a homestay - a night staying with a local family on Amantani island. We also visited the fascinating Uros floating islands the local people make from the reeds that grow in the lake. The homestay was very touristy and so was really like staying at a B&B, although a very basic one! We stayed in the same house with two Dutch girls, Hilde and Joelle who were great fun. That night we were told we were to dress up in traditional wear and go to a party the locals put on with music and dancing. Our dress turned out to be only a skirt so all of us girls wore the guys traditional wear of a poncho. Tom was a little disappointed as he had been told he would also get a sombrero but this never materialised. We use the term dancing loosely as it really just involved holding hands and running round in a circle in the manner of the children's party dance ´the hokey kokey´. We also visited some pre-Inca ruins and watched the sunset from the top of the island. After the party that night we stood out for an hour with Hilde and Joelle watching the stars and saw loads of shooting stars, or falling stars as we discovered they call them in the Netherlands. It was the clearest sky we have seen anywhere we have been so far. This is probably not surprising considering the altitude, and lack of light and pollution. On the tour we met Jason and Christie, an American couple. It was great comparing travel stories and getting to know them. We had dinner with them back in Puno and it was awesome to chat with such a friendly and easy-going couple over Pisco Sours (a Chilean/Peruvian cocktail made from Pisco liqueur, lemon juice, egg white and sugar - yum!)We are actually now in Bolivia which we will update you on in our next entry...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216160520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216160520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1216160520/tpod.html Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:46:18 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Santiago, Chile

The final frontier, well actually continent is reached. South America looms large over us. It´s a big place and we have six weeks to explore it. We decided that for this part of the trip, the journey was all part of it as much as seeing the sights and having down time was in other places. Having said that we are definitely seeing Machu Picchu and plan to see other famous sights too.We spent our last few days in New Zealand back at Paul and Jo´s house in Remuera, Auckland. It was great to be to be in one place for a while again and relax, get our washing done and enjoy lots of great home cooking courtesy of Paul and Jo! One big thing had to be done in those five days and that was to sell the ´Beast´. We took it to the car fair where we bought it and thankfully managed to sell it within half an hour of being there, it was great. The car fair is on a Sunday morning and we even managed to make it to the 9.30am service at St Aidans (where Jo is Vicar). We had used our money for South America buying the car so selling it was very necessary! We spent the last day with Paul and the boys, Adam and Nathan having a great time walking on the beach at Muruwai, a wild piece of coastline near Auckland. We left Auckland at 5.45pm on 15Th July and flew for nearly 11 hours to Santiago where we landed at 12.30pm on 15Th July! We went back in time crossing the international dateline! In Santiago we found a small hotel on a cobbled street in the Paris Londres area. It was full of large old colonial buildings, plazas, churches and the hustle and bustle of a large city. The city wasn´t what we expected in one way although we´re not sure what we actually did expect. We spent the next couple of days exploring the centre of the city. We climbed a huge staircase up to Cerro Santa Lucia, a walled garden on a hill at the top of the city, browsed craft markets and ate Un Completos (hot dog smothered in guacamole, mayo and tomatoes) for lunch. The Andes mountains surround Santiago are an amazing sight but the smog often hides them.Our next stop in Chile was La Serena, a pretty town full of churches (29 churches in the one town!) and neocolonial buildings. The town square or ´Plaza de Armas´reminded us of the square in the Back to the future film - it had a church next to it with a large clock tower. We spent a few days here relaxing, looking round the town and enjoying the local food. There were not many tourists here so it felt like we were really in a typical Chilean town. We walked to the beach one day but it was pretty cold, overcast and misty so you couldn´t even see the 96m high concrete cross which sits over the bay on the other side to where we were.Another long coach journey later (15hrs) and we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama this was the complete opposite to La Serena, it was in the middle of the Atacama desert and totally dusty and there were tourists everywhere. We eventually found a place to stay which was a relief, it is hard work trudging through the dusty streets in the heat of the day carrying 20kgs on your back! After originally wondering what we were doing in such a strange place we did quite enjoy it. The day we arrived the wind was blowing dust and sand everywhere and the place felt like something out of a wild west film, however the following days were bright and sunny and so the views around of the nearby volcano were clear & amazing.Language has, as we expected, been a bit of a challenge. We´ve had several funnies - Tom asked at a cafe we were at where the toilet was, the lady obviously didn´t understand our Spanish and brought us the bill! We´ve met a few South Americans who have been able to speak enough English to have a conversation with and they have seemed surprised that we are travelling round South America without knowing Spanish or Portuguese. Still it´s all part of the experience.The best form of (cheap) transportation around South America seems to be, as it was in Africa, coaches. So far they have been comfortable and reliable which is good but it does feel like we will be spending a lot of time in them over the next six weeks as we have such a long distance to travel. Oh and we´ve only had one hot shower since leaving New Zealand, it seems that cold water showers are the norm in hostels. On the other hand we are managing to live on under 20pounds per day for both of us so it´s not so bad!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1211584080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1211584080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1211584080/tpod.html Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:17:51 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

Kia Ora bro!So here we are in the land of the long white cloud, or 'godzone' as kiwi's refer to their country. It's easy to see why as you are surrounded by amazing countryside of breathtaking natural beauty everywhere you go. You can't help but describe it like that!We arrived in Auckland where we were picked up at the airport by our friend, Paul. We were staying with him and Jo his wife and their two boys Adam and Nathan in Remuera which is a suburb of Auckland. The next day was a Saturday and we went to watch 7 year old Adam play soccer which was fun. Paul is a massive Arsenal fan and got the Ansell's into the gunners in about 1990! Paul is from England and Jo is a Kiwi and they moved to NZ about 10 years ago. We had seen Paul twice in that time when he had visited England to see his family, but we hadn't seen Jo for all that time and never met the boys! So it was a really good opportunity to catch up and soon it felt like there hadn't been such a huge gap in time. Our plan was to buy a car to travel around both islands instead of renting one or using coaches. We picked up an old 1991 Subaru Legacy station waggon (estate!) at a car fair. We named it the 'beast' in honour of our other car back home which is the real beast, a monstrous Ford Ka. We spent a few days around Auckland and the surrounds, enjoying the scenery of the harbour, Mission Bay, St Helliers and the city.We then hit the road to begin a five week tour of NZ. We started by heading up to Northland, the northern tip of the North Island. We stayed in the Bay of Islands at Paihia which is a stunning large bay and famous as the place where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed which made NZ a British colony in 1840. We self-catered at the backpackers and we ate green lipped mussels which cost $1.99 a kilo (about 80p)! Can't beat fresh NZ muscles. We tramped through wetlands and forest to the Haruru waterfalls and generally enjoyed being outdoors.The next stop in this part of the island was Cape Reinga which is the tip of the North Island where you can actually see the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet as the two bodies of water clash and create some white water.On the plane we had read an article about the Coromandel Peninsula and we decided we wanted to go there as the article made it sound good!. It's another peninsula which has more of the same beautiful coves, beaches, hills and valleys and was even better than the article made out. The best bit here for us was a visit to a place called Hot Water Beach near to Hahei beach. As NZ is on the fault line of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates it is a land of volcanoes, earthquakes and general thermal activity. Anyway, on this particular beach there is a natural hot spring which runs under the sand from the hills into the sea. You turn up, hire a spade for five bucks and dig a hole in the sand which fills up with very hot water, all natural, and a little bit smelly due to the sulphur. We sat in our 'spa' for a couple of hours with loads of other people doing the same thing nearby and watched the surf rolling in and the sun shining on the shimmering sea and the green hills all around. It was something you can't do in many other places and lots of fun. When the water got too hot you just dig another hole near by to filter in cold water.After that we headed further along the coast to Mount Maunganui, a beach suburb of the port city of Tauranga. Whilst in Adelaide we had met a Kiwi couple, Mark and Kath. They had given us their address and offered us a place to stay at their home when we got to NZ. We took them up on their offer. They have four kids, Alexandra, Jessica, Hoani and Sophia, all under 12 years old! We enjoyed our stay with them, but their toy poodle Tama didn't seem to like us. He even escaped from the house one day when everyone else was out and we had to chase him down about 4 blocks before trapping him in a corner of a garden. A passer by had stopped to help and gave us a piece of rope to tie around his collar so we could get him home. Another passer by almost called the police on us because he thought we were trying to break in to the house where we had Tama trapped in the garden! Kath kept the rope on his collar for a few days and called it the 'collar of shame!' as he had bitten both of us when we tried to bring him home. It was a great location to spend a few relaxing days so close to the beach and to have a nice family to talk to and eat dinner with.From Mt. Maunganui it wasn't far to Rotorua which is famous as a thermal area. We visited Te Puia, a Maori cultural park which also has geysers and mud pools. We saw a Haka performed here and the Prince of Wales Geyser which is quite a big one. In the evening we went to a hot pool complex called the Polynesian Spa where we relaxed in 7 different outdoor hot pools. It was very cold out of the water but in it was great. Some of the spa's overlooked the lake which at night was lit up along the banks by houses. It was good spot to send a few hours after dinner as it was open until 11pm. It got busy at one point when a coach tour of maybe Chinese or Japanese people arrived and a number of them got into the pool we were in. As soon as they sat down next to me in the pool another Asian lady spoke to them and they moved away. This happened several times and was getting weird. The lady then spoke to me in an American and Chinese accent and told me she had been telling people not to sit near me because "she knows English people like their personal space"! I tried to explain it was OK, but she just kept telling everyone who came near me to move on (she was speaking Chinese or whatever) It was getting embarrassing so we had to move pools before the whole coach tour thought I was racist.The weather (we're English so we have to mention it!) had been fantastic, bright clear sunny days, considering it was winter which made the driving from place to place a pleasure.By the way, had you guessed? Kia Ora means Hello in Maori. Not an orange drink in a carton.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1215559920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1215559920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tommy_sar/rtw_07-08/1215559920/tpod.html Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:40:21 -0400 Tom & Sarah's round the world trip. 2 people, 4 continents, 12 months.

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Wanaka, New Zealand

From windy welly we took the ferry to Picton on the South Island. It was a fantastic clear and sunny day and the route through the Marlborough Sounds was so scenic, with green hills rising out of the blue water with the sun reflecting on it. We spent the majority of the three hour ferry ride outside on the deck.We had three weeks to see the South Island which is not nearly enough time but we had a rough idea of the main places we wanted to get to. The first stop would be Christchurch because we had tickets to see the All Blacks versus England. On the way we stopped overnight in Kaikora. As we were driving along the road which ran right next to the sea, we spotted a few fur seals lounging on the rocks. One in particular was up on a rock and would make a great photo. We stopped and I got out and walked down to the beach, camera in hand. Sarah waited just behind. As I was walking towards the rock, I was concentrating on the seal up on it, not really looking in front of me. As I walked around some boulders on the floor suddenly there was movement and a loud barking type noise and a huge male seal rushed down into the surf having been disturbed by me. I think we were as shocked as each other to have got so close! It made for some good photos though.So, in Christchurch we found a great backpackers and settled in for a few days. The rugby test was fun to see, shame about the result though. The part Sarah wanted to see most was the Haka at the start of the match. It was awesome and really loud when you see it live, with their chants of Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora! Ka Ora! Tenei te ta ngata puhuru huruNana nei i tiki mai, Whakawhiti te ra, A upane ka upane! A upane kaupane whiti te ra!Hi!! Reverberating through the stadium. Check it out on You Tube; http://youtube.com/watch?v=gNXn8_4jCak&feature=related We also met up with our friends Laura and Tam, the two girls from Bristol who we had last seen in Laos back in March. They happened to have flown in to Christchurch when we were there. Sarah and I had just booked three days of skiing at Mt Hutt near the village of Methven and we found out that Laura and Tam were also heading there with a friend of theirs.Methven is a small village that is the base for the slopes of Mt Hutt. We stayed in a backpackers there and caught a coach up the mountain each morning. We both had lessons and picked it up quite quickly. On the second day the mountain was closed due to severe weather but we managed to get an extra day added to our package as compensation. The second day of skiing wasn't a good one for Sarah who fell over early on and twisted her knee because her foot didn't come out of the ski. It swelled up quickly and meant she couldn't ski anymore which was really gutting. However, she planted herself in the upstairs bar (drinking only chai latte!) and watched me ski the rest of the day and the next. Laura and Tam and their friend Fraser joined us and we skied together and relaxed by the fire in the bar. It was cold up on the mountain and my hat froze into a long cone shape because it kept riding up over my hair. Turned out I looked pretty funny, "Side show Bob" was what Sarah called me!The Beast (remember our car?) was going ok and got us around fine. We enjoyed the drives between the towns on their small little roads. They are main roads, but one carriageway with two lanes which wind up and down the mountains and valleys. Every corner you turn confronts you with this amazing vista of landscape that blows you away. Without getting too profound about it all, God's creation is incredible. I know mountains are formed by movements in the tectonic plates, and all the rest of the geological explanations for the landscape, but remember God designed all that too. Look it up, it's in Genesis.We spent two or three nights in various places including Lake Tekapo which is beautiful in the postcard pictures, but was misty, cloudy, foggy and rainy when we were there! Lake Wanaka was a breathtaking sight. It is surrounded by snow capped mountains and by then the sun was shining and it was great. We relaxed and looked around the town, enjoying the views. We stopped in Queenstown too, you have to don't you? Even though we had skied already and didn't want to do any of the 'extreme' activities, we wanted to see the place. It too is a lake surrounded by mountains and is very picturesque. Apart from skiing, the other big activity or sight we wanted to do on the South Island was see the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers on the West coast. We headed there and now we were travelling with Laura and Tam in the car as their friend had left NZ and we offered them a ride back up the South Island and on to Auckland. Laura and Tam braved the icy conditions and did a full day hike on the glacier. Due to Sarah's knee we couldn't do that and had our eye on getting up there on a helicopter. The day we planned to do this was bad flying weather so we couldn't. The forecast was bad until after we were due to leave which was really disappointing. However, we prayed for good weather and a new front came in and cleared it all up so we flew the next day. The views were totally majestic from six thousand feet (2000m) looking down over the blue ice of the crevasses on the glaciers. The hikes take you up to about 500m, but we got up to the neve, the place where the glacier starts with the deep frozen snow forming the glacier. These glaciers are amazing because they move a lot faster than others elsewhere in the world, in fact up to ten times faster at up to 70cm a day. Franz Joseph is the biggest, it is currently 12km (7 miles) long. The helicopter ride was supposed to be 30 minutes long but we got an hour which was great. We landed on the snow for ten minutes or so but it was about -6C degrees up there! The photos we took look great and you can really see the blue ice. What a way to spend an hour of the day. It was definitely a highlight of our whole trip.After three days in Franz Joseph we carried on up the coast and stopped in Nelson. From here we drove to Picton and caught the ferry back to Wellington, thus ending our time on the South Island and for us, perhaps the best part of New Zealand. Only one week left in NZ now....English Translation for the words of the Haka for your info:It is death! It is death!It is life! It is life!This is the hairy personWho caused the sun to shineKeep abreast! Keep abreastThe rank! Hold fast!Into the sun that shines!
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