An Epic Few Weeks!

G’day all,

Firstly I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and I hope you have wonderful New Years celebrations in the next few days. It has been less than two weeks since my last blog but so much has happened in the last two weeks, so consider this my Christmas present to you!

The day after my previous blog (16th December), I was up early to catch a bus out of Byron Bay to head to a place called ‘Spot X’ for Surf Camp!! We got to surf camp around midday and we were shown around the place by the stereotypical surfer ‘dude’. The way he walked, talked and looked was exactly what you would imagine when thinking of an Australian or American surfer. After our brief tour we had an excellent lunch and then the fun was to begin.

Following lunch we were told to go and get ready and then meet back outside. We had about a half an hour theory lesson where we were told about how to find the perfect wave and what to do if you got caught in a ‘rip’. We then headed to the beach where we were given an hour lesson on the beach of how to ride a wave, stand on the board and taught how to fall off the board. After the beach surf lesson we were finally allowed to enter the sea with our boards and battle with the waves. I’m sure you’ve all been into the sea and been battered by waves, but trying to get out to sea with waves not only crashing against you but against your board which is attached to your ankle means that it takes a lot of time and effort to get out to a suitable point to ride or attempt to ride a wave back into the beach. The first time I attempted to ride the wave I managed to stand on the board for about one second before losing my balance and falling off in dramatic fashion.

This continued for about 10 more attempts and about an hour into our time in the water I managed to stand on the board and ride a wave for about 10 seconds. I went out and tried again was successful another few times. However, instead of it coming naturally to me, after I had surfed a few waves I began thinking too much about what I was doing and I kept falling off. By the end of the 3 hour session, I was consistently standing on the board. I have to say that surfing was so much fun and being able to stand on a board and ride a wave is so satisfying but it is such hard work, so if you ever try it be prepared to be exhausted by the end of the session! After the surf lesson, we had a huge dinner and I had some drinks with some boys from Bristol who were on my bus and unfortunately all Arsenal fans, so as you can imagine there was a lot of football banter that night!

Standing on a board!

The majority of the next day was spent on a bus going from surf camp to Sydney. I got into Sydney at about 6pm, made some dinner, had a few drinks with some of the people in the hostel and then waited for my friend who is at Nottingham with me and was also studying in Australia to arrive. As soon as he arrived, we went to bed so that we could be up early the next day to go and have a walk around the city.

On the 18th December, we weren’t up as early as we planned to be but we still headed into the city centre at a decent hour. Our first stop was the famous Paddy’s Market where you go to get all your cheap souvenirs and your fake football shirts and clothing etc. It was an interesting experience and for a period of time I forgot I was in Australia with the amount of oriental people there was walking around the market but it is situated in the heart of China town Sydney, so I guess that was to be expected. After spending minimal money in the market, Shravan (my mate from Notts) and I headed for a rather more cultured experience of the Powerhouse Museum. The entry fee was only $5 and after seeing the museum, I did feel a slightly guilty for paying so little for a really awesome museum. There wasn’t any particular theme to the museum, there really was a bit of everything and it was all very interesting! After a few hours in the museum, we went and got some lunch walked around the city for a few hours before coming across the Sydney Aquarium. I personally love aquariums and so I was pretty excited about this and it didn’t disappoint. Obviously there were loads of tanks with all your usual fish that you would find at any aquarium but there was two sections of the aquarium where they had built an underpass under massive tanks one containing loads of different types of sharks, turtles and stingrays which was awesome and the other containing two huge dugongs amongst other fish!!! From the aquarium we headed back to our hostel, had a very satisfying Indian meal for dinner before chilling out in the hostel and then off to bed.

The following morning (19th December), we were up early and headed into the city. Our first stop was the incredible Sydney Opera House and the equally incredible Sydney Harbor Bridge. Our first view of both of these global icons was from the train station where we got off the train and the only way I can describe the site of them was jaw-dropping. We walked around the harbor for a while and from every angle the Opera house looks slightly different! To be honest, I think the bridge is a little underrated and I personally think it is more astonishing than the Opera House.

We went to the Botanical gardens situated right next to the opera house and all around the gardens you can see the opera house and the bridge and as I said before they look different from every angle. The Botanical Gardens were actually beautiful but it was over shadowed a week or so later by the one in Christchurch (Ill write about it later in the blog).

After a few hours of soaking up the atmosphere in the harbor we headed to the place of the first European settlement in Sydney a place called the Rocks. But before that I dragged Shravan into the Contemporary Art Gallery. I personally love modern art but not when I have someone asking me ‘how is that classified as art?’ every two minutes! We got the Rocks grabbed a bite to eat and then walked around. When you get to the Rocks the European influence is very obvious; the streets are narrow with cobbled paving and the buildings have a very European and Italian feel to them! We stumbled across a very cool market in the Rocks, unlike Paddy’s market everything at this market was authentic and hand made and stuff that you probably wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world! We killed a lot of time here before heading to Darlington Harbor for a ‘pre-Christmas’ fireworks display and if that was anything to go by, then I’m very jealous of anybody who is in Sydney for New Years eve!!

The following two days were rather more relaxed than the previous two. We met up with one of my mates from college, had lunch with him one day and dinner with him the other and walked around the city some more. We also went to the famous Manly Beach which was really cool but far too commercial for my liking and it was slightly overcast the day we were there which wasn’t great!

A lot of people have very mixed opinions about Sydney and I was pretty skeptical about it before I went there, but after 5days there I fell in love with the city. When I first got there I was pretty over whelmed with the hustle and bustle of being back in a big city but I soon felt at home there! However, there were far too many Indian and Asian people there which I hadn’t really encountered for the 6months prior to Sydney. I still have Melbourne to visit, so I’ll give you the verdict on the Melbourne or Sydney question in a few weeks time!

On the 22nd of December, exactly a month in to my travels, I left Australia to go to the butt of all Australian jokes, New Zealand! I was up really early to catch my flight and got on board the plane only for the plane to wait an hour on the ground to take off! Once again on a Qantas flight, the service was awesome but they screwed up my veggie meal and compensated for the screw up by giving me a business class meal! I got into Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand and got on the bus from the airport to meet one of dad’s cousins (Bindi) who I would be staying with for a few days. I met her and we went for a little drive around the city and then just out of it to the fabulous mountain ranges and then to a nearby lake and at that point I realized that my trip to New Zealand was to be the most scenic two weeks of my life! It was so nice to sleep in my own room for a night and get some home cooked Indian food.

My first view of New Zealand

The next morning I woke up feeling very well rested and then headed into the city centre! I walked around for a bit, before I found a market. I walked around there for an hour or so before having an amazing meal at a vegetarian restaurant. From lunch I went to a museum and an art centre which were both pretty mediocre but then my day was made when I entered the Botanical Gardens. I’m not really into flowers or anything but these gardens were beautiful and I spent two hours there and took almost 100 pictures! I got home to another lovely Indian meal, I chilled out with Bindi and then got an early night for the start of my tour the next day.

The Botanical Gardens

The next morning I was up early for the start of a tour around some of the South Island. We set off from Christchurch and headed for a place called Franz Joseph. On our way, our first stop was to a Lord of The Rings filming site. It was a part from the second film when they were going to Helms Deep in preparation for the big battle and they were attacked by the people on horses. At the end of the scene Aragon falls of a cliff but survives! It was pretty cool because I actually recognized the set(as shown in the next picture)!

Lord of The RIngs site

We get to our hostel after a long but beautiful drive, freshen up and then go for dinner at the hostel restaurant and that was the moment when a week of stupid drinking began! It was Christmas Eve and the bar was packed so naturally we were all drinking a lot and with me being the youngest by some way in the group I was always encouraged to drink. That night there was a pool tournament in the bar which I decided to enter. It wasn’t your normal game of pool; they called it ‘Killer Pool’. I won’t bore you with the rules but basically I came third out of 22 people and as the top two didn’t have time to take the prize, I was given this $250 cannyoning trip in Queenstown for free! When the bar shut we were taken by one of the guys that worked there to see some glow worms. I’m sure you have all heard of them and probably have no idea what they are, I guess the best way to describe them is as if someone has put hundreds of tiny but very bright fairy lights deep into a bush.

A reflective Lake

On Christmas day, we were up early for Christmas breakfast and then by 11am we were drinking! I had bought a crate of 24 beers and my aim was to finish them off on Xmas day which I did with ease and it wasn’t until I was given two shots of vodka by random Polish guys that I felt wasted! Christmas day was very odd but I had a very good day with the people that I was with. We had a barbeque and a water fight on Christmas day and we were outside the whole day, how many of you can say you did that for Xmas ’09?! We went to bed at like 1am after a pretty good day.
The next morning, I was up early feeling a little hung over but I had to be up early to go for a hike on the Franz Joseph glacier! We got our hiking equipment and then headed to the glacier. Where we got dropped off it was about a 40minute walk to the glacier and the closer we got to it, the more spectacular it looked! We started with a difficult walk up on to the glacier and then we had to put our ‘cramp-ons’ on to give us grip on the ice. We walked around the glacier for 6hours in total and covered about 12km. The glacier was beautiful and because it was raining the whole time we were on it, it made the glacier look a very vibrant blue colour. We walked through some very narrow crevasses and climbed some steep ice stairs which our guide carved out for us as we walked around it. The walk on the glacier was amazing despite the poor weather but I just feel that when we were walking around on it, we were so cautious about how we were walking that we didn’t really have time to soak up and appreciate just what we were walking on! As soon as we got off the glacier, we got onto the bus and headed for an over night stop in a town called Makarora. We got to the town, had dinner and we ended up in the bar until 2am getting drunk for the third consecutive night! On the Glacier!

The next day we were up early and we departed the town to go to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. It was a long drive with some spectacular views and we stopped many times to have a look at the incredible scenery! We got to Queenstown, freshened up and went for dinner. We had some drinks at this place and we were all considering leaving until one of the barmaids picked up the microphone and sang the most amazing acoustic version of Alicia Key’s ‘falling’ and I kid you not, the whole place stopped what they were doing to listen to her. She carried on singing for about an hour going from Bob Marley to Eric Clapton to AC DC, she was amazing and as soon as she stopped the place emptied! I had a relatively early night of 1am so I could be well rested for what would become the most exhilarating experience of my life the following day!

On the 28th December, i woke up early even though I didn’t need to but I was just too excited to sleep I was sky diving from 15, 000 feet that day – the highest legal tandem sky dive in the world! We got to the sky dive centre, signed our lives away and then headed to the site of the skydive. I was so excited but I was made to wait about 2 hours watching other people land until it was my turn to go up! After two hours they called me in, got me prepared and told me how the jump was going to happen and then we were off in the plane. The plane was tiny and cramped but the whole way up I was excited and not nervous at all (my instructor told me I was the most relaxed person he had jumped with in months!) and I was happily looking out the window as the plane climbed higher and higher above the mountains! The first girl jumped out at 12,000 feet and that was pretty high but I went 3,000 feet higher. When my time came to jump, I got to the door took up the position I was told to and didn’t really know what to expect. My camera man was out of the plane but hanging onto the side of it, my instructor started a count down but instead of finishing it, he jumped on two instead of three!

We exited the plane and immeadiately did a spin and then he told me to spread my arms. It was an amazing feeling, you’re falling so fast through the air (about 200 km per hour) but you don’t have the chance to think about it. The force underneath you feels like when its really windy and you’re walking into the wind, so its pushing against you but you’re moving too quickly for it to stop you or blow you away. Then all of a sudden, the instructor opens the parachute and it feels like you’ve stopped but really you’ve just decelerated big time! The journey on the parachute goes quite quickly but the views you see while you’re parachuting down are incredible! You have snow capped mountains on one side, mountains with forests on the other and a massive lake between them! After the skydive I was buzzing the whole day and even doing my laundry at the hostel I was still buzzing! The sky dive was easily the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life!
The next day (29th December) was rather different to the previous one. I was up early for a day trip to a place called Milford Sounds in ‘Fiordland National Park’. I won’t go into detail because I’ve probably bored you enough with this long blog but it was beautiful. The dive there was unbelievably scenic and then when we got on the boat to cruise around Milford Sounds, it was amazing. The clouds were really low down and covering the mountains and in places, it looked as if the clouds were coming down the mountains like an avalanche in slow motion (see below)! On the cruise we saw loads of dolphins and seals and despite it being very windy, it was well worth the long drive there and back!

So there you have it guys, my longest and probably most exciting blog entry to date. There will probably only be two more blogs now because I’m home in just about 2 weeks now! Have a wonderful New Years and see you in 2010!

Mihir