Hanne and Julie upside down: november 2008

søndag 30. november 2008

Kiwiland

Island similar to Norway? Check. Freezing Cold (Norwegian summer)? Check. Eaten kiwi? Check. Smuggled items into New Zealand and being fined a small fortune? Check. Crashed a car? Check.

We flew in to Christchurch a couple of days ago and believe me, it was the bumpiest flying-in I've ever been on: Scary pilot-lady! I think Julie was watching the Simpsons on our in-flight screens at this point, so it could be an earthquake for all she notices :P All good when we had landed, we had our luggage superfast and we filled out our immigration forms and our customs forms... and Julie got caught. And fined the budget of a small country.

"You, Julie Stave, have been found guilty in smuggling in food items, fruit, namely one banana."

And how much did she pay? A pretty 200 dollars. (Our rental car for five days was 274...)

Anyways, we had to get a taxi and pick up our van! We arrived at Wicked Campers and met our designated car: Davie Bowie. He is a truly amazing car, but more about that later. We payed, had the usual tour of the facilities, oil, water, petrol, and grabbed freebies (leftovers) to go. Everything was fine, Hanne is getting into her head that she has to drive on the wrong (read: left) side of the road, we get in, I get out.

"It has an AUTOMATIC???"

I've never driven an automatic in my life. But once you get used to it, it's not so bad (don't tell anyone..). We started, got out on the road, Julie had her maps and told me to turn right at the next intersection. I turned into a one way (not my way) street. And it was very little empty. So I drove over the road and out of the road, continued on the sidewalk for a while and found somewhere to get back on the right (yes, left) side of the road.

We got safely out of Christchurch and headed for the mountains. I drove for some hours, we took some photos, had food in Darfield, passed Springfield, Sheffield, and a number of creeks with funny names (list is to be posted at a later time).

We spent the night at Jacksons, completely out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, but the nice man running the site said he would help us the next day.

We woke up (not completely mosquito-eaten), and Julie made burgers on toast for brekkie. It was good, but we had to throw the rest away because we have no way to cool things down. Well, we checked out, and the nice guy came over to the car to save the ladies in need. He seemed so confident that we had loads of petrol and could get really far, but he was just checking in case..

"It's not even running on fumes!"

No.. It was running on sheer will-power.. I was not about to go empty downhill the mountains..

He filled us up quarter of a tank for 15 dollars (cheaper than hoes in Amsterdam), and told us we had 30 k's left for a petrol station in Moana. Not the road we were planning on, but we got to Moana, filled up and headed for Greymouth. Just before Greymouth we saw the sea.. We had driven across the island and were safely on the other side. Or so we thought. I crashed during the first five minutes in Greymouth. Ladadi ladada, I took the door (the whole door) of a youngsters Corolla. And he was an angry little kid he was.

So, we stayed in Greymouth for a while longer than expected, before we headed down south for the longest journey to date. We saw the coast and glaciers, and were in desperate need of music and ended up buying crappy stuff. We drove until late last night and slept at Makarora. Freezing.

Woke up this morning and had toast and jam, drove to Queenstown, found food and Internet (the basic needs are covered), and here we are. The plan for tonight is to drive as far North as possible before I near fall asleep at the wheels, and the find somehwere to park our van.

The time difference is 12 hours exact, if anyone wanna txt :P

(We've each had our day of misery, Julie with the expensive banana, and Hanne crashing another car, Julie's turn today.. )

torsdag 27. november 2008

Back to being Brisbanians (22-28.11.08)

Back in Brisbane, supposed to be studying. No further comment on that subject.

We're back at Bowen Terrace, enjoying life in separate rooms this time (yay!) and we have our own fridge! Luxury! Indulgence!

Our breakfast is Coco Pops + milk (first time I've had milk since Norway) on the porch. My dinners have consisted of steak as I discovered that in Australia, steak is 8 AUD per kilo (roughly 36 NOK). I love steak.

We are around 25 people staying at Bowen Terrace, so it is very social. A few Australians, a British guy, some French people, many Italian people and loads of Germans.

We've finally ordered a Wicked Camper for 5 days in New Zealand, and hotel in Cristchurch for the rest. We're leaving tomorrow.

Today, we spent the day at the Immigration Department, standing in line. Luckily, it turns out we will not be illegal immigrants in Australia afterall. We were originally told that we had a 3 month visa, and we entered the country the 8th of september, and logically, our visa would expire the 8th of december. We're leaving the 12th. Today, they checked our passport and since Norway has a special agreement with Australia, our visa's give us a new 3 month stay everytime we re-enter the country. We will be back in Australia the 5th of december, meaning our visa will expire the 5th of March unless we re-enter the country again. So, we're all clear. Phew :)

Hideaway Island and Pele Island

Again, snow at home did you say? Or, the worst storm in decades continues in Brisbane? Fantastic..

Thursday we went to Hideaway by bus. All the buses in Port Vila look like normal cars, but they have a B in front of the number on their number plates. T is for Taxi, H for Hire and PT for public transport. Apparently, bus is not reckoned public transport in Vanuatu. PT is for those going to the market carrying all their goods.

Anyways, we got on a bus, got on another bus, then a ferry (room for ten at the most, including the ferry man), and then we finally arrived at Hideaway. We paid the entrance fee, found very comfy sun chairs and headed out to sea. If you ever think you've seen a beach made out of dead corals before, think again, you haven't been to Hideaway.. It held good promises of what were to be found in the waters before us. We spent the day snorkeling and tanning (sometimes under the umbrella, sometimes not), experienced the occasional rain shower, but it was just nice having the salt washed away for us.

We both started getting sick this day (swallowing too much salt water I guess..), but we had a nice day and looked forward to Pele Island the next day.

Pele Island? Didn't that get canceled? Well, on Wednesday it did, on Friday it didn't. But, they forgot about us. We had that fixed as well and after chasing the bus in a scary small car without seat belts, we catched up and headed for the boat.

Rain clouds came and passed over all the island, including ours, but it didn't start raining yet. We embarked on a small beach, left our stuff and headed out to sea again. Our guide took us out to the reefs and provided us with bread in case we wanted the sharks (I mean, fish..) to eat something other than ourselves. I played around with my underwater camera and met many cute (and some huge) fishies out there on the reef. It started raining on the way out and while we were snorkeling, but it cleared by the time we headed back. Everyone was hungry and we had food (glorious food!) accompanied by.... yes, a string band.. Not that they drive me nuts or anything (they do.) but however cute the guys were, it did not make up for them being guys wearing skirts and with white flowers in their hair.. :S

After lunch we had a guided tour of the village (800 people lived there). The day that we were there they were preparing a wedding, the groom was just over at another island buying the bride. We saw the food being prepared (a cow's head here, a pig's leg there) and we are not thoroughly convinced that it was all too hygienic. Our guide climbed a coconut tree and fetched coconuts for later. On the way back we walked past the local church: A shed.

Kids sang to us (we're goin tu mis ju, we wis we cud kis ju, we hate that ju'r goin aaaaaweeeeeeeeee). You can hear it can't you? After this fantastic musical experience, we had some free time to swim around and enjoy ourselves and it was thoroughly enjoyed:)