Hong Kong Bitches!

welcome one and all to the penultimate blog entry for, Halfway around the world in eight months!
            We are here now sitting in Hong Kong international airport waiting for our flight home. HOME! It tastes like a foreign word in my mouth! Our flight isn't for another 7 hours, but hey another night sleeping in an airport wont kill us! Or will it!?! It's freezing here, all the floors are polished, cold hard tiles, and there are being polished again, right now by an excessively loud machine!!
But aside from the trials of the now, here is a quick run down of what we've been spending our time on, these past few days.
    When it comes to accommodation, we left it to the last minute. All of the hostels online were either sold out, or charging a sweet fortune. After too much searching we settled on a hotel that was a little too close the the upper end of our budget than we would have otherwise liked. It turned out to be a nice place, it was even mentioned in the Hong Kong map that we were given in the airport, if that's not classy, i don't know what is!!
    Moving on, we both found it nice to be surrounded once more with Asian culture. The streets of the city were filled with a multitude of smells, and neon lights were hanging from every shop front. It really is a busy place. The public transport system here is really fantastic, everything is joined together, buses, trains and ferries all fall under the same ticketing system. In the airport it's even possible to pay for food using your bus pass!
Being here almost acted as a bookend to our trip. Compared to the other cities in Asia we have visited, HK seems to be one of the most varied. The English influence is still evident here. In the newspapers we saw pictures of judges wearing the same wigs as in Britain. Also the fire brigade and ambulances' use vehicles very similar to those found in the U.K. At the same time, a lot of people have trouble speaking English, we ran into translation difficulties even in the tourist information centre. Within a couple of blocks the city varies between brand spanking new Gucci and Prada shops, to run down inner city flats. There are quite stark contrasts between the rich and the poor here. The food from the street stalls, were as good as we've tasted anywhere! Not to mention the night markets!
    On our second day in HK we went to........... DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!! We had a great time there, plenty to see and do. We met a lot of characters, Donald, Goofy, Buzz Light year. It's true what they say, Disneyland IS the happiest place on earth!! We went on pretty much all of the rides and had a great time acting as two big kids!
    Today (Wednesday) we went up the the peak, which is a lookout point over HK, we had to take a very steep tram ride to get up there. It was a spectacular view, well, some of it was, the smog did   a pretty good job of covering up the rest!
          I may have lied earlier in saying that this is the penultimate blog entry. Due to tiredness restraints,(Jet lag is fantastic! NOT!!!) there are going to be no pictures in this entry. When we arrive home (tomorrow!) we'll get a few HK pictures up. Then, when the dust has settled, we'll post something regarding our thoughts on the trip as a whole. Facebook will tell you when!
See you really, really soon!!!!!
Dave and Kjerst!

PS
Thanks to James Cleary and Marita for getting us horribly hung over in Dunedin in NZ. Which we forgot to mention in the last post! G'wan Jamesie ye mad yoke! Karaoke till du DØR!!!!

New Zealand

Hello there!
We didn't have much time in New Zealand. We started out in Auckland where Kieran, Jamesie and Mark showed us the sights and what the local beer does to you the next day! We made a quick trip through the north island, stopping at Lake Taupo and Wellington along the way. We also got to drive through Mordor!!
On the south island we rented a car and took off on a whirlwind tour of magnificent scenery. New Zealand is definitely a land of contrasts, we reckon it's a mix of Ireland and Norway. One minute we were looking at rolling hills and grazing cows, the next we were faced with snow capped mountains and jagged cliff faces. On the south island we visited Franz Josef glacier, Queenstown, Dunedin, Mount Cook (NZ's highest peak), Lake Tekapo, Methven and finally back to Christchurch for our flight to Hong Kong. We are still in Methven and are preparing for the final leg of the road trip. We haven't got much time to write this blog entry so here are a few pictures to keep you going until later!

The Locals!

Goodbye Australia!

Hello there everyone!
It's been a good while since we last updated, so here's a quick rundown on what's been going on these past few months.
After Uluru we flew to Sydney, again! I guess we can't get enough of that place! It was good to be back there, plus we got to do some of the things that we didn't get a chance to do the first time around, like go to Taronga zoo.
The zoo was good fun we got to see a lot of Australian animals that had eluded us so far in the wild. We got to see koala's, wombat's, wallaby's and last but not least kangaroo's. It was nice to see a kangaroo hopping around instead of lying dead at the side of the road, as we had seen before! We also got to feed a wallaby at the zoo, which was quite an experience. He was a docile little fellow and didn't mind the long queue of tourists, as long as their hands were full of tasty snacks! Kjerstin also faced a couple of her fears and touched a bearded dragon and a snake. We had a good day at the zoo, they put on a few different shows with the animals to keep us entertained. There was a baby boom too,  a baby elephant and a baby gorilla, the gorilla had just been born so it was off limits. Fun was had by all.

 

Next came Australia day! It was quite the boozy affair. It started off in circular Quay watching the Sydney ferries having a race, the harbour bridge was the finishing line. If there was a boat to be found in Sydney, it was out on the harbour that day. The city was jammed with people, and boy was it hot! There was a lot of stages set up around the city and we watched a lot of good bands. Later we met up with the infamous Teddy, and the party started! Needless to say we had fun, and then we went home.

After a few dodgy hostels, Teddy graciously invited us to come stay at her place, which we were very grateful for. If there's one thing Sydney does well, it's shitty hostels! At Teddy's place we got to recharge our batteries and take it easy for a while. We also had the joy of a heatwave, 30+ degrees for over a week, it was tough going! Then the day came when we were due to leave, Townsville was the destination. We put on a goodbye BBQ with kangabanga's, (kangaroo sausages) not as bad as you would think but not great either. While we were having fun mother nature was having plans of her own. Tropical Cyclone Yasi was just off the Townsville coast and was moving inland fast. So we had to spend another week in Sydney. Once again Teddy let us stay at her place for another week. The cyclone was a category five, the strongest category there is, when it hit the coast, in-between Townsville and Cairns at a place called Mission Beach. We watched the news coverage and were glad that we decided to postpone our travel plans. There was a lot of devastation caused. Thankfully, due to foresight and planning there were not many casualties.

One week after Yasi we arrived in Townsville. The evidence of the cyclone's destructive power was everywhere. There were uprooted trees in every street, houses with missing roofs here and there, signposts and fences lying on the ground. The place was a right mess. All of the trees were being collected and pulped in a nearby field. There was an endless line of trucks filled with fallen trees leading to the pulping machine. Our hostel was quite nice but there was no electricity, save from a few extension cables that criss-crossed the hallways. This made the sweaty nights a real joy!

Next up was Kjerstin's birthday! For this we spent all day long a the beach, with a birthday picnic to boot! We swam in the stinger nets too, you can't swim in the sea in northern Queensland without something trying to kill you, so in the safety nets we stayed! Afterwards we went out for dinner and finished it off with a bottle of wine and desert! Yum!

After Townsville we hopped on a bus and headed for the beach paradise of the Whitsundays. Here we spent two weeks lazing by the man made lagoon, remember sea = death, and soaking up the rays.
We spent one of our days cruising around the whitsunday islands and visited the beautiful whitehaven beach. The beach is made up of sand that is almost 100% pure silica, which we were told is very good. :P

After getting the ultimate tan, which is gone now by the way, we jumped on a plane back to Brissie. David had a paper to write and so the next weeks were mostly spent in the library.
The last weekend in Brisbane we managed to get tickets for an AFL-game which was really fun!

So here we are now, sitting in Brisbane International airport, about to head for New Zealand and to leave Australia, where we've spent the last 5 months. It's very exciting and yet a little sad. We've come to like this country on the other side of the world where just about everything that moves can kill you and natural disasters are an everyday occurrence. They've treated us well and we've had an absolute blast! Now it's time for the final chapter of our journey, so wish us luck!

Uluru

A 4 hour drive from Alice Springs and you can see the most famous rock in the world. We were not allowed climbing it, since it was too hot (43 degrees) and since the Aboriginal ask people to respect their wish and not climb it, it was for the best anyway. The tour brought us on walks around the rock and told us dream time-stories about the creation of it.

Later on we went to the sunset spot to have a champagne bbq while watching the sun go down.
Safe to say, it was the best sunset ever.

The best sunset we've ever seen.

Adelaide - Sydney - Brisbane

A lot has happened since the last update and since we're fairly lacy when it comes to blogging, we'll give you a short round-up and some best of-moments.

We spent Christmas in Adelaide where the lovely Gemma was kind enough to take us in! The weather was lovely and hot so we spent a good bit of time at the beach and one of the days was spent in McLaren Vale wine tasting.

Uncle Sean

The table tennis tournament is a long tradition in the family

From Adelaide we went back to Sydney to see the fireworks. The only flight we could get was one leaving on New Years Eve and we landed in Sydney at 19.30. A little stressful but worth it.

Therese giving it all that!

Happy New Year!

Now we didn't stay long in Sydney. We had our eyes set on Brisbane, but before that Therese brought us on a lovely road trip to The Blue Mountains.We were really lucky with the weather and had an awesome day!

I can't tell you how excellent it is to have an Australian guide who is more sceptic to the wildlife than we are!
Later on that day Therese dropped us off at the bus station and we were off to Brisbane.

Who needs a new umbrella?

The day before the river flooded

When we arrived in Brisbane we were eager to see what the city and surrounding areas had to offer. It was, however, just after the new year and the city was pretty quiet, not much going on at all. Most of the cafes and shops were still on their holidays. It was much different to the busy streets of Sydney.
Most of our time was spent in the library thanks to an assignment I had to write for school. But we did have a lot of exploring time in the city too. It has a nice laid back feel to it all. We had some good weather for the first few days, and then the rain came.

We had been watching news reports of the flooding in northern Queensland, there were some pretty dramatic scenes. But we felt safe knowing that it was happening far away from us and Brisbane was going to be safe enough. The rain in Brisbane started innocently enough, a few showers here and there.The frightening thing was how quickly it progressed into torrential downpours. One minute it was sunny and the next, the streets were like streams. If it hadn't been for the storm drains in the streets the city would have been flooded much earlier and a lot worse than what it was. Each day on our way into town we passed by the Brisbane river and we could see how it was climbing fast. Every so often we could see pieces of debris floating along. As the days progressed the rain got steadily worse and the releases from the Wivenhoe dam increased, the Brisbane river got much higher and the flow of the water was a lot faster than it had been. Bear in mind though that our hostel was on a hill so we weren't too worried for our safety during all this.

Everything came to a head for us around Sunday or Monday, so the 9th or 10th of Jan. The rain was as torrential as usual, our hostel was emptying of people, buildings downtown were being evacuated, the news was full of pictures of houses being swept away by the floods and stories of people dying. All throughout the day and night sirens could be heard racing through the city. There was an eerie atmosphere everywhere we went, a feeling of dread mixed with nervous anticipation. It was almost as though the city was holding it's breath waiting for the river to finally peak, which was still a couple of days away. Our parents were calling us constantly making sure we were OK and trying to get us to go somewhere else. When we went shopping for food, the supermarket shelves were almost bare, all the fresh foods like bread and fruit were sold out, along with bottled water. While waiting in a queue for 40 minutes we decided to get the bleep out of there.

Our bed for the night

NSW Firemen

We booked a one way ticket to Alice Springs and even though our plane wasn't scheduled to leave till 7 the next morning, we headed straight for the airport and spent the rest of the day and night there.

We weren't the only ones with the same idea. The airport was full of backpackers leaving the city. We all slept on the floor that night, meanwhile the river peaked in the city. The next morning we watched the scenes that unfolded the night before. Ipswich, a suburb of Brisbane was under water. Most of the city centre and the CBD were flooded as well. The electricity had been cut in a lot of areas. We were relieved that we were leaving. In the airport, firemen and rescue workers kept coming in from different states in Australia.

The news showed the debris that had been floating down the river, pontoons with boats still attached were like floating missiles taking out other pontoons and piers. Part of the cement walkway, which we used to walk along was torn off and swept downstream, it had to be guided out to sea by a tug boat in fear that it would damage bridges along it's way. 

Turns out it was a good thing we got to the airport when we did, because the flight we were one was almost empty. Around 50 people didn't make it to the airport due to closed roads, etc.

Next stop: Uluru.

On the road again

So here we are..5 months have gone by since we left Europe, believe it or not.
After driving for 3 whole days we ended up in Adelaide and after a weeks journey to Melbourne we are now back in Adelaide to celebrate Christmas with our new found family!

Here are a few pics from our road trip across Australia. This car is called a high top and fits 2 people. Perfect!

We got it through a relocation deal which basically means that when a car rental company needs a car to be somewhere else they let people like us drive it there for free, instead of getting one of their own men to do it.

Breakfast

 

We had four days to return the car in Adelaide so we spent 3 nights in 3 different caravan parks and lived it up with a few stubbies!

 

In the outback

After a few nights in Adelaide we took the bus down to Melbourne and managed to squeeze in a week with the legendary Cathal before Christmas.

On the last night there we started up in the highest bar in Australia, then we went to the casino and then home for a legendary Christmas Party with Cathal's roommates, Steven and Sorcha.

The Casino entrance

After a lot of singing and dancing Cathal had to go directly to the airport to catch his flight to Alice Springs while the rest of us finished it off with a dart tournament which myself ended up winning!
It must also be mentioned that I got a bull's eye!

Christmas Party with a Mexican twist

Delighted

And now we are back in Adelaide celebrating Christmas real Aussie style! More about that some other day...