Once we got set up, we headed to Echo Point where the start of walks into the valley and into the national park are. The hike really wasn't long, but you had to walk down stairs that went down the valley wall. They were super steep. There were apparently 900 steps. That was just going down. The trail was very pretty and had a view of a gorgeous waterfall.
From there we reached the place to head back up the valley wall. We could cheat and take the sky tram, but we decided to take the Furber Stairs instead. There were some beautiful sites along the way, so even though it was pretty tough, we're definitely glad we went that route. Along the trail we ended up seeing a few parrots. They were bright red with blue on the tail, head and wings. We also got to see (and hear) Black Cockatoos. Very fun.
After we completed the hike (it took us 3.5 hours), we headed back into town to find dinner. The Thai restaurant we found was very good. They didn't include rice with their meals, which was a little odd, but it was still delicious.
-Miranda
A view of the Three Sisters. They're a main land formation in this area of the park.
A small section of the stairs on the way back up. Some of the stairs were metal, but most were carved directly out of the stone wall.
;)
Some more stairs. If you click on the photo and then look near the patch of sunshine, you might be able to see two red spots. Those are parrots. ;) That's what I get for breaking my camera.
An amusing sign telling us which way the trail goes.
Another view of the Three Sisters while the sun was working on setting.
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Today we woke up and were hoping to get to the zoo when it opened. I checked work quick and realize it was 7:30am.... We completely forgot it was daylight savings... So, we walked relatively slowly to the ferry and were there 20 minutes before it was leaving for the zoo.
We had a fun time walking around. We went to the seal show and saw a lot of babies. They currently have 3 baby elephants, young chimps, a baby gorilla, baby and young wallabies, all sorts of fun animals to watch.
We were pretty tired after walking around the zoo all day, but we found some sushi and gelato on the way home from the ferry.
-Miranda
The Opera House from the ferry.
Leopard Seal. Apparently they are the only zoo to have them in captivity.
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Since we arrived in Sydney, we've mostly been just wondering around. We walked around downtown quite a bit. It's mostly ritzy shopping. We had a heck of a time finding decent food.
For our first full day we decided to check out more of the city. Our hostel is near the Botanic Gardens, so we headed that way. Unfortunately, I forgot to grab my camera, but I can't see what I'm taking pictures of anyway.
The gardens are where the fruit bats 'sleep'. I put sleep in quotes because they don't really appear to be sleeping. They super noisy and crawling between the branches. It's super crazy. When the sun goes down they're flying everywhere.
Anyway, we headed towards the Opera House, since it was nearby. Not quite as many people around there as I expected, but it was pretty neat looking. We stopped to have some fancy sushi nearby before heading off. From there, we basically just walked and looked around. We were going to get another Vodafone broadband card for internet, but apparently we needed two forms of ID or our passport. Since neither of us had our passport on us, that had to wait until the next day.
For dinner we found a completely vegan shop. It was very good. Fortunately, there is one closer to where we're staying, so we had lunch there this afternoon.
We're spending this evening working and trying to figure out what we're doing while in Australia.
-Miranda
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We arrived in Christchurch and did our best trying to sell the van. It took about 4 days of ads, some a bit desperate, but we ended up selling it for $1100. It was quite a loss, but at least we weren't stuck there for a couple weeks trying to sell it.
The next flight to Sydney was the next morning, so we had to decide what to do for sleeping that night. We weren't sure if you could sleep in the airport until we stumbled upon the site "A Guide to Sleeping in Airports" http://www.sleepinginairports.net/. So funny. Anyway, we stayed at the park we were at until around midnight. We then got a ride from the guy that bought our van. There were so many people in the airport! It was crazy. People sleeping everywhere.
We tried sleeping for a bit, but realized it wasn't going to happen, so we just watched some stuff on the computer until the airport opened up at 4am. We tried to sleep on the plane, but that wasn't overly successful either.
If we booked with the hostel we found for at least 3 nights we got a cheap shuttle ride from the airport, so we decided to go for it. We hung out at the airport for another few hours and then called for the shuttle. We made it without a problem and are in a room with two other guys. Fortunately they are both pretty quiet.
-Miranda
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Joe looked into prices for flights out of Dunedin and compared it to Christchurch. He also looked into vans for sale in both cities. We save $300 by flying out of Christchurch instead and there are more vans for sale there for more, meaning there should still be a market of people coming in to buy them. Hopefully anyway. So, we decided to head up to Christchurch.
Yesterday morning, before leaving, we went to Cadbury World with the same German couple (we woke up to them parked across from us at the holiday park). It was fun. It was basically a tour around the chocolate factory. From there we headed out of town. We didn't really stop much along the way. We found the DOC site closest to the road and Christchurch and stayed there for the night.
We woke up this morning and headed out again. We were still 250km from Christchurch, so we have a bit of driving to do today. We're currently in Timaru having lunch. The plan is to get to Christchurch then start the process of trying to sell the van before we fly over to Sydney.
-Miranda
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