Lake Wakatipu

June 11, 2009 – 4:34 am

By Dan Posted in New Zealand, Videos 1 Comment

A Very Belated Hello from Queenstown, NZ

June 7, 2009 – 5:12 am

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Hey Everyone! Its been ages since I have updated the blog! Have just been having a great time down here in Queenstown! The weather is very chilly as we’re just getting into the winter season!

A Quick rundown of what I’ve been up to the past 3 or 4 weeks:

  • Became housemates with Seb and Sophie
  • Joined a covers band of which I am the bass player! Seb is the drummer
  • Shopped around for a great deal on a snowboard, boots and bindings
  • Became a member of local pub Surreal, member get cheap pints
  • Had many a late night in said pub above
  • Attempted to buy a car with Trish on several occasions
  • Made my first pasta bake – chorizo and veg :)
  • Found a new love in hot whiskey
  • Saw Star Trek and Terminator Salvation in the Cinema
  • Went to a fancy dress house party…. I dressed up as a nerd, Trish was a robber and Seb and Sophie were two halves of a sandwich!
  • Not even attempted to look for a job
  • Snowboarded!

We’re living in a house of 7, well 8 if you include Dorge our cat :) We live about a 10 minute walk away from the centre of town which is cool! Queenstown is a lovely town surrounded by the most amazing landscape. All I have to do is look out my window and I can see the lake and surrounding mountains!

Here’s some photos!

By Dan Posted in New Zealand, Photos No Comments

First Hello from New Zealand!

May 5, 2009 – 3:22 am

For the past 5 days myself and Trish have been in New Zealand! We arrived in Auckland, which is New Zealand’s largest city at the north of the northern island. We stayed there in the city for 3 nights and explored around. There really wasn’t much to see there apart from the usual city stuff. It didn’t actually feel like we were in NZ yet, it was just too built up.

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We had a look at a few car markets just to get in idea on what we could get. We were originally thinking of getting a van and exploring New Zealand but its actually coming into their winter season. It would have been way too cold, so we’ll wait till spring for that. Then we were thinking of just getting a little car so we could drive down New Zealand towards Queenstown, the place we are going to live for 4 or 5 months. But we only had a few hours to decide on what car to get.

Finally we decided to just get a flight to Christchurch then a bus to Queenstown and get settled into the house with my friends Seb and Sophie. They have a spare room there for us thats available to rent. We didn’t want to make a rushed decision into what car to get so we are simply going to just get one down there as Seb says there are a lot of cars going.

Right now we are in Christchurch on the southern island of NZ. When we were approaching on the airplane we were coming across the mountains that had a nice little coating of snow on them… Got us pretty excited! It’s a really nice place and from just walking around its oozes with far more character and friendliness than Auckland. The little city is nucleated around the Cathedral Square. Real nice place.

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Tomorrow we are getting the bus to Queenstown, so it should be nice and scenic. By now, we are both looking forward to not going from hostel to hostel and it should be a lot cheaper to stay in the same place. But most importantly I can’t wait to go snowboarding for a whole season! In a few weeks I’ll be buying all the gear and I already have my season pass! And hopefully by the time Ali and Wig arrive in August I’ll be better than Ali. Haha!

Also, Seb has the internet in the house apparently so I will do a big photo upload session from all the places I haven’t shown y’all yet!

By Dan Posted in New Zealand No Comments

Goodbye Australia

April 29, 2009 – 2:50 pm

Well the time has come to say goodbye to the land of Oz! Its been a lot of fun and we have been lucky enough to see some cool sights. For example, just today we climbed up Sydney Harbour Bride, 440 feet of sheer steel and concrete laced with high amounts of granite for extra strength.

Our Australian journey has brought us right along the east coast, from Cairns then up north to Cape Tribulation then down all the way to Sydney stopping off at some places like Magnetic Island, Noosa, Airlie Beach, the Whitsunday Islands, Fraser Island, Brisbane and Coffs Harbour. We’ve been through rainforest, great barrier reef, surf and concrete jungle. Seen spiders the size of your hand, meter wide wild turtles, sharks, an old wrech completely covered in coral and a species of fish that looks like Mick Jagger.

There really is a lot to do in this country and I will definitely be returning again to see the places I haven’t had the chance to see and most importantly to visit the Great Barrier Reef again. The GBR really has been an eye opener to my appreciation of nature and the mysteries that lie in the other 70% of this planet we live on. I never thought I’d be into diving as much as I am now and I now know what my friends Grum and Fiona feel like about diving. From now on whenever I look into going on a holiday it will definitely be based around diving.

Tomorrow we head off for Auckland, New Zealand. It feels like then end but its just another beginning. The beginning of another adventure.

By Dan Posted in Australia 1 Comment

Some Fraser Island Videos

April 21, 2009 – 7:58 am

Here are some videos from Fraser Island I uploaded. You will have to click through to my blog to view it if you are reading this via the email feed Read More »

By Dan Posted in Australia, Videos No Comments