A message from the land of Rohan.....

Flying the Flag of Rohan
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Hello again! We've just had a fantasic day visiting Mount Sunday, which was famously used as the set for the city of Edoras in the Lord of the Rings.

Its in an amazingly stunning setting, surrounded on all sides by snow-tipped mountains and a grassy plain with blue rivers running across it. We climbed up the small hill to the place where the Great Hall was built, and learned a bit more about the making of the film from a very entertaining Kiwi tour guide. We took loads of lovely photos, including this one with a replica prop from the film.

Even if we weren't fans of the movies it would have been an amazing place to visit, but it was even more special to see all of the sights we recognized from the film (including the valley where Helms Deep was digitally inserted, only a couple of miles from Edoras, not a five day walk!).

Definitely one of the best days of the trip so far!

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

I'd better get my moaning out of the way before I go on.

 

Unfortunately the last couple of days have been a bit of a blur for me due to a severe onset of "man-flu". I began to feel a bit rough in Sydney (cold, cough, headache, fever, aching muscles, sore throat etc), missed two nights sleep, and then to make matters worse on the flight over to NZ my ears got blocked up and wouldn't clear. I ended up with two blocked nostrils and two blocked ears, and resorted to having to breath through my mouth and smell through my eyes, which wasn't easy. I spent my first 20 hours in New Zealand in bed. Maybe my body needed it though - we've been going full pelt for 4 months, and the last week in the outback was pretty tough. June was also a bit low yesterday, but has done an admirable job of looking after me. I think I'll let her keep the opal ring.

 

Anyway, we're both feeling much better now, and really looking forward to exploring New Zealand. We're in Christchurch on the South Island, which is a very pretty town set up by the Church of England about 150 years ago. It has a nice cathedral, punters lazily drifting down the River Avon, and picnic-ers lounging in the park. It feels a bit like an idealised version of England, and the people are all incredibly friendly and helpful.

 

The death of Sir Edmund Hillary has been pretty big news here, with flags flying at half-mast and books of condolence being signed. He's probably the most famous Kiwi that's ever lived - to be honest I can't think of many others - Jonah Lomu, Peter Jackson, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, urm...

 

Tomorrow we're going on a gondola trip up a nearby mountain, and on Tuesday we're heading off for a day trip to Mount Sunday, which was used as the location for Edoras in The Lord of the Rings films. It looks like a stunning place, and it will be really cool (in a geeky way) to be there and to pose for photos with props from the film. We'll report back in a few days. Bye for now.

 

Farewell from Australia

Hello again! Apologies for the long gap between blogs - we've been in the outback for the last week and only now that we're back in Sydney have we managed to log on.

 

We had a fantastic time exploring the Red Centre - it was certainly one of the highlights of our trip so far.

 

Our first stop was Coober Pedy, which is famous for its Opal mines. Its a small, desolate place in the middle of nowhere and felt very different to anywhere else we've been. Its got a bit of an "end of the world" feel to it, and has been used in films like Mad Max and Pitch Black - there were lots of abandoned movie props lying around. Most of the houses are underground or built into the side of hills to keep them cool, and during the day the streets were pretty empty as everyone tried their best to avoid the 45 degree heat. Although it certainly wasn't somewhere we would want to live it was a great place to visit, and the surrounding landscape was beautiful. We visited an opal mine / museum which was really interesting, although while my back was turned June managed to blow three weeks of our budget on a lovely opal ring! We've added some photos of the area to the South Australia set.

 

After Coober Pedy we carried on up the Stuart Highway to our next stop, Uluru. We were wondering whether it could live up to our expectations, but it really was a beautiful and magical sight. We visited the Rock at sunset and sunrise to see the shifting colours, and went on a very long hot walk around the base. We decided not to climb up it though as it was made pretty clear that the Aboriginals aren't keen on tourists trampling over their holy ground.

 

Right next door to Uluru are the Olgas, a collection of huge rocks that we went on another stunning walk through. Due to the excessive heat we had to do our walking in the morning - most people started about 6am, but as you may know we aren't really morning people and only got going at 8ish, meaning that we finished on our hands and knees at midday!

 

We shared a cabin in Uluru with a lovely Candian couple, Jessie and Dustin, who are doing a similar trip to us in the opposite direction, but who are made of tougher stuff than us, sleeping in tents in freezing temperatures, going for 3 day hikes in NZ and occasionally sleeping in their car. I tried to convince June this might be a good way to recoup some of the cost of the ring, but she wasn't having any of it!

 

After Uluru we drove on to Kings Canyon, another beautiful area of red rocks and scorching heat. Luckily the hotel we were staying at had a lovely pool, which we happily spent the afternoons floating in after the mornings' exertions.

 

Our final stop in the outback was Alice Springs, which wasn't at all how we had imagined it. Instead of being a desolate desert town it was a (relatively) pretty place with lots of greenery, surrounded by hills. We took a couple of interesting trips to the Royal Flying Doctor Service control station and the School of the Air, which broadcasts lessons to children living in remote areas by two way radio and web-conferences. We also went to the cinema a couple of times to escape the heat!

 

All in all we travelled 3000km in the week, and luckily didn't break down in the middle of nowhere or get attacked by wild dingoes / kangaroos / lizards. The worst we suffered was a cracked windscreen and a little bit of heat exhaustion! Our photos from Uluru, Kings Canyon and Alice are here.

 

 

Today is our last day in Australia before flying off the New Zealand tomorrow morning. We've had an incredible time here and have seen and done so much. Its a beautiful, friendly and fascinating country, and hopefully we'll be back again one day to try and visit the areas we missed this time.

 

Speak to you from NZ!

 

Chilling in the Sun

Hi everyone! We hope you had a great Christmas.

We've had a fantastic time staying with the Steele's in Adelaide. It's been really special spending Christmas with such a lovely family, and we've felt totally at home here. In a way it feels like we've actually been home for Christmas - we've been able to totally relax and recharge our batteries ahead of the next leg of our travels. It hasn't been all relaxation though - we've kept ourselves busy playing table tennis, Boggle, poker and tennis, swimming in the pool and taking a couple of trips up Mount Lofty and into the centre of Adelaide (a really nice city). 

In true Aussie fashion we spent Christmas Day on the beach before coming back to the house for a lovely barbie. The weather has been amazing all week and has topped 40 degrees for the last few days - thank God for air conditioning! 

It's with a lot of sadness that we have to bid our farewells tomorrow and head off. We're spending the next week or so in the Outback, visiting Coober Pedy, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kings Canyon and Alice Springs before flying back to Sydney and then on to New Zealand. We're really looking forward to spending time in the Red Centre of Oz, although have been warned about the scorching temperatures and persistent flies!

Here's looking forward to a great 08!

Merry Christmas!

The Rainy Season

Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Adelaide. We had a good three day trip from Melbourne, travelling along the Great Ocean Road and then up through the Grampian mountains. They were both really beautiful places, although unfortunately the weather has been pretty bad and we got soaked to the skin on more than one occasion! There were lots of highlights though, including coming across some wild koalas and some bracing walks along the coast!

 

We're staying with Keith, Sarah, Oli, Sophie and Emily for Christmas and are really enjoying being with another family. Sarah has set us a  task to decorate our Christmas dinner table name tags, so I'd better go off and do that now....

Moving On.....

Going for a spin
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Well, we've more or less reached the end of the Melbourne stage of our trip, and we'll be sad to move on. It's been great fun staying with Jo, Ole, Finn and Max and enjoying family life. I've been in my element, playing Star Wars video games, watching Star Wars movies, playing Star Wars Top Trumps and duelling with lightsabres. I feel like a 7 year old again!

We had a lovely weekend with June's cousin Tony. He lives in Abbotsford, which is a fairly central Melbourne suburb, and he introduced us to the real Melbourne - Vietnamese food, late night ice-creams, great architecture and walks by the Yarra River. He also took us to a lovely winery in the countryside and let us go for a spin in his very cool 1956 MG-TF open top car (above), which June was very relieved not to crash! June also really enjoyed taking Tony's beautiful dog Max for walks in the morning.

Although Melbourne isn't as spectacular a place as Sydney it feels more friendly and relaxed, and of all the places we've visited so far is the place we could most see ourselves living in. Fear not though, we've no plans to emigrate!

Tomorrow we head off on the Great Ocean Road towards the Steele's in Adelaide. If all goes well we should get there on Saturday, ready for Christmas barbies and ice cold beers. Put your foot down love.....

All Creatures Great And Small

Evening all. Apologies for not being in touch for a few days - we're just back from a wonderful 3 day trip to Wilsons Promontary and Phillip Island.

 

Wilsons Prom is a stunning area of beaches, forests and mountains. We really loved it - it was so beautiful and peaceful, and definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. There was also quite a bit of wildlife there - in fact after watching the sun set over the sea on Tuesday evening we very nearly crashed into a kangaroo! It was pretty dark and we only just spotted the 'roo on the side of the road before it bounced out in front of us - luckily we were going slow enough to avoid him, especially as we were in Jo & Ole's borrowed car!

 

A further encounter with Australian fauna occured at 6am the following morning, when a big white-tailed spider crawled across June's leg - needless to say it was the quickest June has sprung out of bed for quite a while!

 

The highlight of Phillip Island was the sunset arrival of hundreds of Little Penguins back to shore after a day's fishing at sea. They were very cute and waddled up pretty close to us. Despite the hundreds of Japanese tourists it was a lovely experience.

 

On the way back to Melbourne we spent the night with Vern and Shirley who are real characters and great fun. It was good to see them again after the funeral on Monday, which turned out to be a really special occasion.

 

OK, think thats it for now. We're heading off for a weekend in Melbourne tomorrow and staying with cousin Tony in the city.

 

PS I should warn you that a couple of the latest bunch of photos are a bit saucy - if you are easily offended or have a weak stomach it may be best to avoid them.....

Taking a holiday from our holiday

Hi all! Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Melbourne.

 

We had a great time in the Snowy Mountains, although it was a bit strange being in a ski resort in the summer. We were staying in a place called Thredbo and were in a lovely ski chalet with a balcony overlooking the slopes - in fact all it needed was for Carl and Sandra to magically appear on the balcony beside us and we could have been in the Alps....

 

We really enjoyed the walk up to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest point. The scenery was lovely and the 13km seemed to fly by. The only downer was the number of flies up there - as you can see from this photo there were quite a few of them! June managed to swallow a fly which she was none too happy about!

 

We've been in Melbourne since Friday night and are having a lovely time relaxing in Jo & Ole's amazing house on the beach. Its great to see them and the boys again, and we feel really at home here. Ole is a bit of a master chef so we are eating very well, although June whipped up a treacle tart that went down very well too.

 

We're also here to spend some time with June's family as well. Sadly her great-uncle Fred died last week at the grand old age of 98, and we're going to his funeral tomorrow. We popped in to see his son Vern last week, and will see more of the family tomorrow.

 

Bye for now......

 

 

Moutains, Beaches, Cities and Mountains

Hi everyone! Its been a few days since the last update as we've been on the road, so there's a lot to catch up on.....

 

We had a lovely couple of days in the Blue Mountains. The weather was pretty good - the last time June was there she couldn't see anything because of low cloud, but we were really lucky and had great views of the mountains and waterfalls. The clouds did descend on the last morning, so we decided to cut our losses and head off.

 

The plan was to go straight to Canberra, but we decided to go via the NSW coast on the Great Pacific Highway, and it turned into a 2 day diversion! The coast and countryside was really beautiful and we had great fun swimming in the sea and watching kangeroos on Pebby Beach (which of course was sandy not pebbly). The only hiccup on our journey was our inability to find anywhere to sleep on Saturday night. We wanted to stay in a pretty seaside town called Kiama, but couldn't find any vacancies. We decided to head south in search of somewhere else, and eventually found a room in the Australia Hotel in Nowra. The room was fine for $50, although when we moved the beds together we discovered a collection of dead cockroaches on the floor! Worse was to come though, as at 1am an almighty argument broke out between a girl staying at the hotel and her inebriated boyfriend on the street below. He turned the sky blue for well over an hour and ended up throwing beer bottles at the hotel! Makes June and my occasional disagreements seem fairly minor by comparison!

 

We finally got to Canberra on Sunday night, and were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. We'd heard stories about it being a bit on the dull side, and although it certainly didn't have the buzz of Sydney it was in a pretty setting and had some fantastic museums. We visited the old and new Parliament buildings which were really interesting - especially the old one which has been turned into a museum and lets you look inside the old PM's offices etc. Yesterday we visited the War Memorial which also had a great museum attached. We could easily have spent another day in Canberra, but instead drove down last night to Cooma, which is a town just outside the Snowy Mountains, Australia's main ski resort. We're going to spend the next couple of days hiking up and around Mount Kosciuszko, before heading down to Melbourne on Friday to visit Jo and Ole.

 

OK, that's us caught up I think! We've loaded some more photos. Bye for now!