The South Island

[Tobey]

About this time last year, I'm browsing airline ticket prices to see if that dream of a trip to Australia might one day be a reality. Lo and behold, round trip from Los Angeles to Sydney is less than $600. I have a free Southwest ticket to get to LA and back. I have 3 weeks of vacation... This, that, and the other happens, and the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I'm on my way to Sydney.

I bought the ticket on something of an impulse, then had to find a way to spend 3 weeks. How about a week in New Zealand on a motorcycle? Sounds good. How about a few days in Cairns Australia, diving on the reef? That'll work. A weekend in Sydney attending the V8 Supercar races was next; that, and the extra vacation days from Thanksgiving, are what actually set my timing. Then a week bumming around the Sydney area before heading home. I bought some more plane tickets, reserved a bike and lodging in NZ, and decided to figure the rest out once I was there. I traveled solo, so I only had to please myself...

You leave L.A. on Saturday night, fly about 15 hours, and arrive in Sydney on Monday morning, thanks to the international date line. A friend was living in Sydney at the time, so he let me take a shower at his place, showed me around a bit, then dropped me back at the airport to fly to Christchurch, NZ. I was one tired puppy when I finally got to my hotel that night.

I rented a bike from these guys: http://www.motorcycle-hire.co.nz/
Originally, I had an SV650 reserved. But they sold it, and put me on a Yamaha FZ6 at the same price. When I reserved and paid, the exchange rate was good, and I think the bike ran about $85/day. They also prepared an itenerary, and reserved all my hotel rooms. All I had to do was ride.

I stayed in Christchurch that first day, exploring around the area. Everywhere you go in New Zealand, "beautiful" is the word that comes to mind, with an occasional "stunning" thrown in.

Here is the bay and port outside Christchurch. We have the Houston Ship Channel, they have this (that's a full-size container ship down there in the water):

 

[Tobey]

Day 2:

Wednesday morning, I set off in search of The Hermitage Lodge at Mt. Cook.
http://www.hermitage.co.nz/
Mt. Cook is where Edmund Hillary trained for his assault on Everest. On the way, I stop at a car, motorcylce, and antique tractor museum in Geraldine. What's special in this museum? A lot of stuff, actually. But this Harley Davidson Hearse is what really stands out in my memory. The local undertaker built it back in the '50s, and used it for quite a while.

Parked across the street from the museum:

Yes, there really are sheep in New Zealand.

Paying homage to the working dogs at Lake Tekapo.

Church of the Good Shephard, Lake Tekapo

Lake Pukaki, almost there... These lakes are all glacier fed. The glacier grinds up the rock and granite and whatever into an ultra-fine powder. The ground up rock is what gives the water that light blue tint, according to the roadside information sign. Lake Pukaki is fed by the glacier in the Mt. Cook area.

The "headwaters" of the lake.

I finally arrive at the hotel, and look what's in the parking lot. Notice that both bikes are sweating a little, from the hard ride.

And the view from my hotel room.

 

[Tobey]

Day 3: Mt. Cook to Queenstown
I should talk a little bit about riding on the left side of the road. After about 3 minutes, it became a non-issue. The hard part about traffic is that all the lane markers are white. In the U.S. white means one-way, yellow means two-way. In NZ and Australia, you have to look for the arrows on the pavement near the intersections. Or, if there weren't arrows, there was a double stripe down the middle for 15-20 feet that denoted a 2-way street.

They are also fond of roundabouts, which work quite well, actually. They all go clockwise, you always yield to the vehicle on the right, and it's all good. While walking down the street in Queenstown, I did see a car circle a roundabout 3 times. "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament."

Outside of the towns, on the more minor roads, they also have one-lane bridges. There is a sign as you approach that designates who has right-of-way. On this one, I'm traveling in the dirction of the small arrow, so I have to yield. The big arrow has ROW.

Some beautiful, dare I say stunning, views as I left Mt. Cook.

My favorite picture from New Zealand

Queenstown is an alpine village in south, err, south South Island?
I've never been to a European alpine village, but I imagine they look a lot like Queenstown.

It's a total tourist area. The downtown area is full of storefronts offering Lord of the Ring Tours, rides on the lake, rafting, etc.

But they also have jet boat rides.

If you are ever in Queenstown, or anywhere in NZ where it's offered, run, don't walk, to the kiosk and sign up for a jet boat ride. It was $110 for a 45 minute ride, and it was worth every penny. Just go here, watch the video, and keep in mind that the video does not do it justice; not at all.
http://www.shotoverjet.com/

Here's a shot of the group that went after me:

In a feat of poor timing, I'm headed out of town tomorrow, and need to go to bed tonight. I'll continue the story next week, when I'm back home. Don't worry, the best of the pictures are already posted. Weather made me turn back to Christchurch, instead of exploring the western coast. But I have a few more stories. Also, there are more pictures here, with google map tags:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tobey.a.taylor/NewZealand#

 

[10-95]

Awesome!

 

[stacie074]

BEAUTIFUL!!!!

 

[RedPill]

 

[Jerry]

Very nice!

 

[Coolhand]

Probably one of the top two or three places in the world I'd like to see, very cool...

 

[ekms377]

Keep it coming.....

 

[NitroRoo]

Awesome! I went to NZ when I was a kid - but I don't really remember it very well. Where on earth did you find tickets for $600??

 

[BexarWolf]

Awesome!

+1!

 

[Tobey]

Awesome! I went to NZ when I was a kid - but I don't really remember it very well. Where on earth did you find tickets for $600??

It was on Delta; I found it through Orbitz. The airline industry was down last year, and Sydney tickets were discounted on all the airlines. I had numerous choices less than $700. The Delta ticket was the one that fit my schedule. Plus, Delta flies the new Boeing 777. Excellent plane for long distance flight.

Thanks everyone for the comments. If you ever have the chance, go ride New Zealand. Roads are good, drivers are friendly (at least compared to Houston), the people are tremendous, and the scenery is stunning. I'm definitely going to return one day. Next time, it'll be 2 weeks in NZ, and 1 week in Australia.

I'll post some more stories next week.

 

[Tobey]

Sorry for the delay, I'm ready to keep going now...

It's time to leave Queenstown. I was scheduled to cut over to the west coast, and explore it going north. More mountains, glaciers, and other cool stuff. But the forecast was for driving rain, 40-50 mph winds, and generally crummy riding conditions.

The drive up to Mt. Cook a couple days before was enhanced by a 40 mph crosswind. All the bikes on the road were leaning left about 15* in order to go straight. I could deal with that on a bright, sunny day. But I wasn't going to put up with it when combined with rain.

So I headed back to Christchurch.

It was a fairly uneventful day ride back. No pictures; it was the same scenery from the other direction. The next day dawned cloudy and drizzly, so I explored Christchurch on foot. What a beautiful little city. It has a very British feel, or at least I assume it does; I've never been to England...

A cool looking church. But what makes it picture worthy is the white building in the background. That white building is a bar, with good beer and excellent grilled ostrich. Imagine a church and a pub sharing a lawn space in the U.S.

Clock tower near downtown.

The River Avon. According to the handy sign, these Willow trees were supposedly grown from cuttings of trees that surround Napoleon's grave.

Another view of the river.

The citizens of Christchurch (Christchurchians?) take great pride in their roses. Everywhere you go, it seems, there are little rose gardens. The city has a botanical garden with lots and lots of roses, as well as other pretty things.

Some of the roses were huge; as big as a child's head at times.

That afternoon, while eating lunch, I was reading the local paper. There's a little blurb about a Christmas in the Park concert that night. Remember, it was the last week of November, and it was Saturday night. The park was just down from my hotel, so I decided to go. And I was glad I did.

As I walked toward the park, the closer I got, the more people it seemed were going my way. By the time the concert really got going, there must have been nearly 15,000 people there. And this is a town of less than 400,000 people. It turned out to be a really excellent concert. It was a huge production that lasted nearly 3 hours, with giant screens, a live orchestra, and a string of famous and popular New Zealand singers.

What struck me was that the security was very subtle. There were no problems that I saw. It had a very "community" feel to it. The park was full of teenagers on dates, families enjoying each other's company, and little kids running around and having fun. Maybe living in Houston I'm just a little jaded, but the whole atmosphere just put me in a good mood.

The next day, I did some more touring outside of Christchurch.

These next two were taken at Akaroa. It's a dormant volcano on the coast. What you are looking at is the inside of the cone. Some of the walls have collapsed, and it is now a nice little bay.

And more sheep.

The next day, I turned the bike in, and flew back to Sydney.

 

[Tobey]

I spent almost 2 weeks in Australia. After an overnight in Sydney, I flew north to Cairns the next day, and went snorkeling and diving on the reef. I have a little Canon point-and-shoot, and bought the waterproof enclosure for it. It did a bang up job underwater.

Then I rode the old train up to Kuranda. There were some gorgeous views on the way up.

Funny thing about the Koalas; they are essentially union workers. All the places that do Koala pictures have to agree to certain standards. The Koala only works 2 hours each day, and only 6 days a week. They need their beauty sleep. And it works. They are so darn cute and cuddly, you hate to give him up after the picture is taken.

 

[M38A1]

Nice.

I think that's a place I'd like to visit on the bucket list.

 

[Tobey]

Then, it was back to Sydney for the V8 Supercar races in Olympic Park. There has to be a few racing fans reading this that know what the V8 Supercars are. For those who don't, it is simply THE BEST sedan roadracing series on the planet. You can finally follow it on Speed once again.

A little something for the car guys here:

They are known as "Utes", not El Caminos. Ford and Holden (GM in Australia) both make them. They are very popular, and have a race series. They are very stock; they still have the stock interior in them.

I spent the rest of the week bumming around Sydney, took a day trip out to the Blue Mountains, and just generally enjoyed myself.

The Blue Mountains get there name from the blue haze. It is caused by chemicals released from the eucalyptus trees.

And that's about it. A long trip home, and it was all over. I hope you enjoyed the show.

 

[Tobey]

Nice.

I think that's a place I'd like to visit on the bucket list.

Yes, you should put it on the bucket list. The most common question I get from friends is, "Would you go back?"
Simple answer: In a heartbeat. Once I save up enough to afford it again. It turned into the most expensive $600 I ever spent, but it was worth every penny.

 

[BexarWolf]

Out-freaking-standing photo show.

What kinda "little Canon point and shoot" were you using to get these shots? That is some awesome work and a great eye for the shot!

 

[The Bruce]

Wow! Awesome trip and photos. You done good.

 

[Tobey]

Out-freaking-standing photo show.

What kinda "little Canon point and shoot" were you using to get these shots? That is some awesome work and a great eye for the shot!

Thanks! It's a Powershot SD990IS.

I took a couple thousand pictures; a few dozen were bound to come out nice. I carried three 4GB SD cards. The cheap memory we can get these days is nice.

 

[mikeofcontex]

My Walter Mitty is killing me now... Thanks!

 

[BexarWolf]

My Walter Mitty is killing me now... Thanks!

I'm sad that I had to Google Walter Mitty but now, I understand.