P-J's Trip Home - Adelaide to Melbourne and New Zealand
This Page is for the time spent with Mum from Adelaide to Melbourne and then the brief stint in New Zealand with the Wainwrights......
Adelaide to Melbourne - The Great Ocean Road
This morning we got up to head back to Melbourne but before we could do that there was the matter of meeting up with Mum! She arrived from Melbourne, via aeroplane, at 7am and she picked up the hire car that would take us to Melbourne. When Mum rang to say she was close to the hostel we were staying at i was just about to get in the shower, so when she tried to suprise me in the hostel dorm room she was in for a suprise, Kathryn in only a towel with no make up on - not a bad first meeting! haha
Once we were all ready, and had had toast and a cuppa tea, we started our trip back to Melbourne, only knowing that we wanted to do 'The Great Ocean Road', the rest we wuld meak up on the way.
Our first stop was at Taliem Bend, which is a small town by the River Murray. We mainly stopped here to grab some information about places along the way and also places where we could stay, we also went to a small cafe for a pot of tea and some food.
(Taliem Bend Information Centre)
The next part of the trip was to drive through the Cooroang National Park, which is a large lagoon that runs parallel with the coastal dunes for 140km,m and is home to a large variety of wildlife. On the way through we stopped for a couple oif photos and Kathryn rang up several hostels and motels to try and find a room in Mount Gambier, which was proving tricky being that it was easter weekend, until we eventually got a room with three beds free above a pub, unfortunately when Kathgryn gave the name 'SMITH' the woman on the end of the phone asked if she was having a laugh as it was abit of a suspicious name haha but she eventually booked it for us anyway. We stopped two more times before we got to Mount Gambier, first for a look at the Giant Lobster (which was intended to go onto of the restaurant it is situated at but unfortunalely the people that made it measured it in meteres and not feet and inches in which it was designed, so instead of sitting on top of the roof it is situated out front and is bigger than the restaurant itself!!!) and also at a small town called Robe, where we took some time to walk along the beach, before making our way to Mount Gambier. The room we managed to get was very nice with four single beds and only $25 each, extremely cheap for a bank holiday weekend. We made our way out for dinner before hitting the hay for an early night ready for anoth big day ahead.
(The Coorong) (Giant Lobster) (Robe Beach)
We treated ourselves to a nice lie in before headig up to see the magnificent Blue Lake, a crator lake that turns a brilliant blue in the summer and goes grey in the winter. The water here is so fresh it supplies the whole of Mt Gambier (which is S.A second largest city) with its drinking water. There is also Valley Lake which is used for swimming and wakeboarding and there are also two other lakes, which have dried up, Browne Lake andLeg of Mutton Lake' the later being named because it looked like a leg of mutton!! Kathryn and I decided to climb up to Centenary Tower, which is a lookout built at the highest point at Mt Gambier. Our last stop at Mt Gambier was at Umpherston Sinkhole, which is a garden made within a cave that collapsed years ago to creat a sinkhole.
When we eventually left Mt gambier we had to head straight to Port Campbell to find somewhere to stay the night. This meant getting on to The Great Ocean Road, which is the world's largest war memorial, and is a famous 'to do' thing in australia. We arrived in Port Campbell just before sundown and just before the heavens opened up, which was lucky as they realy opened up and driving would have been impossible even in the daytime. We found a nice motel which luckily had a room available, with a tv, and wasnt too expensive. Mum and I braved the downpur to go and find a takeaway, we wanted fish and chips but had to settle for pizza and past, while Kathyrn sat in the dry motel room watching Robin Hood! We spent the night listening to the rain and watching Pearl Harbour before falling asleep.
Since the man that owned the motel said 'checkout is "around" 10am' we got up as late as we could and didnt rush to leave, this gave Kathryn time to play with the motel's 2 month old puppy called 'Fletch'. After an unsuccessful attempt of Kathryn to Dog-Knapp Fletch we made our way to Princetown for a cup of tea and a pie (or muffin). Princetown was made up of around 6 house and a campsite, so not really what you class as a 'Town'. The Tea room we ate at was also the local shop, Post office and Petrol Station. After our brief rest stop we headed to 'The Twelve Apostles', the most famous natural wonder along The Great Ocean Road. The Twelve Apostles, in fact there are only 9 still standing, are rock formations stranded from the mainland, after the rock bridge connecting it collapsed. Slowly, over alot of time, wind and sea will erode these structures and force them to collapse, but at the same time it will erode the coastline to creat new Apostles.
Next we headed inland away from the coast to Otway where there is a treetop scenic walk 20-25m above the forest floor, as well as a 45m tower which Kathryn and I ventured up and, like the huge trees around us, the tower swayed with the wind which feels wierd when you at the top lookng down! We then headed towards Lorne, via a very windy and what seemed never ending road which also took us past Hopetoun Falls, a waterfall you can see from the car park (meaning Mum could just quickly get out the car and have a peek). As we neared Lorne we soon realised we were running rather low on fuel and it was a nervy 20 minutes of constant twists and turns and hills along the coastal road before we managed to find a petrol station, but only just! We stayed in Lorne for a cup of tea and some cake, well i ordered cake, Kathryn and Mum just nicked some of mine instead of ordering thier own, before we got a scoot on back to Melbourne before it got dark. We got back to the Palace around 1930 and it had felt like we never really left, apart from almost evryone we knew had left! Apart from Danny and Woode of course!!
New Zealand -
Well before i left Melbourne first.....
We were only in Melbourne for a couple of days but this was enough time for Kathryn, Mum and I to go up the 'Rialto Tower' to have a 360 Degree view of Melbourne. We also went to a Cabaret dinner, with David, Danny and Woode, as a kind of fairwell dinner. the Cabaret was at a restaurant called Draculas (another 'to'do' thing in australia). It was very good and funny, although the show was called Vampirates and there were many of them around, although Sweeney Todd was there?!?! But i would reccommend it to anyone who happens to be in Melbourne at some point.
On Thursday 27th March at 0800 I left Australia to fly to Auckland, to be met by Mum and David (after sitting in the airport for 4 hours) before flying down to napier to see some family friends - THE WAINWRIGHTS. the flight down to napier was unfortunatley delayed but we eventually arrived at our destination at 2130. Here is a brief Description of the Wainwrights :-
The Wainwrights are a kooky family, i put that as i know fukll well they well read this (Hello!), that a have known since i was 6 when they stole my dog! Ha ha no they bought our dogs from us and we have kept in contact ever since. The family concsist of :-
Graham Wainwright - AKA ' The Cardigan Man' (due to the fact he used to waer some 'lovely' colourful cardigans back in his heyday, and i'm not even going to start about his Cords that he used to wear all the time, even though he found them in a plastic bag in a ditch, probably covered in blood, but abit of Vanish quickly got rid of that!)
Joanne Wainwright - Who got her family into New Zealand by getting a job tormenting, sorry looking after,patients in hospitals
Aisha Wainwright - The oldest child that i have known since she was just thought in her dad's, err never mind, anyway Aisha is currently part of the life saving club at a local beach, kinda like baywatch but without all the crazy storylines, where she has already saved a young boys life! Talking about boy's life, last we have....
Travis Wainwright - Who is the youngest of family member, I remember when Travis was young and was scared to come into a room with Mum in (like most of the neighbourhood) and was always quiet, now though we have a hard time shutting him up! lol oh and there is also a new addition to the family
Jinksy (not sure how that is spelt) Wainwright - Who is a very lazy puppy that has Graham's eyes, and farts like Jo HAHA!
Our first few days in Havelock North were really sunny so we just chilled out at the house, well David slept all day, we did goto the beach aswell as in the pool (in which i won a jumping competition even though it was being rigged against me!) On Sunday we were up early and out by 1000 for a trip to Rotorua for four days. On the way we stopped at Taupo for lunch, Pizza, which we had sat next to the beautiful and vast Lake Taupo, which is so big we couldnt see the other side! After a brief walk around the shops we piled back into the car and continued the journey to Rotorua.
Rotorua stinks! Literaly, as it is built above a large thermal active region with boiling mud pools, waterholes ans steam rising around us. The cabin we stayed in had 2 double rooms that the older folk took, while us youngens slept in the hallway. That night we went to a really good Turkish/Greek, or was it Greek/Turkish, restaurant for dinner before playing poker til late.
Unfortunately when we woke the next day it was plain to see the Jacqui curse had followed, as Mum had brought the rain with her, although the region was in its worst drought for years so im sure they were quite grateful, maybe we should rent Mum out to the drought struck areas of Australia since the rain always follows her!!
We decided to go white water rafting, well Graham and I went, the others took a trip to a museum! The white water course we went down was a Grade 5 course, which is the highest grade you can commercially throw yourself down. The main reason it was a grade 5 is the fact you have to go over a 7m waterfall! Since the tourism around Rotorua was dying down there were only four of us doing the rafting, Graham, Me and two instructors, so it felt like a priveta outing!
The first slalom a was quite gentle but good to get you trained in paddling and learning the different commands (and also launching slalom poles at Graham haha) Next up was a 2.5m waterfall followed by a mere 1m waterfall, the warm ups to the big en! A couple of bends later and we stopped in a pool, where we could see the lip of the waterfall, but not much past that! Our instructor told us that it could go two ways, we could go over the falls and land properly with no-one falling out or the boat will flip tossing evryone out, and with the waterflow lower than normal due to the lack of rain the fall would be vertical, so the latter was his favourite! 'Are you ready?' he asks, are we ready? Good question, is anyone really ready to go over a waterfall in a rubber dingy, seems the logical answer is Hell Yeah! So we paddled up to the lip of the fall before sitting in the raft and holding on tight, our knuckles went white, before we started falling. It was over in a matter of seconds, our heads fully submerged underwater, great we tipped over! Then the raft pops up from under the waterfall with all four of us still sat in the raft, buzzing our tits off!!
The rest of the course was pretty tame compared but still loads of fun as we surfed down some rapids, in which graham fell in (the first of two times, compared to my NONE) The instructors also turned the raft to face a couple of rapids and got us to goto the front of the raft so the water sprayed us, it was mad and i couldn't breathe very well with a mouthful of water constantly going into my mouth! At the end of the course we were asked if we wanted to dive in and go down some of the rapids with out the raft, obviously we did! Twice!!
The next day i did.....Nothing! I spent the day reading my book, as i couldn't put it down! The others went to a Mauri village and to visit a Geyser that shoots water out of a hole, high in the air via air compression, not to be confused with a cockney geeser that just shoots air out of its hole! That night I cooked for everyone and it was a huge success, of course!
On Wednesday though, i was up and at it, we drove to a near by mountain and went up in a cable car, which Jo really didn't like (which makes me wonder why she did the first activity - A swing drops you at near 160km/h! travis, david and a very scared Jo sat in a metal ball, that was slowly pulled back and up until they were facing the ground at 100ft high, in which time Jo had screamed so loud Travis' head exploded, well not quite but it was darn loud! Then David pulled the release cable and they plummeted down and swung, with Jo breaking into hysterics!
Next up was the 'Luge', which is a kart based affair where you sit in a plastic tub with wheels on, that conviently has some handle vars that you pull really close to stop but push all hte way forward to park with Go in between! This is then moved by your weight and Gravity down a hillside track, They were friggin, ACE! There were three tracks, the first track was a scenic one where we took pictures, the other two were named Intermediate and Advanced which really meant Racetime!!!! I won them both of course with my weight advantage over the youngen's and my pointy head giving me the better aerodynamics to beat the rest! After each race we took a ski lift to the top, which i lost one of my flip flops on as it fell of my foot and landed in the bush, i could have gone and got it but they would have made me pay for another run and, knowing me, i would have not to have stopped to pick it up! So i decided to buy some new ones!
Up next was Zorbing! this is a sport, and i use that lightly, that the Kiwis invented. Basically you go inside a big blown up ball and roll down a hill. As daft as it sounds the Kiwis are very proud of it, probably because other than shagging sheep there is nothing for them to do! But they are really good fun and we all went down three times, in some cases in the same ball in an all out messy brawl!
That night we had a takeway pizza and an early night as we had to make our way back to Napier. On the way back we decided to go to Re Re Falls, as there was a good natural waterslide, unfortunately getting there wasnt as easy as first though as it meant traversing a long gorge cutting through some mountains followed by an off the beat track through some fields before eventually getting there. The slide itself was really really good, about 40ft of smooth rock with water cascading down to a small pool. We threw oursleves down on some body boards, and if you were lucky not to fall off part way down you skimmed across the pool. After an hour there we made our way back to Napier, stopping at Gisborne (which is the most easternly town in the world so they see the new year before anyone) for some food.
For my last two days in New Zealand we chilled out with a couple of bbqs and some kayaking, also Graham took me to a really nice bar that i would happily go back to in the future!
It was really good seeing the Wainwrights again and i thankyou, again, for everything and i will see you again soon. Seeing my mum has been great and seeing David for the last time, until he gets home, was strange but we have gone our seperate ways so often now so i am used to it. Although he is going to be on the otherside of the world, so that brings up the question, 'who is going to lend me money and not really expect it back and pick me up in the middle of the night at just a phone call?'
(Please leave comments if you wish to offer these services!!!)
Next time on my blogs.....Bali, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur..........
- Posted by d1d2d3_pj on 24/04/2008.
