Reece's Around The World Trip

End of Travels

2006-01-16T12:55:10Z

Well just in case you didnt know Hawaii was the end of my travels and i would like to thank everyone for reading my blog and hope i didnt bore you to much.
You dont actually realise how it starts taking over your life and your travels until its to late.Then it gets to a time when you have to say 'No thats it.Its time to spend more time enjoying your travels rather than trying to make others happy by keeping your blog up to date'.
Anyway im now in the middle of planning my next trip which will probably start in Mexico in march 2006 and then head down to central and south america.

Thanks
Reece

End of Travels remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 184-Day 194 Waikiki, Hawaii

2006-01-06T15:00:29Z

10 days spent in Hawaii and the highlight of the trip was meeting the beautiful Evangeline Lilly from the TV series LOST.Weird thing is shes been on my laptop screensaver for the last 6 months and then for some reason when i get to Hawaii i decide to check the Honolulu Marathon website page which is also being run on sunday and i notice shes doing an autograph signing session.
The rest of the time in Hawaii was spent relaxing on the beach or by the pool or swimming in the sea.Also we visited Pearl Harbour and walked up the dormant volcano at Diamond Head and hired a car for the day and drove around the island.

Evangeline Lilly photo from my laptop

Me and Evangeline Lilly

Evangeline Lilly

Evangeline Lilly autograph signing session

Sun setting on Waikiki Beach

Diamond Head

Jill and Me drinking in Dukes

Dragon boats on Waikiki Beach

Waikiki Beach

Sunrise on Waikiki Beach

View from Diamond Head

Hanauma Bay

Coastline at Makapuu Bay

Mokuleia Beach

Pearl Harbour

Gun turret still visible on USS Arizona

Oil still seeping from USS Arizona

Pearl Harbour

USS Arizona Memorial

Day 184-Day 194 Waikiki, Hawaii remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 183 Sydney, Australia-Waikiki, Hawaii

2005-12-28T23:02:50Z

Freek,Alex,Me,Remcon and Matthew at the front on Bondi Beach

A very very long day today.
Our flight wasn’t leaving till 8.30pm and we had to check out of the hostel at 10am so we put our backs into storage and the plan was to just hang around till about 5pm until our shuttle bus turned up. Alex and the rest of the guys though twisted my arm and dragged me off to Bondi Beach again although I was very grateful of this as it was better than sitting around all day, so I left Simon and Jill and went off to have some more fun with the rest of the guys at the beach. Unfortunatly it was soon time to go and I said my goodbyes to Alex, Freek, Remcon and Matthew (4 fantastic people who made my stay in Sydney a fantastic time and great laugh).
So then it was time to head to the airport and after to many hours to remember and crossing the date line yet again we made it to Hawaii where the next 10 days would be spent.

Day 183 Sydney, Australia-Waikiki, Hawaii remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 182 Sydney, Australia

2005-12-28T21:19:25Z

The alarm goes off at 6am and all I want to do is stay in bed although we have to get up as we have paid for our trip to the Blue Mountains today.
The coach driver picks us up at 7.30am and he turns out to be a great laugh although after talking to him along the way I think hes glad to see us as the rest of the party is full of people that hardly speak or understand English. First we head over to Sydney Olympic Park for a look around and it feels like a ghost town. Theres this massive park with all these stadiums around which was built especially for the Olympics and theres no one around at all, it all seems like a total waste of money and space to me.
After that we then drive down to Blue Mountains National Park where we get to see wild kangaroos and their babies running around which was something I wasn’t expecting to see although it was a great feeling. Next up we then went over to see the Blue Mountains although they isn’t actually any mountains but what you see instead is still worthwhile. Basically it’s abit of a rocky area but mainly forestry and with the heat and eucalyptus this is where you get a blue coloured haze from in the distance. After lunch we then drove over to a different area of the park where we got to see the 3 sisters and then went out on a fairly strenuous walk around the park where at the bottom of this steep hill we got to see the Worlds Steepest Train Ride. You had 3 options to get back to the top which were either, via the train, via a cable car or walking back. Alex and myself decided to walk back and even though it only took around 30 minutes it was still one hell of a steep climb to get back up.
At the top of the climb we had to wait around for about 40 minutes while we tried to locate some guy who managed to get lost along the way, the stupid thing being this imbecile was actually pissing about while the coach driver gave us directions on the correct way to go, typical of him to be the one to get lost. Eventually we tracked him down and then it was time to head back to the hostel and the long trip was actually a good laugh as Alex and myself spent it having a good laugh and joke with the 2 Italian woman on the bus.

Kangaroo at Blue Mountains National Park

Blue Mountains

Waterfall at Blue Mountains National Park

Three Sisters at Blue Mountains

Day 182 Sydney, Australia remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 181 Sydney, Australia

2005-12-28T21:14:31Z

The weather today is unreal and it gets as high as 40 degrees celsuis in the city centre.
Still not fully recovered from drinking to much the other night and a few late nights I just hang around the hostel and relax all day although Alex and myself book a trip to visit the Blue Mountains tomorrow.

Day 181 Sydney, Australia remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 179 Sydney, Australia

2005-12-28T21:11:45Z

Usual first day in a new city where its spent walking around to see what it has to offer and doing some sightseeing. After visiting the information centre and getting some leaflets on places to see and do we then walked down to the harbour and eventually then over the Sydney Harbour Bridge where we also got fantastic views of Sydney Opera House. Simon and Jill then decided to visit an Art Gallery so I made my way over to the Australian Museum although to be honest there wasn’t much to see there.
That night myself, Alex and Patrick a Canadian guy all went out to the pub for a few drinks and had a wild night and a great laugh although by the end it turned into a night where I had a few to many drinks and yet again had my head down the toilet for awhile and also crashed out on the hostel toilet floor again. When will I ever learn hahaha.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney City Centre

Sydney Harbour Bridge

St Marys Cathedral

Sydney Tower

Day 179 Sydney, Australia remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 180 Sydney, Australia

2005-12-28T21:14:19Z

Ouch my head. Hangover time and I still feel as sick as a pig and I haven’t got a clue what time we got in last night although I think it was around 3am. The worse thing is the plan today is to go to Bondi Beach and I really don’t feel like it at all although Alex and the rest of the guys wont take no for an answer.
Eventually around 1pm and another visit to the toilet for some reason I decide to join the others Alex, Freek, Remcon (2 dutch guys in our hostel) and Matthew (a german guy staying in our dorm) and head to the beach and im surprised I make it in one piece. After relaxing on the beach for awhile to recover from my hangover I eventually feel abit better and head into the sea for a swim which was fantastic.
Around 4pm we then all decide to head back and after a heavy night last night we just spend tonight relaxing around the hostel having a laugh and joke with the rest of the guys.

Bondi Beach

Me on Bondi Beach

Alex on Bondi Beach

Remcon and Freek

Matthew the big gentle german

Day 180 Sydney, Australia remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 178 Christchurch, New Zealand-Sydney, Australia

2005-12-28T21:08:41Z

Yet another different country to fly to today although having said that we nearly didn’t make it. The flight wasn’t meant to be till 6.30pm so we booked a shuttle bus for 3pm so we would arrive with plenty of time to spare. Before that though to waste away a few hours we sat in the pub and played pool and had a few drinks and then had one last walk around before heading back to the hostel. The driver of the bus turned up around 2.30pm so seeings as we had nothing to do except hang around the hostel we got to the airport earlier than planned and within minutes we were damn glad we had arrived early because as we tried to check in they told us our flight had been cancelled 3 months ago. Now the strange thing is we actually went into a Quantas office 2 days ago to change Jill’s meal to vegetarian and they hadn’t told us anything about the cancelled flight at that time.
Then it was panic stations as there was a flight to Sydney (the last one of the day) that had room on it for us and was leaving in the next 15 minutes so we got our bags checked in and then had to run to the gate to catch our flight. Luckily for the Quantas staff things actually worked out for us because before that I was at boiling point and ready to give somebody a few stern words.
Anyway around 3 hours later we landed in Australia and got a bus to the hostel we were staying in for the next 5 days which was Eva’s Backpackers Hostel in Kings Cross. Within minutes of me dumping my bags in my room I met Alex a guy from Amsterdam who said he was then off to a football match to see Sydney play Melbourne. So without any hesitation when he asked me if I fancied joining him we found out where the game was being played and walked down to the stadium.
The tickets for the game were $18/£8.50 which compared to the matches in England is dirt cheap as it usually costs me £37 and once in the stadium I was pretty impressed with it. As the match kicked off I guess there must have been around 10,000 people in the stadium and it has a capacity of 40,000 people, however once we started talking to an Aussie guy he actually said there only used to be around 150-200 people watch them play and what happened was they merged several teams from Sydney together and then built a new stadium. As the game went on you could certainly tell the standard of football was pretty poor and you could also say that about the referee who seemed to forget what yellow cards were for especially when one player proceeded to virtually take someones head off with his boot. However you couldn’t say the fans were not passionate as even though there were not many here they certainly knew how to enjoy themselves, although im not sure why they have to proceed in throwing there beers cups full of beer up in the air when either someone scores or comes close to scoring, definitely a waste of good alcohol.
Into the second half and the game really exploded and the referee actually managed to find his yellow cards and I couldn’t believe the amount of dirty tackles that were going on, but then I managed to recognize a player I knew and wasn’t surprised at all to see him in the book and the supporters hurling abuse at him. That player is Kevin Muscat an Aussie who used to play English football and who also put an end to a few footballers playing career thanks to his suicidal/leg breaking tackles. In the end the game finished Sydney 2 Melbourne 1 and we made our way back to the hostel after a very entertaining day.
What i didnt actually realise till i got back home was Dwight Yorke the ex Manchester United and Aston Villa player also played for Sydney that night.

Sydney Football Staduim

Sydney fans celebrating their win

A crazy Sydney fan

Day 178 Christchurch, New Zealand-Sydney, Australia remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 177 Christchurch, New Zealand

2005-12-27T17:11:40Z

Caught the bus down to the Antarctic Centre and arrived there around 1pm and spent around 3 and a half hours looking around and also go the chance to ride in a Hagglund which was a good laugh. It’s a vehicle that they use in the Antarctic which is capable of climbing up fairly steep hills and also able to drive through water around 2.5 metres deep.
Probably the best part for me today though was going into a room where they take the temperature down to -18 degrees celsuis although afterwards it did take several minutes before I did manage to warm up again. There was also a video showing you what life is like actually living in the Antarctic and how people actually cope with it which was something else that was very interesting although the idea of cutting a hole in the ice and then diving in the freezing water with no clothes on certainly doesn’t appeal to me.
So finally after spending some time here I had finally found something worth doing in this area and my recommendations are if you ever come to Christchurch only spend one day here.

A Hagglund

A nice cool temperature of -18 degrees celsuis

Day 177 Christchurch, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 176 Christchurch, New Zealand

2005-12-21T12:39:48Z

Pretty much the same as yesterday except in the afternoon Simon and I spent 5 hours playing golf. Tomorrow im going to the Antarctic Centre and thankfully I don’t have much longer to spend here in Christchurch.

Day 176 Christchurch, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 175 Christchurch, New Zealand

2005-12-21T12:39:32Z

Well my initial thoughts on Christchurch were right. This is the worse place I have visited on the whole trip to New Zealand and the only place I can say I don’t like. For a city its terrible and theres nothing of any interest worth seeing at all (Oh besides going to the Antarctic Centre which I will be doing in the next few days). As for today it was spent having a look around the city just to make sure there wasn’t something I had missed. THERE WASN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 175 Christchurch, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 174 Mount Cook-Christchurch, New Zealand

2005-12-27T17:06:20Z

Once again it was another one of those days spent driving but certainly the first half of it was very scenic as we left Mount Cook and then drove past Lake Tekapo. Once arriving in Christchurch though I suddenly got the feeling we were ending our trip to New Zealand in possibly the worse place to visit, maybe that’s why they liken Christchurch to a city in England so much. I guess the next few days I would either wish I was still in Mount Cook or somewhere else or maybe a small miracle would happen and this place would appeal to me but it wasn’t looking promising.

Lake Tekapo

Day 174 Mount Cook-Christchurch, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 173 Mount Cook, New Zealand

2005-12-27T17:08:36Z

Another day where I was looking to set off early but again thanks to all the noise and moving about in the room last night I didn’t sleep very well. Eventually I was ready to leave and once outside I soon noticed how warm it was and knew it was going to be a hard days walking. The first part of the track is reasonably flat but once you get to the Sealy Tarns turnoff it soon rises up and pretty drastically and some of the track is fairly dangerous in areas and you wouldn’t want to lose your footing or it would be a long fall to the bottom, but the views you soon got were pretty amazing and well worth the hard work. But then a major disaster occurred, I had already used up one bottle of drink to get me to Sealy Tarns and still had a fair distance to go and when I went for my second bottle I realized I hadn’t filled it up the night before. A dilemma occurred now did I push on for the top knowing the views would be awesome or was it safer to make my way down with no water left. I initially continued up to a point where I reached the snow but still had some distance to go and the snow was pretty deep and I wasn’t prepared to get wet feet in the process so I made the decision to walk back down the track. At first I was a bit pissed off but once back at the information centre and on flat land I knew I had made the right choice seeings as the sun was still very hot and I was already feeling dehydrated.
After a quick visit to the café and gulping down an orange juice and lemonade I then got back to the hostel and was feeling exhausted but happy I had at least got out for a good long walk.
That night I was quite looking forward to having an early night but an English woman who had just checked in said would I like to go to the pub for a beer or two so the early night soon went out of the window and I enjoyed a few beers before stumbling back to my bed.

View from Mueller Hut track

Day 173 Mount Cook, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 172 Mount Cook, New Zealand

2005-12-24T16:32:56Z

Another bright and sunny day today and perfect for walking. Hoping at first to get an early start I didn’t actually get going till 11am mainly due to not getting much sleep, mainly thanks to a man in the bunk bed beneath me waking me up every half hour as he would make the bed shake like there was an earthquake every time he moved. I chose to walk over to Hooker Lake today which would give me the closest view possible of Mount Cook without actually getting on the mountain itself and seeings as im not an experienced mountaineer that wasn’t possible. The walk there was amazing and took me over 2 swingbridges before coming to the end of the track by the lake where I sat for awhile and tried to take in the amazing scenery. I then got talking to an elderly Kiwi couple who only live a short distance from here and I tried to imagine how nice it would be to have the opportunity to visit this place whenever the chance was available. They also told me about how in 1991 a substantial piece of Mount Cook’s east face around 14 million cubic metres fell away in a massive landslide and also that there son had climbed it on 3 occasions. Also seeings as they had done most of the walks in the area I asked if they could recommend a walk worth doing and they told me a walk up to Mueller Hut is definitely worth the visit and it goes up to a height of 1922 metres, and from Mount Cook Village it would mean you would gain a height of 1162 metres. So that would be my plan for tomorrow and I thanked them as they went on their way back along the track.
By then time I got back to the hostel myself it was around 4pm and the rest of the day was spent relaxing and sorting my bag out for the walk tomorrow.

Mt Sefton

Climbers Memorial with the tip of Mt Cook just in view on the right

Giant daisys with Mt Cook in the distance

Mt Cook from Hooker Valley

Sir Edmund Hilary Statue looking towards Mt Cook

Day 172 Mount Cook, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 171 Dunedin-Mount Cook, New Zealand

2005-12-21T15:48:56Z

At last somewhere I was really looking forward to visiting and the best thing was the weather forecast for the next few days was fantastic so hopefully it would give me a chance to get some good photos of Mount Cook (the highest mountain in New Zealand).
The first part of the drive was pretty boring but then we turned a corner and all of a sudden all you could see were snow capped mountains all around and further down the road we came to a lake which had the most amazing colour and it was really hard to believe it could actually be this colour although how it got that way I really haven’t a clue. We stopped in a small town called Twizel to stock up on food and petrol before we got to Mount Cook as they are no shops or garages within a 45 minute drive of the hostel.
Once we got checked in I was eager to get straight back out for a walk seeings the sun was still shining and there was no telling how long it would actually stay like this.
After a quick bite to eat I got my walking gear on and decided to head to Kea Point which would give me an amazing view of Mount Cook and I could of easily sat here till it got dark but once the sun went down behind the mountains it soon turned cold and after looking at the fantastic view for half an hour I headed back.

Lake Pukaki

Mt Sefton

Mt Cook

Day 171 Dunedin-Mount Cook, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 170 Dunedin, New Zealand

2005-12-21T15:45:47Z

Visited the only castle in the whole of New Zealand today that being Larnach Castle which was built in 1871. It’s a very small castle but very much worth a visit and the gardens are definitely worth going to see.
Next we drove over to Penguin Place and we were hoping to lots of penguins in the areas however we didn’t realize that you actually have to pay to see them and none of us were prepared to do that as the prices were a joke, so we continued along the coast to the Albatross Colony for a quick stop before driving back.

Larnach Castle

Gardens at Larnach Castle

Day 170 Dunedin, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 169 Dunedin, New Zealand

2005-12-28T21:25:09Z

Had a walk around the centre of Dunedin first and had a look at St Josephs Cathedral, The Town Hall, Robert Burns Statue and also the Railway Station which is quite an impressive building. Then we picked the car up and drove over to Baldwin Street which has the Steepest Road In The World and upon looking at it there was no way our gutless car was going to make it to the top but I wanted to walk to the top anyway. At first I started to jog up the road but without even making it halfway I was already out of breath so decided to walk the rest. Every year they have a race to the top and the quickest time is around 2 minutes so these guys must be super fit because I would be happy to get up there in double that time. From the bottom of the road it doesn’t actually look that steep but once you stand at the top it looks unreal and I wouldn’t even like to cycle down it its so steep.
After walking back down we then drove out to Signal Hill Lookout which gives you a great view of the whole of Dunedin and then headed back to the hostel to relax for the evening.

St Josephs Cathedral

Robbie Burns Statue

St Pauls Church

Sports Hall of Fame & Railway Station

Baldwin Street

Me,Ibon,Simon and Jill at the top of Baldwin Street

Day 169 Dunedin, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 168 Te Anau-Dunedin, New Zealand

2005-12-21T12:37:32Z

Spent the whole day driving and after getting to Dunedin Jill, Ibon and myself went for a short walk around the town although the rain then started to pour down. However then we bumped into Alex a german guy who was on the Milford Sound cruise with us and we all decided to find a pub and have a few beers and here we stayed for the next 4 hours.

Day 168 Te Anau-Dunedin, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 167 Milford Sound-Te Anau, New Zealand

2005-12-28T21:27:02Z

I couldn’t believe how well I slept on the boat as I was expecting it to be rocking from side to side all night but it didn’t move at all, however I was hoping to get a lay in but everybody got woke up by someone making an announcement as to what they next few hours lay ahead of us. Luckily though it did mean I would make breakfast on time and it was my first fry up in a long time.
Next we headed back out to the Tasman Sea and the waves made the boat rise up and down a fair bit as well as making my breakfast nearly come up in the process. Before we headed back to the harbour we pulled up really close to a waterfall where a few of us brave people got a good soaking from the freezing but refreshing water, it certainly did wake you up if you weren’t awake already and after that we managed to spot a few more penguins before the cruise was over.
The sun was surprisingly still shining which made it a pleasant drive to Te Anau.

Me at Milford Sound

Milford Sound

Waterfall at Milford Sound

Milford Sound

Sunset at Te Anau

Ibon at Milford Sound

Seal at Milford Sound

Penguin at Milford Sound

Day 167 Milford Sound-Te Anau, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 166 Milford Sound, New Zealand

2005-12-28T21:28:08Z

Well where do I start, I think today is nearly if not on a par with the boat trip in
Pahia to the Bay Of Islands.
We were booked on the Friendship boat and were due to sail at 4.45pm and it was costing us $145 and that was a reduced fee to. To my amazement the weather today couldn’t be any more different compared to yesterday. The sun was shining and apart from abit of a breeze it was a perfect day and even better as we would be able to get great views while out on the boat later.
We sat around reading in the hostel till around 2pm and then went off for a drive to look at some waterfalls and then had a short walk around the sea harbour before again we met up with Ibon who had been walking the Milford Track over the past 4 days and he had gotten totally drenched with the pouring rain over the past few days.
We boarded the boat at 4.15pm and as there were only going to be 11 of us on a fairly small boat I was looking forward to it a lot more than the boat that had 60 people crammed on it. I always find small groups tend to get on a lot better than huge ones and people tend to chat more and get to know each other but also its easier to relax and chill out if you want to. The plan was to sail out of the Milford Sound to the Tasman Sea and look at some of the spectacular sights along the way like raging waterfalls and various animals like seals and penguins. Then eventually we would find a place to stop and relax for the night and get up early and go kayaking for abit before heading back to the harbour. Well everything was going great for the first 2 hours or so we thought but then the captain comes up to us with a dilemma. He says hes having problems with the generator so either we could stay on this boat and probably have no power, lights or heat for most of the night or all of us jump on the Milford Mariner for free and join them.
Well the Milford Mariner would of initially cost us over $400 each and you get ensuite rooms, a bar, 3 course meal, huge breakfast and on a totally upmarket and much bigger boat. At first I was disappointed as I quite liked the little boat we were sailing on however everyone else wanted to leave so I joined them along with the 3 free bottles of wine we were given.
So eventually we all boarded the Mariner and found it to be full of mostly fat rich miserable unsociable old gits and here we were a fairly young bunch of troublemakers gatecrashing there party and we had paid a fraction of the price they had.
That night we enjoyed the free wine and a few beers and an awesome 3 course meal but the only problem was we weren’t sure if we would be getting the chance to go kayaking, however after some gentle persuasion they decided to let us go out before it got dark. Ive only ever been in a canoe once and was really looking forward to kayaking and it was just a shame it was only for around 25 minutes, however it was a lot more tiring than I thought it would be although I had just stuffed myself with endless amounts of food and wine. After the kayaking we sat around chatting for a few more hours before retiring to bed about midnight.

Milford Sound

A rainbow from the waterfall

Milford Sound

Me kayaking at Milford Sound

Day 166 Milford Sound, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 165 Queenstown-Milford Sound, New Zealand

2005-12-21T12:36:41Z

Another day which was spent all day driving although there was plenty of nice scenery and mountains to look at along the way although the closer we got to Milford Sound the worse the weather got. This place is on record for getting over 7 metres of rain a year, which is insane. What else was insane was the tunnel you have to drive through before you actually get to Milford Sound. People started to dig this tunnel with pick axes in 1935 and it wasn’t actually finished until 1953 and looking at it you wonder how on earth its actually still standing in one piece.
We arrived at the hostel around 4pm and got our first taste of middle of nowhere life when we were told the power in the hostel is turned off between 11pm and 6am so there was a frantic rush to get cameras charged up and ready for the overnight boat cruise the following day.

Day 165 Queenstown-Milford Sound, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 164 Queenstown, New Zealand

2005-12-21T15:25:51Z

After 2 fairly late nights it was starting to catch up on me so we didn’t get out till around 12pm. We drove back to Wanaka and past the scene of my driving offence and onto Puzzleworld. What they have here is a mix of things from a huge maze to get lost in and I did plenty of that, then inside theres a large mixture of puzzles for you to solve and finally some seriously bizarre rooms that are really hard to explain unless you see them for yourselves like you walk upwards into a room but this pool table looks like its flat but when you put a pool ball on the table it actually rolls. Then theres a room where you look into it and it looks normal but when you get into it and one person stands in 1 corner and another person in the other corner 1 person looks like a giant and the other looks like a midget. Just check the photos if it doesn’t make sense.
After that we had a quick walk around Wanaka which is another very picturesque place before heading back but not before stopping off at what can only be called ‘The Bra Fence’. Apparently a few years ago some womens bras mysteriously turned up hanging on this fence and over the years several more have been found and its got so bad that the fence has actually been raised for more to be hung on it.

The Bra Fence

Puzzleworld

Wanaka

Day 164 Queenstown, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 163 Queenstown, New Zealand

2005-12-21T12:36:08Z

Not a very eventful day today as I just spent the day walking around the town.
That night Jill and I went out for a few drinks and met up again with Simon and Rachel and I turned into a very long and drunken night out for me. Most of the night was a blur and all I can really remember is ordering a kebab then walking to a shop to get some chips and then somehow walking up the hill to the hostel and falling asleep in the lounge while watching a film before getting to my bed about 3am.

Day 163 Queenstown, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 162 Queenstown, New Zealand

2005-12-21T15:24:02Z

Queenstown is very much like Taupo or in other words its another place that is into extreme sports or as I like to call them things that scare the shit out of you. The only difference being that in Queenstown the prices are bumped up astonishingly high although seeings as I don’t want to give myself an early heart attack I wont be doing any bungy jumping, sky diving or paragliding and besides I came here to see the scenery and not to throw money down the drain in a matter of seconds.
So today the nearest I got to an adrenaline rush was first going up in the cable car and then 5 runs down the luge.
Once back at the hostel I sat in the lounge minding my own business when I get one hell of a shock. I realized some guy was standing near me and talking on the phone but I didn’t really have a proper look at who it was. Well after 15 minutes the guy gets up and says ‘Hello Reece’ and I turn round and its Ibon the mad Spanish guy from Franz Josef. I couldn’t believe it, there was me thinking he would be miles away by now and here he is standing next to me. I was a hell of a surprise but I have to say it was great to see him again, so we all made plans that night to go down the pub together and have a few beers.
Well what a crazy night it turned out to be as we also bumped into Simon and Rachel again (funny how we always meet those 2 in pubs). Then there was Ibon who after a few pints and a few cocktails that for some reason come in teapots proceeded first to tell us how shy he was and then before you knew it he was grabbing random women and either dancing with them or getting his photo taken with them. As Simon was at the casino and Jill then left us around 11.30pm, Ibon and I hung around for a few more beers before stumbling back to the hostel around 12.30am.

Queenstown

Day 162 Queenstown, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Day 161 Franz Josef-Queenstown, New Zealand

2005-12-21T15:22:50Z

Today started as a very enjoyable and scenic drive to Queenstown but by mid afternoon turned into a very expensive one for me. Just after stopping off at Wanaka for lunch we continued onto Queenstown and got stuck behind this old couple driving ridiculously slowly. As the roads were very twisty I took my time in finding a safe place to overtake them, or so I thought. After getting past them within 30 seconds I noticed a police car up my arse flashing his lights and I pulled over thinking he wanted to get past, however it was me he was stopping. All 3 of us trying to think what I had done wrong before the policeman comes up to me and says “Hello sir how are you today”, to which my reply wanted to be “Well it was fantastic till you stopped me you tosser” but instead kept my mouth shut. Anyway his excuse for pulling me over and also fining me £60 was because I apparently went over broken yellow lines when overtaking which you can do in England and also because apparently I couldn’t see more than 100 metres in front of myself, however when we went back to the same road 2 days later you can actually see for 400 metres on the stretch where I overtook. People did say New Zealand police were arseholes and how right they were. Despite my protests there was no way this guy was letting me off so he issued me my fine before wishing me a good day the muppet.
So after getting delayed we then made it to Queenstown which has an amazing location nestled nicely beside the lake and surrounded by mountains with a few still having a small covering of snow on them.

Mountains at Wanaka

Day 161 Franz Josef-Queenstown, New Zealand remains copyright of the author -reece-, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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