New Zealand, Day 4: Bay of Islands

 

We got up early today for a dolphin watching nature cruise of the Bay of Islands. It was a lot drier today but apparently the winds were at least 20 knots, so the sea conditions were choppy to say the least.

New Zealand, Day 3: Whangerei Falls

 

The first task today was to shop for picnic food, meet Lizzie, and pick up our hire car. Our little Hyundai Getz wasn’t quite ready when we got to the hire shop, so we had some time to work out how to get out of Auckland.

New Zealand, Days 1&2: Auckland

I arrived in Auckland in the afternoon, and spent a few hours exploring – I went to Albert Park, saw the ferry building and the Sky Tower, Aotea Square and had a look at some shops along the main street. After spending quite a lot of time in cities over the last two months I wasn’t really feeling like spending a lot of time in Auckland, and there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount that I would be interested in within easy reach, so spent a lot of my second day looking at road maps and leaflets in an attempt to put together a rough plan of the next two and a half weeks.

Fiji, Day 7

Our last day in Fiji. Our flight was around midday, so today was spent getting the bus back to the airport and coming back to Sydney, swapping the resort for a 32 bed dorm in a hostel, and getting ready for the last leg of my summer holiday.

Fiji, Day 6

With nothing planned and no desire to stay in the resort all day, today was spent in the sea, in a jungle and at a market. We had heard that there was a walk in the jungle opposite the resort that would take us up to the top of a big hill, which would be like a lookout. This walk took us through a tiny village, which felt really intrusive as we seemed to be walking right through people’s homes, and into some quite thick forest, along a river and up through some land planted with crops – all the time accompanied by a small herd of dogs from the village. We soon lost the path, and never did find the lookout, but we did get a mini self-guided trip  through the jungle.

Fiji, Day 5

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out for today’s trip after some yucky minor food poisoning last night, but I wasn’t going to waste the day in bed when I felt fine in the morning, so after a slightly less exhaustive trip to the buffet I went out on another river, this time in a motor-canoe.

Fiji, Day 4

Today we went for a day trip to Suva, Fiji’s capital city. We went by bus, which takes about 2 hours so there was a film on for the duration of the trip – it was unsubtitled Bollywood, so trying to work out what was going on passed the time. Normally, I would have wanted to look at things out of the window as I’m so far from home and what I’m used to, but the rain was coming down so hard that I can’t see anything further away than the edge of the road. Not being able to see wasn’t much of a problem with the Bollywood distraction, but the difficulty came when over half way there it was unwillingly revealed the the rain was now so bad that Nadi (the other city) was flooded and so there would be no return bus that day.

Fiji, Day 3

Today’s adventure was whitewater rafting, but the adventuring started long before we got to the river as there was an hour long off-roading trip in a minibus to even get near the water.

Fiji, Day 2

We got involved in a little bit of Fijian culture today.  First of all we were taken into the village and told how to avoid embarrassing ourselves (taking off our hats and sunglasses when we left the road and taking off shoes to go indoors). Then we went to the village chairperson’s house for a traditional kava ceremony and to hear about island life and some history, and also had the opportunity to buy ‘traditional handicrafts’.

Fiji, Day 1

We travelled to Fiji today,  so I’ve been awake since 5am to get the train to the airport.  After the usual waiting at the airport, a 4 hour flight and a 2 hour bus ride we arrived at the resort early evening, ate, and planned the next few days.