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Chris and Charly Down Under

a travel blog by chrischarly

Bye bye tuk tuks
Bye bye negotiating
Bye bye, 'Hello Mister'
Bye bye long bus rides
Bye bye heavy backpacks
Bye bye savings...
And G'DAY 'down under'!

After plenty of time spent in South East Asia, we have just left Australia after having an amazing time driving around for almost 3 months in a camper and are now in New Zealand doing the same :)


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Soon to be moving on...

Geelong, Australia

Found out that we have got a place to stay in Melbourne from Thursday until we fly out on Monday in a REAL bed! After considering it for not too long we jumped at the chance to be out of our tiny damp leaking tent (although I do secretly like it) so tried, and failed to get a refund as we had already paid to Sunday.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 13, 2011 from Geelong, Australia
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Farewell dinner

Geelong, Australia


The lake
We started to slowly start organising our things today ready to pack back into our backpacks with Chris discovering that I now had 17 tops. Bugger. So of course some had to disappear to the local charity shop. When you don’t have many clothes it is hard to part with ones that have travelled the world with you. But Chris didn’t of course fall for that and demanded that some had to go ignoring the argument that mine were half the size of his. It is going to be hard to leave the camp site tomorrow! We felt bad for leaving Maureen and will really miss her so early so cooked her (well Chris did) a farewell dinner and chatted for ages until I started drifting off to sleep on her sofa…

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 14, 2011 from Geelong, Australia
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Puffing Billy

Belgrave, Australia


Puffing Billy

Leading the way

After doing pretty much nothing for far too long we surprised even ourselves by having a busy day. Woke up too early to finish packing away all of our things and left Maureen with everything we couldn’t fit in our bags to take to the charity shop or keep if she wants including our tent, mattress, doona, clothes, food, etc. etc. Tim, another friend we made then gave us a lift to the train station just in time to make the 10:24am train to Melbourne, then with a quick change over we caught the metro to Belgrave and then just a walk to find Eamann at the Puffing Billy Railway Station armed with free tickets for us to go on this famous steam train.


Puffing Billy

The engine of Puffing Billy


Puffing Billy

On the puffing Billy


Puffing Billy

The switch room


Chris and the captain

Nice view from train


On the bridge

Eamann and I

It was a great trip taking about an hour each way with fantastic scenery. We then met Eamann when we got back and we went to have a few drinks at his local before he took us home to his lovely House and cooked us a delicious dinner.



permalink written by  chrischarly on December 15, 2011 from Belgrave, Australia
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Fuzzy

Pakenham, Australia


Chris chillaxing in libray
Woke up with fuzzy heads again this morning. But to work it out of our systems a little we tidied up, did some washing before justifying sitting on the sofa for an hour or two before Phil kindly gave us a lift into town. So after using the free Wi-Fi in the library and then a little shopping we took a slow walk back and had a chilled evening watching a couple of films and Chris made some homemade pizzas.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 16, 2011 from Pakenham, Australia
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shopping, chores and films

Pakenham, Australia

Did a little shopping, did a few chores and watched a couple of films and hung out with Eamann’s flatmate, Phil. But apart from that didn’t do a great deal…

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 17, 2011 from Pakenham, Australia
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Mission Impossible

Pakenham, Australia

We didn’t do a great deal in the morning, but went out to do a bit of shopping in the afternoon and we brought a new hard drive as our other one has broken. We then went to the cinema and watched the new ‘Mission Impossible’ film, which was I surprised myself by enjoying it! It was nice to go to cinema and it’s the first time we’ve been since we’ve been away, but it wasn’t cheap at $21 a ticket! We then came back and chilled on the sofa.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 18, 2011 from Pakenham, Australia
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Almost in Auckland...

Auckland, New Zealand


Yummy pate
Cannot believe we are leaving Australia already!.. So we got ourselves motivated eventually to get on with stuff and to get ready for flying out in the evening to New Zealand.

Chris' delicious pork belly dish
Chris cooked a culinary delight in the evening consisting of homemade pate and his signature dish of pork belly for us, Eamann and Phil.

Eamann, Phil and I
Then Eamann kindly gave us a lift to the airport in the evening and we said a sad goodbye to both him and Phil who have been great to us the past few days. Our flight left at 11:50pm for Melbourne and by this time we were both already exhausted but I had a horrible middle seat on the plane with Chris on my left and a guy with no sense of personal space on my right, and an annoying brat behind, so although just a 3 hour flight, it was horrific!

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 19, 2011 from Auckland, New Zealand
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A building sight

Christchurch, New Zealand


Our plane
We are now 13 hours ahead of the U.K and we landed in Auckland on time at 5:20am both kind of in a daze. Chris did manage to sleep a little, but bless him, it was the kind of sleep where you jolt your head every couple of minutes, so that did keep me entertained most of the journey.

Control tower in Auckland
We didn’t have a great deal to do to kill time before our next flight to Christchurch in 7 hour’s time apart from, go through security and change to the domestic terminal so we did this as slow as possible. To be fair though, it wasn’t too bad as our flight left on time at 12:10pm with no hassle and this time we had 3 seats for the two of us,

About to fly...
so I passed out before take-off and slept until Chris woke me up to check out the awesome scenery before entering Christchurch. We had already booked somewhere to stay, which is a hostel is New Brighton called Point Break on the outskirts of the city so we took 2 buses to get there

Awesome view from plane
which was relatively easy and the last bus driver dropped us off right outside of the door. As we had a van when in Australia so slept in that, this was our most expensive accommodation yet at about £60 for 2 nights and it was the cheapest we could find, so different from the bargain places you can find in Asia.

The snowy mountains from plane
When we got off the bus though it looked just like a building sight and when we checked in and paid the remaining balance we got taken upstairs to be shown our room. It was tiny with just a bunk bed wedged in the corner with the windows open and a builder outside drilling so all the dust was blowing in the room. Fantastic.

A Building Sight aka our hostel
So obviously we weren’t happy, but before we said anything, the manager showed up, took a 1 look at our gob-smacked faces and instantly moved us to a room out the back with no work going on. We were so happy, plus it was an en-suite with 4 beds in, including a double, so we quickly shut the door and locked it before they changed their minds. Unfortunately though for them, some other people saw we got upgraded so had a bit of hassle from them! Oops! Chris then forced me to go out and join him for a beer so I didn’t crawl straight into bed and get jet-lag so I finally got to sleep properly at 10pm thankfully!

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 20, 2011 from Christchurch, New Zealand
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New Brighton

New Brighton, New Zealand


The beach

New Brighton Pier

A segull

New Brighton


The New Brighton Pier
After dragging myself out of bed for our complimentary breakfast due to the building work, I crawled back into bed and fell back asleep ‘till midday. Finally able to face the world Chris and I wandered off into town to have a walk about, going to the library and on the pier. It was a nice and relaxing day happily achieving not a lot just enjoying this lovely town.

permalink written by  chrischarly on December 21, 2011 from New Brighton, New Zealand
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Meeting back up with the ever-extreme Justine

Twizel, New Zealand


Leaving Christchurch

Stunning

The pretty wild flowers and blue lake
Woke up, packed bags, ate breakfast and checked out of the building sight and waited for Justine to arrive to chauffeur us back down to her pad for Christmas.

Driving to Q'Town
She arrived at about 1pm with Dan, her South African friend and a hitchhiker she picked up along the way and we drove slowly for about 8 hours down to Queenstown stopping a few times along the way.

The most gorgeous place
We were all pretty tired by the time we’d arrived but still stayed up chatting for hours having a couple of drinks and a catch up. She has an amazing House, full of character and people staying here all the time, thus it can never be described as quiet… Think we are in for another crazy Christmas!


A baby fallen through the roof

Justine's pad



permalink written by  chrischarly on December 22, 2011 from Twizel, New Zealand
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