Day 12, Australia Again

On our first trip to Sydney two years ago, we were there just before the opening of the Sydney Wildlife World. This trip, that was our first priority. After a good nights sleep, we wandered our way over there, and sat down at the attached Lizard Lounge and had some breakfast. When we were buying our tickets we let them talk us into the Wildlife World and Sydney Aquarium combo pass, since we like a good aquarium anyway. We really enjoyed our trip to wildlife world, getting nice and close to koalas, hanging out with the butterflies, and getting uncomfortably close to creepy crawly bugs. Then we wandered over and played at the aquarium, mostly breezing through the exhibits since we'd been there before, and spent most of our time hanging out with the seals and at the big tank with the sharks in it. But we did find a really cool looking fish that I've renamed an Auburn Tigerfish. Next we took the subway to Bondi junction and grabbed a bus out to the beach. We tried to remember where we'd eaten before, but ended up finding ourselves an outside table at Papa Giovanni Pizzeria and Seafood. We had some tasty Calamari, and a four cheese pizza, along with a few beers. With a little lunch to keep us going, we then walked down to the beach to test the water, and decided we'd have to be crazy to get in it that cold. So we walked from Bondi down to Bronte beach, and caught the bus from there back to Bondi Junction. There we caught a bus to take us to Randwick for dinner at Bombay Bloomers. W met the owner a few years ago at work, and we've made a point to visit every time we're in town. So far it's still the best Indian food I've eaten in the world. We grabbed a bus back down to Circular Quay from there and then went out to explore The Rocks a little. We found the Observer Hotel and decided to sit down and have a pint, and listen to the live music there. W managed even to win our bar tab on the slots. We explored The Rocks a bit more then headed back to the room, worn out from a full day on the go in much hotter weather than we'd experienced just 48 hours before. The next morning we grabbed a little brekkie at City Extra, Which is seriously good food at an awesome location. You have to order something that gets you the fresh bread while you're there. It has what might be the best views in town, and it was fun to watch Sydneysiders shuffle on and off the ferries. Then it was time to get on our way, a quick cab ride to the airport, and on our way back home. A couple of first class seats and one of the nicest domestic based crews I've ever flown with were waiting for us at the airport, and we even managed to pick up a few bottles of a delicious aussie wine we'd had on the flight in from Queenstown. It was a great end to a trip, and a quick transition to being back at the office. To catch up with the entirety of the photographic experience be sure to see:

New Zealand 1 (Auckland to Huka Falls)

nz part 2 (Huka Falls to Queenstown)

NZ Part 3 (Doubtful sound to Sydney)

Day 11, Crossing the Tasman

Finally the time had arrived to bid farewell to New Zealand, we packed up all of our stuff got in the car once again and made our way downtown. We had a very delicious final lunch at Fergberger (site works poorly in some browsers) . I had the little lamby and wished I had discovered it earlier in the trip, I might have eaten one every day. Yes, that does mean I held a baby lamb one day and had a lamb burger the next, but... circle of life. Then we reluctantly went to the airport, and bid adieu to our faithful rental car companion. Be warned that rental car dropoff is a long hike from the terminal across an unpaved lot, not easy to manage with lots of overstuffed luggage. We were disheartened to hear about a canceled Qantas flight as soon as we got on the terminal, but fortunately it was an Auckland flight. When we checked in they asked us to wait nearby, a familiar tactic if they're not sure you're going to get on. The weather was lousy, and they frequently weight restrict the flight, so it was a little touch and go. Eventually they did give us 2 exit row seats, so we were glad, and hustled through the terminal out to the plane. The flight from Queenstown to Sydney is only 3 hours, but we still got surved a hot lunch (we both went with the lamb casserole) and got a little bottle of wine that we really enjoyed. (there was no charge for the wine either). The dessert was the best part, because just when I thought we weren't getting a dessert, out comes a flight attendant with a Streets Magnum Chocolate Ice Cream bar for everyone. Best. coach. class. dessert. Ever. We arrived in Sydney after watching Get Smart, and needed to figure out some way to get to our hotel. We also had to bypass the very tempting tax/duty free store that you are forced to walk through. We found a shuttle service to hotels for only $13AU per person, which seemed much easier than navigating the train and then walking with our bags, or overpaying for a cab. We set ourselves up at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay. Our room was awesome, and we got a view of the harbour and opera house without having to spend an arm and a leg. After our somewhat stressful day at the airport, and 2 weeks of hustling we were ready to spoil ourselves a little bit so we stayed in to eat at the hotel. The Seafood buffet on the weekends is incredible. We splurged on the buffet our last trip to Sydney when we stayed at the Hyde Park Marriott, so we knew it would be good, but this was above and beyond even that. There was tons of fresh sashimi, balmain bugs as far as the eye could see, crab legs, and lots of lots and other choices. There was even someone preparing noodle dishes to order. The range of Desserts available was like nothing I have ever seen. But those are not even the most important features. The real maker of this deal was the wine buffet. $24AU for pour your own from a selection of 4 local reds 4 local whites and a sparkling. Between wine and sashimi, we more than got our money's worth. Stuffed, we rolled ourselves back to our room and crashed.

Day 10, Down on the farm

The tenth day was our final full day in New Zealand, so we had to make it count. We started the day with a bit of laundry, and then we were ready to find some breakfast. We found a little mall food court and sat down to eat at the Sagun Cafe and Indian Cuisine our waitress for the morning was a very nice lady who we correctly gussed was from Brazil, she chatted with us for a while about what to visit in Brazil, and where she'd been in Florida, and how it was perhaps time to start using her masters degree. We wandered around a bit downtown, and then it was time for our Water Peak Farm & Barbeque Excursion. We had spent the previous 8 days seeing sheep at every turn, so it was finally time to get up close and personal. We spent about 45 minutes cruising across lake wakitipu, landed on the farm and dug right in to a delicious lunch of grilled meats (including lamb) and they had a nice selection of cheeses for dessert. Then we went over to watch a sheepdog and shearing demonstration, where we finally got W her opportunity to hold on to a little lamb. The sheepdog demonstration was cool, they have two types of dogs, some that bark, and some that just use eye contact to move the sheep. In this case we saw the "eye" dog. After that they had a spinning demonstration, and not long after that it was time to head back on the boat. We sailed over on the TSS Earnslaw a fully functional coal steamship, where you can look down into the engine, and see a guy down there with a shovel and a big pile of coal. We had a short turn around back in Queenstown for a charter fishing trip. We fished with Stu Dever, and I caught one trout, the 2 other people on the boat caught a couple of nice salmon, and poor W didn't catch anything. I forgot to warn her that going on a guided fishing trip with me is a bad idea I frequently end up just throwing away money while other people catch fish. The captain definitely knew what he was doing and was a nice guy about it, he just wasn't quite good enough to overcome my fishing jinx, but we can't blame him for that. Plus he promised us half off next time, so we'll definitely have to come back and take him up on it. We worked up a big appetite reeling in all those fish.... oh wait that's not what happened. We were hungry, so we found ourselves some dinner at Avanti. I had the frutti del mare pasta, and W had some prawn skewers that we both enjoyed. Then it was time to go back and pack for our trip to Sydney the next day, and we had two weeks worth of accumulated information pamphlets to sort through. and a 1 carry on bag limit to try to deal with.

Day 9, Losing My Doubts

On day nine, our morning started with a 6:45 a.m. pick up at our hotel for the Real Journeys Doubtful Sound Nature cruise. We had a few anxious moments when the cab didn't show up early like we'd been told to expect, but eventually it did and dropped us off at the Real Journeys office downtown. There we jumped on a nice moderately comfy bus (the seats are a little close together and aren't necessary wide enough for two full sized people, but the glass roof is really cool). That bus was headed for Te Anau, with another Japanese tour group headed for Milford, but was stopping to drop us off so we could head south. W and I both grabbed a nap when the road got pretty steep and curvy and woke up just in time for our drop off. We climbed on board a smaller less comfortable bus, and it took us and 8 others to the dock at Manapouri. Once there we gathered up our picnic lunch from the cafe, had a cup of coffee for good measure, and then climbed abourd our first boat for the day. Lake Manapouri is beautiful, and the hour and a half it takes to get to the other side is time well spent. I spent most of the time climbing up on the upper deck to take pictures until I was too cold, then back downstairs to thaw out or until something looked picture worthy. Once across the lake you stop at a small visitors center that tells you about how the hydroelectric power station works, and then you climb on board a third bus that takes you across Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove, the entrance to Doubtful Sound. The Doubtful sound cruise is non-stop beautiful, and is worth every penny you spend on the trip, and every second you have to spend on the road to get there. Occasionally they'll stop the boat to get a close look at something, especially if there are seals or penguins about. The water was always calm because of how deep in the valley you are, and our picnic lunch was actually quite good. After exploring a few arms of the sound, and traveling all the way out just far enough to see the rolling Tasman Sea, you head back towards deep cove, and once again on to your bus. The bus then takes you deep inside the Hydroelectric plant where you get a short tour, but it's mostly cool because of how far underground you get. Plus the bus driver has to turn the bus around at the bottom of the tunnel, which was a pretty impressive move. After the plant, it's back over to lake Manapouri for a run back across it, and only one big bus on the way back to Queenstown. You get back about 7:00, and are ready for some dinner. We grabbed a little internet time, and then went over to Brazz to find some dinner. Brazz has a cool mix of really huge dinner plates, thin crust pizzas, and tapas, so we went with two of the tapas and a pizza. We started with lamb backstraps with feta, and fried camembert nuggets with a cranberry dip that were out of this world. Our pizza was delicious too, and turned out to be just the right amount of food. From there we got ourselves into the Minus 5, where I strongly recommend the polar blair drink which I'm trying desperately to remember what it contained. Tired from a full day, back to the hotel we went, and promptly crashed.

Day 8, Onward towards Queenstown

Day 8 began with the usual routine of getting ready to leave yet another hotel. I got up a little early, so I went to check out the other restaurants in Lake Tekapo village, to pick out a likely candidate for breakfast. The longest line was outside Doughboy's Bakery and Cafe. For such a small place, the assortment of pies and quiche's and assorted baked goods was mind-boggling. We settled on a few items, some coffee for me and a tea for W, and grabbed some sandwiches for the road. We took a stroll around the lake, but the weather was still not being cooperative enough to get our postcard style reflection picture (I know... next time). Then we climbed back in the car and got on the way to Queenstown. We just had to get out of the car for a few minutes a couple of times to stop and check out the scenery. This was one of the many times where I felt like stopping to snap pictures every 10 minutes, but we did get out for a stop at Lake Pukaki. We also made a brief stop in Omarama at the Wrinkly Rams. Alas, no wine at the wine bar for me while driving, but we did get a tasty cup of coffee and some cookies. We thought about staying for a sheep show, but there was this huge group of Japanese tourists there, and they were keeping the owners of the place so busy we couldn't get any real information. After 3 hours of driving we found ourselves in Queenstown, and made another i-site stop. They found us a room, but threw us a curve ball when the nice young lady at the counter recommended going to Doubtful sound rather than the Milford. We rushed much of the earlier part of the trip with the thought that Milford sound was the one thing we absolutely had to do, so with a little skepticism I said yes, but had trouble turning off the worrying part of my brain. So, we got ourselves booked in a hotel, on the doubtful sound trip, and on a barbeque cruise on the TSS Earnslaw. We took off for another Gondola/Luge trip, where we got a great look at Queenstown and lake wakatipu. We even spent some time coordinating ourselves the best luging picture ever. After burning up all our luge rides it was time to find our hotel, and while we didn't end up with a perfect lake view, it really wasn't too bad for what we paid, and it was too cold to sit out on our porch anyway. Once we got ourselves settled in, it was time to find some dinner. Our hotel, the Scenic Circle Arum Resort gave us a great book that had menu's for all the restaurants in town, which only seemed to make choosing one that much harder. We had a couple in mind as we walked downhill towards downtown. We settled on Guilty Bar after reviewing the full menu outside. We made a bet with ourselves that our waitress sounded Californian, and sure enough she was from not very far away from the bay area. Our meal was going great I had a really great ribeye, done perfectly with a tasty sauce and fries, and W had Clam chowder so good I forgot where we were for a moment and we had a tasty calamari starter. It took us an un-naturally long time to get our check, but other than that our meal was awesome. We went back to the hotel for another one of those nights with an early alarm clock call.

Day 7, Christchurch and Lake Tekapo

On the sixth day it was time to get up in the morning and do a little laundry, we packed what seemed like a lot considering how many places we had moved in and out of in 5 days, but when we got right down to it, some clean clothes were going to make the rest of the trip a lot better. So I jumped out of bed in the morning and used the free washer, and it was only $2NZ to use the dryer, and then we made our way to the Christchurch Gondola. The GPS got us a little lost on the way, but eventually we made it. Of course they had a cafe up there, so we started with some breakfast and took in the views. The beach just seems to go on forever.

Next we went to downtown and paid a visit to the i-site, where we arranged our stay for the night. Then we jumped on the Tram that takes a guided tour of the downtown area. We regretted not having more time to jump on and off the tram (add it to the list for next time). We checked out the cathedral (which of course has a cafe) How much more would I go to church if there were an attached espresso bar? And then we found some food vendors in the square, One guy was selling delicious fully loaded baked potatoes, and someone else was selling the tastiest spicy bratwurst. After that stop for a snack, and a can of Lift and we were on our way to the next stop on our journey, Lake Tekapo. We did make one little stop on our way, when quite by accident we bumped into the Trocadero Bakery. I badly regret not ordering a second éclair, the cream in the one I ordered was smoother than anything you've ever put in your mouth.
Lake Tekapo is the most beautiful color blue you've ever seen, because glacial ice grinds down the rocks into the tiniest pieces that stay suspended in the lake water. On calm clear days it perfectly reflects the surrounding mountains, but as you can see we were not there on a calm clear day. A thunderstorm eventually chased us away to our hotel, the Godley Resort where we had a mostly unobstructed view of the lake and the mountains and a patio facing the lake. Too bad it was frigid. We took a look at the food that was available and settled on the hotel restaurant staffed by one energetic girl who was hostess bartender server and bus person. I had a wonderful piece of salmon raised nearby in a glacial lake and W enjoyed the most tender roasted lamb you can imagine. By this time in the trip I'd learned to order coffee with dinner, especially If I'd had a drink, if I wanted to stay awake for longer than ten minutes after we got back to the room, I think my flat white wasn't strong enough on this day and I crashed hard.