Somewhere Over The Rainbow - a Trip to Oz

Skydiving @ Taupo, New Zealand

2009-06-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

This was only place I was able to upload this edit because of the music choice.

Now, both Facebook and YouTube deleted this video because of the music track. Can someone tell me how many cents does record company lose because I decided to use their music in one of my videos to improve it's impact?

We'll see how long my blog lasts after this...

The End

2009-05-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

Day 315

"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end"

Thanks to anyone who followed this blog all the way to end. It's time to descend from clouds, go back to reality, back to rat race and back to a quest to find my future ex-wife.

Thank You Australia for amazing year! I love this country and I will be back.

All Good Things...

2009-05-08T01:38:00.000-07:00

Day 312

"Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore"

I did it.

From highest mountains on New Zealand to paradise-like beaches in Whitsunday Islands.

From dense tropical rainforest in northern Queensland to lifeless deserts of Red Center Australia.

From busy modern megacity of Sydney to deserted island in Uoleva, Tonga.

From 15,000ft in the air above Lake Taupo to spearfishing on Muri Lagoon, Cook Islands

...and so much more!

Did it all. :-) Trip couldn't have been more diverse.

If I would have left Oz and ended this trip 1 month ago I wouldn't have been ready at all. Now I have been mentally preparing to go back for a week and suddenly return seems like a possibility(which it really wasn't month ago).

Gosh, what to write? How to summarize past 10 months? When I come back, I guess most common question I will get is "How was it?". I have been trying to come up an answer for that but I realize now there is no answer. No words are enough to translate all the emotions and experiences of the past 10 months. To say this has been the greatest thing I have ever done(and will ever do) is an understatement.

Most satisfying thing for me about this trip was that I did it entirely on my own terms. This was my chance to spend year extremely selfishly and thats what I did. There were many moments when I could have traveled with other people...but I quickly realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do. I didn't want to include other people in my decision-making. All the things I did and places I went to were my own decisions. I gave enough time to each place I visited(some places got maybe too much time hehe). This was my trip, from start to finish.

10 months...I guess I never fully understood how frigging long time that was. First time it really struck me was after New Year when Tuulia and Sami left NZ back to home and I was in Stewart Island watching the endless rain. I realized then that there was still more than 5 months to go! I think that made January the toughest month of this trip.

In february when I got back to Oz things got instantly better. I understood what was wrong with Kiwis and why I prefered Australia so much more. Aussies and Kiwis are very similar in many ways, both are very friendly but Kiwi's lack one thing that Aussies have, self-irony. Aussies are so much more laidback and have the ability to laugh to themselfs. Kiwis are much more serious in that way.

Anyway, for this entry I wanted to put down some statistics I have piled up during past week.

Number of different beds I have slept: 99 (this is also number of times I have packed my bags)
Number of bus trips: 55
Number of flights: 19 - environment sure loves this :-)
Number of days in Oz: 186
Number of days in NZ: 84
Number of days in tropics: 117

What were biggest highlights? That is very difficult question, but if I would have to make trips top 10 experiences then here it goes(without much explanations):

1. Coral Bay Manta Ray dive with sharks, Australia
2. Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand
3. Snorkeling with Humpbacks, Tonga
4. Spearfishing in Muri Lagoon, Cook Islands
5. Whitsunday Sailing, Australia
6. Treehouse, Australia
7. 6m Crocodile in Adelaide River near Darwin, Australia
8. Cape Tribulation, Australia
9. Helicopter ride to Mount Cook, New Zealand
10. Sovereign Hill, Australia

Lastly answer to one question...Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat!!! :-)

White Australia has black history

2009-05-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

Day 307

"There once was a jolly swag camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong
Up got the swaggie and grabbed him with glee
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Down came the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred
Up came the troopers One Two Three
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me.

Up got the swaggie and jumped into the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me"

Song above is the unofficial National Anthem of Australia. Many many times people have petitioned government to make it official National Anthem. Response has always been: "Look, we love the song. It's aussie song. But...it's a song about a thief, who steals a sheep and then drowns. We just can't make it our National Anthem...".

At the moment I am back in Perth for 1 week before embarking on long 30h return trip to Finland. There isn't that much happening since most of the days I'm not doing much anymore, just relaxing, doing some souvenier shopping and trying to get my mind ready for cold and depressing Finland. So...this is best time to start summing up past 10 months. But first I want to put something else here. Something that has started to fascinate me more and more each day. Something that is one of the big unexplained mysteries of Earth. Aboriginals.

For many tourists, their first and only contact with aboriginals come when they arrive to Alice Springs, - mandatory pitstop on route to Uluru - walk to the mall and are met by group of drunken aboriginals who haven't used a shower in couple of years spitting in their face yelling "white cunt!". Because of this aboriginals have a very bad reputation within Australia and especially outside Australia.

This image of 24/7 drunken aboriginals is in fact both true and false. Yes, alcoholism is huge problem among them. After over 250 years since European settlers introduced alcohol to Australia, aboriginals still haven't developed same kind of immunity to it like we have. For them it's highly addictive drug which has destroyed world's oldest civilization. It's also true that majority of aboriginals have alcohol problem, but there is other side of coin as well.

Aboriginals don't have prisons, but their communities have very strict laws. When someone breaks law - for example drinks alcohol - they are banished from their community. Now, most of current aboriginal communities are not even on roadmaps. They are scattered throughout central and northern parts of Australia. When they are banished they have nowhere else to go but to nearest town which in most cases happens to be Alice Springs(on northern parts there are also few others like Derby, Fitzroy Crossings and Halls Creek which all have similar if not worse reputation as Alice Springs). When they get to town, they are alone. They have no family and are generally frowned by white people(=us). They go to social security desk, get money, hook up with other banished aboriginals, buy alcohol and become full blown alcoholics, rejects of their own community. It is really a sad story and unfortunately most tourists don't know this. They don't know why aboriginals in Alice Springs are like they are, drunk 24/7.

For me biggest shock came when I learned what is going on in these aboriginal towns full of banished alcoholics. I met a doctor who had been working in Halls Creek for few years and he said that he still sees nightmares of the things he saw. Mothers dumping their 6 month infants in the bush and going drinking...only to forget where they left their kid which is found 3 days later dead of dehydration.

What makes this even more sad is that we are talking about the decline of oldest civilization on Earth. In Northern Territory there are cave paintings which are atleast 35,000 years old which is proof that their culture has literally stayed untouched until European settlers arrived 250 years ago, after which nothing was the same anymore.

How did a culture survive and thrive in such a harsh environment as Australia literally unchanged for 35,000 years is still a bit mystery. None of aboriginal tribes ever had written language. Everything, all knowledge was passed on as paintings, drawings, dances and stories. Stories...this is an absolutely fascinating part of their culture which took a while to open up to me.

Wherever aboriginal tribe lived they had hundreds of "creation stories" about the nature around them. There is story why 3 big stones are actually 3 sisters turned to stone by village shaman hundreds of years ago. There is story why some bird which constantly digs ground for no apparent reason is actually a shaman searching his magic bone so he could become human again etc etc. When I first heard these stories I was like "Oh my, what sort of weed they smoked here". Stories were ridiculous, silly and stupid. It took me long time to learn why and when revelation came, I understood the genius behind this system.

You see, stories have different levels. Everyone starts are level 0 and more knowledge they get, they are allowed to listen level 1 stories and so on. Now, naturally in aboriginal culture they start to tell these level 0 stories to children, so that is why stories are shaped so even children understand them. Every story has also a meaning, a message about how to live your life and why nature is to be respected. As children grow and they get more knowledge, only then they are allowed to listen stories from next level. This also why tribe elders are always ones making decisions, because their knowledge level is highest and they are able to pass on all the stories. Tourists - thats you and me - we are at same level as 5-year old children so thats why stories we hear are same that are being told to children and that is why they sound silly to us. Aboriginals are not even allowed to tell tourists anything other than level 0 stories.

Now it's time to tell the big mystery of aboriginals. I already mentioned how they have found cave paintings 35,000 years old from Northern Territory. But aboriginals have been in Australia a LOT longer than that. Latest human fossil discovery from New South Wales(near Sydney) proofs that aboriginals were here 90,000 years ago! How did they get here is mystery which science has no answer. You see Homo Sapiens, human as we know, left Africa around 120,000 years ago. So if we assume simplest explanation is accurate, this is what happened:

For some reason group of Homo Sapiens left Africa and instead of going to Europe(Homo Sapiens arrived to Europe 45,000 years ago) they started to go east. They crossed harsh deserts of Middle East, mountains and jungles of India and arrived to rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia within few thousand years. Now, this is where it gets really tricky. For past couple of million years, Australia has been an island, isolated from rest of the world. Because of this, Australia has never had apes so human couldn't have evolved here on it's own. Humans had to have arrived from somewhere. So, these humans who left Africa some thousand of years ago were able to build boats capable of traveling oceans - quite an accomplishment to species who hasn't even developed speech yet(humans developed speech about 60,000 years ago) - they set out to sea and headed south from Papua Guinea without any knowledge that 400km south they would arrive to Australia. They get off their boats, colonize entire Australia within few thousand years and completely forget how to build boats for next 75,000 years(latest evidence show that first time humans were able to build seafaring boats was 20,000 years ago).

So..how did aboriginals get here?? Oh, and in case above story is not mystery enough here is another puzzle. Those 90,000 year old human bones discovered in New South Wales apparently don't share same DNA with Homo Sapiens who left Africa. And as far as current knowledge goes, all humans are descendants of Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa. Interesting...

Hope someone read this far. I myself find aboriginal culture fascinating and it really is sad that they were able to survive nearly 100,000 years in the most harshest environment on Earth only to be destroyed by European settlers in matter of 200 years.

Coral Bay, Heaven on Earth

2009-05-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

Day 304

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey's end

I did save best for the last. It's bloody amazing how this place hasn't changed at all in 2 years. Coral Bay is still extremely quiet, relaxed and low-key destination without the tourist mass that flock rest of the tropical Australia.

It's actually a wonder why Coral Bay is not widely known among tourists. As I have been traveling around Oz, I have constantly said how Coral Bay is my favourite place in Australia. Most people after hearing ask "Where is that?". Let's go through what Coral Bay and Ningaloo Reef has to offer and why this place beats Great Barrier Reef hands down.

1. You have chance to swim - not just see but actually swim - with Manta Rays and Whalesharks. They use spotter planes to find these magnificient animals but incase you are unlucky and can't find any...don't worry, you get your money back :-) Now, how many places in world can offer something like that? None that I know of...

2. Unlike GBR where you have to travel atleast an hour by boat to even reach the reef, here you can put your goggles, snorkel and fins on in the beach and jump in. Reef starts 10m from shore. Not only is the reef here more easily accessible, it is also much healthier which means more variety, colors and more fish.

3. In Coral Bay you have chance to see much more marine life than ever in GBR. One rarity for example is Dugong, near-extinct weird looking animal which looks like a cross between seal and dolphin. Other cool things you commonly see every day: Dolphins, Turtles, Eagle Rays, Stingrays and Octopus.

4. Diving is world-class and addition to everything mentioned above you can actually dive among sharks!! They have separate sanctuaries to sharks where you can see Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks and sometimes Tigersharks. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

5. Weather. Most locations in GBR have their wet and dry seasons with very unpredictable weather. Coral Bay has none of that. Out of 365 days in year, Coral Bay gets rain only average 10 of those days, rest is sunshine. Temperature varies between 38(summer) and 25(winter).

6. Lack of tourists. When you go to GBR from Cairns, you are waiting the boat in the pier with 1000+ tourists(I am not shitting you here!). Doesn't make the experience too unique or even special. Coral Bay has 1 two-star resort, 1 backbacker hostel and 2 caravan parks, that's it. This makes sure that place is never crowded and keeps the number of tour operators down(actually, the tour operators here were exactly same as they were 2 years ago, most even had exactly same staff). There are only 2 boats going out each day to see whalesharks, it really does make the experience unique and special.

Ok, I could go on and on and on about this rave for Coral Bay. Now pics...hmmm, unlike what I said in last entry I am not going to post pics. First of all connection speed here is slow as hell and second...I don't want to share pics about this small little paradise with anyone :-) This is my little playground, my slice of heaven. You just have to come here to see it for yourself. Coral Bay is my favourite place in Oz. Hell, it's my favourite place in world. If I would have to rank my best experience on this 10.5 months journey, it would be monday in Coral Bay where I dived with 5 Manta Rays(one of them had 5m wingspan, it was huge!), 3 Reef Sharks, 4 Nurse Sharks and a Tigershark!

I will come back here, sooner or later(hopefully sooner).

Now it's another enjoyable - not! - 17hn bus trip to Perth where I will spend little over week getting my mindset ready for Finland.

See you all soon!

One more treat

2009-04-24T03:42:00.000-07:00

Day 299

"Meadows of Heaven"

I'm in Coral Bay again! After nearly 2 years since I missed those bloody whalesharks and got the 3-year voucher card for free tour, I returned...and paradise has not looked better. Coral Bay is still totally unspoilt small little hidden gem in northwest corner of Australia. Temperature is around +35 during day and dropping to comfortable +20 during night.

Ok, but more rave(and pics) about Coral Bay on next entry, lets go back to Pemberton briefly. I noticed that I completely forgot to say what I did there...well, what can you do in small cillage with population of 590 and main economics timber. Thats right, climb a tree and drink at the pub :-) Here is the tree I climbed...

..pretty damn big btw. 61m in total and regarding safety...everyone climbs at his/her own risk but climb like that would have never been allowed to public in pussy countries like Finland ;-)

After Pemberton it was time for Margaret River, my last wine region I was about to explore on this trip.

So far Marlborough in New Zealand has easily been the best with Central Otago - also New Zealand - coming as runner-up. I was hoping that Margaret River would be able to push bloody Kiwis to 2nd place and while it made pretty strong case, after dust settled, I would have to place Margaret River 2nd behind Marlborough.

Phenomenal wines, but I think Marlborough had slightly better consistency and better value for money. For example Leeuwin Estate in Margaret Ruiver boasts to have highest rated Chardonnay in Southern Hemisphere. Yes, it was good but price tag of 89 Australian dollars is not what I would be ready to pay for it. Then again Saint Clair in Marlborough had world's most rewarded Sauvignon Blanc and guess what they charge for bottle? 30 NZ dollars(=23 Australian dollars). Saint Clair could charge as much as 50-60 NZD per bottle but they still keep the price low, gotta respect that.

Best wines of the region: Cape Mentelle as usual

...and I have to give special nomination to Voyager and the lunch they served us there. Now, how often can backpacker enjoy something like this?!?!?

...easily the best meal I have had in past 10 months :-)

After Margaret River my plan was to stop for 1 night in Busselton and walk the longest Jetty in Southern Hemisphere(2.1km long). But...as I got to Busselton and went to the jetty I was greeted only by this sign. Bugger!

So no walk in the jetty. Since it was R-Posse's birthday I decided to honor it by having good old fashion Kalsarikannit :-) ...well, tbh I walked around in Busselton and while the town has more residents than for example Esperance or Denmark, it didn't have even one decent pub.

From Busselton it was one night stopover in Perth, grabbed my new passport from sub-consulate there(now I'm seriously running out of fresh ideas to stay here longer and not go back to Finland) and after that exhilarating 17h bus journey(1200km) to Coral Bay where I arrived at 3am this morning without any sleep. Oh well, I have plenty of time to sleep after this is done. Tomorrow Manta Rays, then whalesharks, then...

Denmark...no, not the one in Europe

2009-04-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Day 292

"Flowers wither
Tresures stay hidden
Until I see
The first star of fall"

Was going to write this entry originally on my last day in Denmark. Well, that didn't work out because of huge thunderstorm which cut off all power from town. After that I went to Pemberton for 1 night(had to switch to Margaret River bus in Pemberton), but in Pemberton I did something I have not done once in past 292 days...I walked out.

Ok, I have stayed in many horrible hostels during my time here, but none of them was comparable to the dump that was Pemberton. Place was utterly disgusting in every sense. It was dirty, it smelled like combination of shit and mould, people living there were regular workers who kept drinking and didn't know that human beings can shower themselfs occasionally, toilet had trash bin overflowing with used toiletpapers(I kid you not, I couldn't understand or believe it myself), etc etc. Worst thing was that hostel was only hostel in Pemberton so their prices were ripoff! So I did only thing any sensible human being would do and walked out to nearest motel and grabbed a room for 80 dollars.

Thus, entry comes now in Margaret River where I am staying next 3 days enjoying wines, beaches and great weather.

Speaking of weather, winter is now closer here than summer but it certainly doesn't feel like it. Even locals are saying that weather has been unusually good and warm considering its getting late Autumn. Excluding thunderstorm in Denmark, weather in Albany, Denmark, Pemberton and now Margaret River has been outstanding. Hardly any clouds and temperature close to +30, love it!

So where was I...? Last entry was from Esperance so from there I headed to Albany in a comfortable 6h coach journey. Only stayed in Albany for 2 days, technically only 1 full day since coach arrived there quite late in evening. Albany is funny place. 400km north is Perth which statistically has 300 sunny days in a year, Albany has statistically 300 rainy days a year. Luckily I got one of those 65 sunny days, rented a bike and drove 30km to see some of rugged coastline and natural wonders near Albany.

So in total I cycled little over 60km, no wonder I was quite sleepy already at 8pm :-)

Next I headed to Denmark, small holiday town and hippie community about an hour from Albany. Denmark is also known for its amazing wines. It's truly hidden gem among wine regions in Oz. Not many know about it and they produce some of the best wines in country. Other attraction in Denmark is it's amazing beach, called Ocean Beach.

Hostel I stayed was nice little house with relaxing family atmosphere so we all spent most of the day together in the beach trying desperately learn how to surf...didn't work out at all for me :-(

21 days left now which is exactly 3 weeks. 1 week from now I will hit the paradise again for 1 more treat before I really need to move my thoughts back to home and Finland. Weird...days are constantly getting shorter here, but when I get to Finland, days will be so much longer...

Esperance

2009-04-13T01:48:00.000-07:00

Day 287

"Take the road less traveled by,
Leave the city of fools."

Western Australia, I sit in this gorgeous 5km beach. Sky is blue, water is turqoise, sand is white silica sand and temperature closing 30. I look around and...one question pops into mind, where is everybody?

That is generally a question most tourists would ask in Western Australia. It's paradise, but there is no one here. You can have big 10 mile beaches all for yourself from sunrise to sunset. Some say you need people around you to share experiences. Well, I prefer to have these experiences without 100 screaming british teenagers who flock the east coast of Oz. West coast is my paradise and I'm glad backpackers haven't found it yet.

Past 5 days I have now spent in Esperance, little holiday township on southwest coast. Esperance was actually just voted as 2nd best holiday town in whole Australia beating popular tourist towns like Broome and Byron Bay(winner was also small fairly unknown place in NSW).

This town is not for duracell bunnies allthough there is stuff to do here, but mostly days are spent in one of the several stunning beaches this town has to offer relaxing and recharging batteries.

...or hanging around in Tanker Jetty watching Sammy The Sea Lion showing off.

Funny incident happened few days ago...it was saturday and I rented a bicycle from my hostel. Just as I was putting on my bike helmet I caught a glimpse of something red inside there. I looked more carefully and...it was Redback spider. Now, we are talking about world's 2nd most venomous spider here(most venomous being Funnelweb mostly found in east coast of Australia). If this would have happened to me 9 months ago I would have freaked out and had mild heartattack, but...I guess I have just gotten way too used to everyday dangers and abseiling spiders that I just started to poke it a bit to see if it was alive...yup, it was alive :-) Gave the helmet to hostel owner who cleaned it, put it on my head and on to the road without thinking too much about it.

I did go diving the other day as well. It was my dive number 19 and I think it was first time I didn't really enjoy the dive. No worries, when I started diving they told us that there will be dives I will not enjoy, its certain. I guess I have been lucky to have 18 dives I have enjoyed so far and only 1 dive I didn't. One of the problems with the dive was that I got overdose of CO2 from my air tank(I think) which results in massive headache. It didn't last long though but it was painful for 30mins.

What else? Saturday night was also big party night in town so I went to check towns only nightclub with couple of girls from hostel. Its funny...I always end up spending evenings with bunch of girls being only guy among them. Not that I am complaining hehe. It was ok night, crowd way too young for me though(19-20).

Tomorrow I'm off to Albany and then down the coast towards Margaret River. I have now booked almost everything I still need to book in coming 4 weeks. Won't give me lot of options to take sidetracks but I think atm I just want to get rest of the trip sorted and then just chill...enjoy time that I still have here without stress, like holiday.

Back in the west

2009-04-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

Day 283

"Soon I will be here no more
You'll hear my tale
Through my blood"

This day has special significance. After this day I will only be going to places I have already visited. Kalgoorlie was last "new" destination on this trip. So 1 month left, thanks to insanely strong euro I am well below my budget and now going to familiar sights...it's holiday time :-)

Last sunday I left Adelaide and South Australia. I have little regrets that I gave SA - 3rd biggest state - only 6 days, but it was matter of choice between SA or WA and even though WA is already familiar to me, I still wanted to spend most of the time I have left in WA. Train journey from Adelaide to Kalgoorlie was just as horrible as I was fearing. Benches were incredibly uncomfortable so I couldn't really sleep at all and my arse hurt like hell the next day.

Most of the 26 hours train traveled we crossed area called Nullarbor Plains, which is basically one big limestone where no trees grow. Nullarbor is huge area, twice the size of England and 4 times size of Belgium! During trip we stopped at small service station called Cook.

Cook was peculiar place. Back when Indian Pacific was built 1917 they established town of Cook in middle of Nullarbor next to train line. They planted hundreds of trees and hoped to make an actual city there. They had established a water source by bumping it from underground river 90m below surface. Well, in the end Nullarbor defeated them and now Cook is ghost town with permanent population of 4 people.

Monday evening I finally arrived to Kalgoorlie, headed straight to my hostel and slept for about 12h :-)

Kalgoorlie is mining town, with true frontier and wild west atmosphere. Men working in massive mining pits, going to bar after work to drink beer and in the bar your normal bar staff is replaced by "skimpys", which are seriously hot girls dressed only in underwear. Yes, only in their underwear. To add to this, Kalgoorlie has unusually many working brothels which offer - get this - brothel tours for tourists!

Hehe, because of my backpacker budget I skipped brothels(I did!!) and spent all the evenings at Wild West Saloon drinking local beers and drooling over the skimpys with all the other men. Atmosphere there was so relaxed, skimpys were tons of fun and had absolutely no problem working there and having all the men staring at them. Also there were no security problems there. For some reason Kalgoorlie doesn't attract any tourists, so on both nights I was only tourist in the bar drinking with local miners. Btw. I also learned that it impresses tough guys like miners lot more to tell them that I work in forestry industry cutting down trees, than tell them I work in an office programming software... ;-)

Today I'm heading down to coast again and to Esperance where I last visited December 2006. I can only hope they have forgotten my karaoke performance there...

Kangaroo Island

2009-04-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

Day 279

"Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Australia..."

Ok, thats not how John Denver's "Country Roads" originally goes but thats how I feel now. 6h from now I will be in Indian Pacific train heading towards Kalgoorlie, Western Australia through Nullabor Plains. Journey is scheduled to last 26h. Let's hope there are no hiccups since there is absolutely nothing in Nullabor Plains, no towns, no villages, no gas stations, no water sources,...nothing.

I arrived to Adelaide last monday evening. On tuesday I didn't do much, walked around the town which is funny how artificially it has been created. Central city is one mile long and wide square with parks surrounding the square. In center running from south to north is King William Street. All streets running west-east(or east-west) direction end at this street...because nobody is allowed to cross the King, for real! So if street starts from east end it ends at King William Street and on opposite side it gets new street name. Center of all is Victoria square.

Ok, enough about Adelaide, its not really that interesting city. Wednesday morning I headed to Kangaroo Island - third biggest island in Oz - , which is located 15km of the shore about 2h drive from Adelaide. This was to be my last multi-day tour in Australia(most likely) and it was just awesome! Definetly one of the better tours I have had on this trip.

First of all we had only 5 people - myself included - in our tour which I always consider bonus. It's nice to share things with people, but not with 20+ other travelers. Less is better. Second, our guide was fantastic. From all the tour guides I have seen, our guide - Pete - was propably the best. He was fairly young(25) and had lived in Kangaroo Island quite a while so he knew lot of hidden gems in Island that no one else knew about. Third, Kangaroo Island was awesome place. I was expecting lot more developed and populated island, but as it turned out, Kangaroo Island is very sparsely populated with lot of natural wildlife everywhere.

So on our first day it was hot, really hot. Temperature got to +36 in some of the places(and that was in shade!). Heat didn't really bother me, I prefer extreme heat to extreme cold anytime. Basically we drove southern side of the island all day stopping at Australian Sea Lion colony to watch some surfing seals:

They were literally surfing! Check out the boy at the backround in that pic. No wonder they are called "Australian Sea Lions". I jokingly said that next step in their evolution is that male Sea Lions start to bleach their hair...to which Pete replied: "Actually males have white spot on top of their head already". True aussies :-DD

Next stop was also pretty cool, sandboarding at place called Little Sahara. I already did this once in NZ but this time we got boards instead stupid slow sledges so it was lot more fun. Check out this vid of me riding down :-)

After sandboarding and all the sand in our hair and body it was time for refreshing swim at islands gorgeous beaches.

...where I again displayed my amazing acrobatics skills. 32...bah, age is only a number :-)

After swimming in nice subtropical +18 temperature water, we headed to our nightstop in farm. We did night walk around the farm to see some wildlife and hoping to catch some Kangaroo Boxing.

I guess I need to explain a bit...you see male kangaroos basically fight their entire life. Kangaroo is pack animal and in the pack there is always only one dominant male. This dominant male is only one who can mate with the girls. Naturally other kangaroos are not too happy about it, they want to get jiggy with girls as well. Only way for them to get laid is to become dominant male and quoting to words of Ric Flair: "To be the Man, you gotta beat the Man". So males constantly practice their fighting skills through their life. Most the time their boxing match is just practice but looks authentic to anyone watching. They practice and practice until some day they challenge the dominant male.

Well, we didn't see any boxing. Propably because one of the farm's wheat silos had broken and all the wheat was on the ground which ment it was feast time for kangaroos.

Next morning we woke up early. Plan was to head to Kangaroo Island's most famous sight, Remarkable Rocks, at sunrise before any other tourist buses. On way there we suffered minor hiccup...

...but Pete did amazingly fast job and after 25 minutes we were driving again. Even though we missed sunrise we were still easily the first people to see the rocks and were able to spend a good hour or so photographing the place. I was told that after about 10am and up till sunset place has constantly 50-200 tourists which makes taking photos impossible cause all you see is tourists everywhere. Place was actually lot cooler than expected, thanks to Pete again who not only showed me how to climb the rocks...

...but also showed how to take some silly and funny photos around them.

But yes, it was great to be there first and have chance to take pictures of the rocks without anyone spoiling the view.

So the day moved on after that and we went to see some New Zealand Fur Seals...

...Koalas...

...Freaks...

...Pelicans...

...and more beaches...

...until finally we had to say goodbye to each other and head back to boring Adelaide. Where we arrived exhausted at 23:00 in the evening. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow that night.

Next day I headed to walk around town and planned to finish at National Wine Center of Australia. It's only natural that when walking in small town such as Adelaide(800,000 people), that I bump into only person I know in town. So I ran into Anna, british girl from Kangaroo Island tour and we headed together to taste some wines and cheese in wine centre.

Evening I headed out to town and had plans to find nice pub and watch local team Crows battle St Kilda Saints in AFL. Unfortunately friday was some sort of University pub crawl night and town was filled with overly drunk teenagers vomiting left and right...not too appealing so I just went back to hostel and watched the game there, saved me some money though.

I had huge hopes of saturday, it was my Barossa Valley day. Barossa Valley is after all most famous and respected wine region in Australia if not even southern hemisphere. So when wines turned out to be medicore at best, I was disappointed big time. It seems like Barossa Valley is more about quantity and not quality. They produce massive amount of wine and that tends to make them more or less boring. I am sure that there would be nice top quality boutique wineries, but then again in Marlborough New Zealand there wasn't single bad winery. Every single winery there was top notch. Also, I am used to fact that wine regions are usually beautiful areas but not this time. Barossa Valley is just overly dry, lot of abandoned unmaintained buildings and trash all over. Big disappointment, won't be buying any Barossa Valley wines again.

Adelaide. Where does Adelaide rank in my list of capital cities in Oz: Darwin, Perth, Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra. Hehe, so not very well. I really wanted to like this city cause it's just the right size, not too small and not too big either. But...it is just boring and medicore in every standard. Atleast Melbourne had MCG...Adelaide has nothing interesting. Everything is just medicore. Here are some pics I took which in my opinion are very...medicore.

Now I'm off to Western Australia...can't wait to spend some quality time in my favourite State. Next 3 days I'll spend in Kalgoorlie after which I head down to southwest coast and to Esperance where I will spend entire Easter enjoying beaches during day and footy during evenings. :-)

Great Ocean Road

2009-03-31T00:07:00.000-07:00

Day 275

"May it be you journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun"

It's hot in Adelaide...and I love it! +32 today and forecast predicts +34 tomorrow. It's been little while since it has been this hot and I almost forgot how wonderful it is.

Last friday I went to yet another AFL game. This time it was rematch of last years Grand Final between Hawthorn and Geelong. Geelong came to this match as clear favourites since Hawthorn wasn't yet fully recovered from last year's post-season operations. Hehe thats AFL for you, usually half the players of every team have to go under the knife after season because of injuries. AFL is tough game.

Match was lot more exciting than was expected. Hawthorn battled bravely against heavier, faster, more powerful and more experienced Geelong and lost only with 7 points. Hawthorn's performance won me to their side this year...right after West Coast of course.

On Saturday morning I embarked on yet another tour. This one lasting 3 days and taking me to Adelaide through Great Ocean Road and Grampians National Park. I didn't have that big expectations since I had been reading some bad reviews about this tour but I was pleasantly surprised how much there was actually to see, and yet still after 275 days of traveling and seeing the most amazing sights in world, I was still able to be stunned by the beauty of some places.

So first day we traveled along the Great Ocean Road towards world famous 12 Apostels stopping at Koala park to see some Koalas(I wasn't too excited since I had seen many of them in wild already in Magnetic Island back in September). We also stopped on the way to do a treetop walk which basically means a walk on metal platforms which circles 40-50m above ground among treetops...pretty cool but yet again I had done one similar and more impressive one in Pemberton, Western Australia. As Sun was setting we finally got to 12 Apostels and I was literally blown away!

I had seen images before but once there...the whole sight was just breathtaking. No image was able to do justice just how big these "Apostles" actually are and how they dominate entire landscape where we were watching them, beautiful!

Back in our accomodation I had 2 shocks. First was the fact that out of 18 people in tour, I was only one who bought any alcohol from bottleshop next to our hostel. No one else had any alcohol...what the hell?! I obviously mistakenly took the AA-tour. Second shock was how frigging cold it got there during night. Temperature dropped to +2 and we had no heating and only 1 blanket each. I think I got the worst of it since I woke up to heavy cold and flu :-(

Next day we headed back to Apostles to watch sunrise and how different the place looked at morning light.

After that we moved on through the Great Ocean Road to watch it's famous sights such as London Bridge...

...and Bay Of Islands(not quite the same as in NZ)

Finally in after lunch we arrived to Grampians National Parks. Apparently this park suffered minor damage from bushfires and was still mostly closed 2 weeks ago. Luckily it was now open and we were able to do the hikes there. That afternoon we hiked to Pinnacles lookout.

As we got to our accomodation through bottleshop I was certain that I was with AA-members. No one bought any alcohol again! Not like I'm alcoholic or anything, but nothing feels better than 1-2 cold beers after 12h day hiking and sitting in bus. This time we had heaters in our rooms so didn't have to feel so cold again(but the flu was still hanging there).

Next day we did some more hikes again. First one to Balconies lookout...

...and second one to Hollow Mountain which I think was best of the bunch.

Overall, pretty nice tour. Was little disappointed about the group and their AA-mentality. We also had(again) lot of germans and they always just gongregate with themselfs and speak german all time so you never get to know them nor ever able to jump into their conversations. Luckily we had one canadian girl and one dutch girl who didn't speak german so I had atleast some people to chat with.

Adelaide...I'm puzzled about this city. It has about 890,000 residents, but when I go out to downtown there is hardly anyone there! There is explanation though...but I'll save it to next entry which I'm hopefully able to write on Sunday this week. Tomorrow morning it's yet again early wakeup call. At 6:25am bus leaves to Kangaroo Island where I will be spending 2 days. After that it's back to Adelaide, day trip to Barossa and then...heading to familiar state again :-)

PS. Oh, got call from consulate today. My new passport has arrived :-)

A League Of It's Own

2009-03-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

Day 270

"When I think back on these times
And the dreams I left behind
I'll be glad 'cause I was blessed to get
To have you in my life"

Packed Melbourne Cricket Ground(MCG) with 90,000 footy fans and 2009 season's opening game where 2 former West Coast Eagles' stars Ben Cousins and Chris Judd collided was yet another dream come true.

When this trip started I had certain specific things I wanted to do. Seeing footy game in legendary MCG was one of them. Yesterday that dream was fulfilled. Footy is just fascinating sport. It is in fact 3rd most attended sport in whole world with average attendance reaching 39,000 each game. I just love footy. It is fast and exciting game. Oh, Carlton demolished Richmond by 83 points. So round 1 went to Judd as Cousins left the field beaten.

Seeing AFL game wasn't the only great thing that happened to me this week, other came completely behind the corner so to speak.

As I was coming back from Sorrento I asked Tessa what there actually is to see in Melbourne and after bashing Melbourne for 30 minutes with comments like: "Melbourne has all the stuff other Australian big cities have...but here it's just shittier version", comment which in my opinion sums up Melbourne quite accurately, Tessa finally remembered a place called Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, 90-minute trip by train from Melbourne. I looked at the place in my Lonely Planet and it was mentioned there very briefly in small sidenote only. Oh well, I trusted local's opinion more than LP's so next morning I woke up at 6:40am and jumped on 8:10am train to Ballarat.

Sovereign Hill was awesome! Let me try to explain it by going back in history, all the way to year 1850. Back in those days it was goldrush era. Gold was very valuable and only way for an ordinary settler to make a fortune. So whenever report came that gold has been found, it generated rush of hundreds of people hoping to get rich. In 1850, they found gold in Ballarat, Victoria. Hundreds, thousands of people came and a town was being built around goldmines.

At 2009 old town of Ballarat is transformed into modern city but few years ago someone had brilliant idea. They went to old library archives, pulled out pictures, drawings and paintings from goldrush era and decided to build an exact replica village to Sovereign Hill near Ballarat. Obviously someone in power also thought it was good idea so they formed Sovereign Hill foundation to help fund this project and making it non-profit organisation. Now, this is where the real genius came in. Instead of having this museum village where people could wander around, they threw group of actors there to portray 1850's lifestyle with authentic costumes, authentic shops, authentic food and authentic street theatre performances! End result is living 1850's city with authentic and realistic life where us(=tourists) can walk in middle and totally immerse ourselfs into life of 1850s goldrush. Just bloody amazing!

To improve immersion, they arrange school camps at Sovereign Hill where school kids and teachers are dressed in periodic costumes and all teaching is done the way it was done back in those days.

In village there was 3 schools where tourists can walk into classroom and observe the teaching as it was done at 1850. Even during classroom breaks children were totally immersed and played only the games children would have played back then. Amazing!

Yea, I took all the pics from Sovereign Hill with Sepia tone to give them proper authenticity. I think they turned out great...just like this shot of a trooper stationed there :-)

All in all, a fantastic hidden gem in Australia that is clearly not known to many people. And that is exactly what I think all travelers are looking for, interesting places which are not yet spoiled by drunken teenage brits who think traveling to Oz is about spending 12 months in Bondi topping mom's and dad's credit card and getting pissed drunk every evening.

What else in Melbourne? I went to Eureka tower one evening as well, luckily it was only evening when sky was clear so managed to get good photo during daylight...

...and during nightlight...

To those who don't know, Eureka is not the tallest building in Souther Hemisphere but it has the highest viewing platform.

Tallest building is the Skytower in Auckland, but that tower has it's viewing platform only about midway through, rest is just one big radio antenna. Hehe, thats Kiwi's for you, typical of them. They are so eager to get any kind of recognition that when they built their Skytower they wanted to make it tallest building in Southern Hemisphere. But instead of doing it the hard way, they just made and average sized tower and placed big ass radio antenna on top of it and woplaa, claimed the title of tallest building. Wuppiee...gg Kiwi's.

Today is friday and I could care less about the F1 circus that is all too visible(and audible) anywhere I go in this city. Roar of the cars in Albert Park is all too audible kilometers away and town is packed with car-humpers. Tonight I'm heading yet again to MCG and this time game is rematch from Grand Final last year, Hawthorn Hawks vs Geelong Pussies...sorry, Cats :-)

Tomorrow I will finally leave Melbourne for good and heading towards Adelaide via Great Ocean Road. What is my opinion of Melbourne? To be honest, I didn't like it nearly as much as I have liked other Australian state capitals, but it's still heaps better then any city in NZ. Many rate Melbourne higher than Sydney but I just don't get it. Sydney is stunningly beautiful and city has so many things to do. I met a finnish couple in hostel about week ago who had spent 2.5 weeks in Sydney and weren't bored a single day. They had been in Melbourne already for 3 days and had difficulty finding things to do and that exactly is the problem with Melbourne, there just isn't many things to do. Unless you know people in here, this city can be very boring and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Go to Sydney instead, or even Brisbane which wasn't that great but still prettier than Melbourne. Adelaide is now only state capital I haven't seen but so far I would list capitals in following order: Darwin, Perth, Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra(obviously last hehe).

Tero, out.

Sorrento

2009-03-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

Day 265

"I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don't know where I are
Although I know I've drifted far"

Last week, tuesday morning I was sitting in Melbourne domestic terminal in front of boarding gate. Clock was 5:45 and I was really tired and slightly annoyed that I had to go to Sydney, visit my consulate to apply for new passport. Suddenly I notice a sign in front of boarding gate:

"SORRY. NO HOT STUFF. (except for yourself of course)"

Hehe, immediately there was yet again smile on my face and I couldn't stop chuckling. I love this country! Impossible to feel miserable here. How can I ever return from here?

Yes, it's been looong time since last update. I was planning to write one in Sorrento about 4-5 days ago but Tom and Tess had some issues with Telstra and no internet in their house. So I had to wait until back in Melbourne to write next entry. So where was I when writing last entry...oh yea, in Launceston Tasmania so there has been quite a lot since then...or not.

When I got back to Melbourne from Tasmania little over week ago on sunday I had pretty hectic schedule. On monday I headed to Yarra Yarra Valley for some wine touring.

Yarra Yarra valley is the most famous wine region in Victoria so I had to see what it had to offer. Well, wines were really diverse there, no real pattern. First winery was horrible, second was good, third was crap and fourth was amazing. On tour we also got to see little bit of what the bushfires have done to local landscapes. Damage seemed just massive in there, lot of vineyards have been burned down.

On tuesday I went to Sydney. This was my third visit to that city and again, city just blew me away with it's beauty.

Sydney is just stunningly beautiful. When I was on ferry from Double Bay to Circular Quay views just gave me cold shivers, it is just that gorgeous. You just keep looking at the view and almost forgetting to breath. I still can't understand how man can build such beauty in one city.

Since passport application took only about 30 minutes I had couple of hours to kill in Sydney. Decided to head to Hotel Australia in The Rocks to eat something exotic...Saltwater Crocodile pizza. Wasn't really that good :-)

On flight back to Melbourne I REALLY got to see what scale the damage of the bushfires in Victoria actually is. It is just bloody massive! Entire forests and national parks have burned down and it was all too visible from plane. It will take decades until it is all healed.

So back in Melbourne and on wednesday I headed to Sorrento for rest of the week. Sorrento is little beach town at the end of Mornington Peninsula about 1.5h drive from Melbourne. Why there? Well, back in July in Broome I met Tom and Tessa, a couple from Sorrento and they told me to message them if I ever get to the area. So, 8 months later I sent them message asking to stay with them for few days and celebrate my birthday on process.

Tom and Tess were great hosts. I even had own room in their house right in middle of Sorrento town. Here are some pics of the beaches surrounding the town.

5 days there just flew by and had a great time. One day I went diving and had one of the better dives in my short career. On one single dive I got to see about 10 Sea Drgaons, 5 Sea Horses, Huge Maori Octopus, Stingray, Cuttlefish and many many other things. Even the divemaster said that out of the 100+ dives he had done on that location, it was propably the best so far.

Other day 3 of us went wine touring around Mornington Peninsula wineries. Hmmm, wines weren't really that great there, but that didn't stop the winemakers from trying to sell their stuff to us. Their method seemed to have been "get-them-drunk"-method since they just kept pouring us wines after wines and big glasses as well. No wonder Tess nearly passed out at the car on way back to Sorrento :-)

Now I'm back in cold and cloudy Melbourne trying to figure out how to spend next 3 days here. On thursday I'm heading to St Kilda suburb in Melbourne for 2 more days before embarking on Great Ocean Road tour on saturday morning. Have couple of surprise things planned on St Kilda, but we will see if they work out hehe

Last pic is for CSI enthusiastics...what the hell is this and what happened??

Lost Luggage

2009-03-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

Day 256

"Far across the world
The villages go by like trees
the rivers and the hills
The forest and the streams"

This time there really isn't anything write about. I just checked my camera and noticed that I haven't taken a single picture after the 6-day tour around Tasmania ended. So no new pics unfortunately.

After tour I stayed an extra 2 days in Hobart to sort out the lost luggage issue. Turns out it's not really that big deal. Since I had left most of my stuff back in the hostel, Passport was the only really valuable item in the bag. All other stuff was just toiletries and cheap clothes. If I would have lost my credit cards, then I wouold have been seriously fucked. So I had chance to do some serious shopping hehe.

I also booked flight to Sydney next tuesday to visit consulate. It turned out that Sydney consulate is only place in Australia, New Zealand or South Pacific where Finnish citizen is able to get new passport. Its stroke of luck that this event happened relatively close to Sydney and not in...lets say Cook Islands where there are no direct flights to Sydney. What will happen is that I go to consulate, enter my details and have my passport pictures taken and after that it will take about 3 weeks for the passport to arrive here. After that consulate in Sydney will send it to "sub-consulate" in Perth where my flight away from Australia is departing. So I will just pick it up before I fly away to get out of the country, easy :-)

I also managed to sort out myh next 2 weeks. After flight to Sydney I'm heading to Sorrento, hour south from Melbourne to spend some time exploring Morento Peninsula wineries and celebrate my b-day with Tom and Tess(couple I met in Broome last July). After that I can hopefully grab tickets to AFL season opener on 26th and 27th and on 28th head out from Melbourne and F1-fanatics. Yea, one might wonder why I am skipping F1 when I'm so close to it, but to be honest, not that interested of that sport and besides getting any kind of accomodation in Melbourne at that weekend is pain in the ass. Already most hostels are fully booked. I feel like moving on toward Adelaide and Western Australia.

Back to Hobart...luckily 2 people - Stef and Hester - from my Tasmania tour stayed in town as well so I spent some time with them whenever I didn't have to meet up with the police. Wednesday I left Hobart to Launceston for 3 nights. Plan was to take winery tour on one day and brewery tour on one day. Arranging winery tour turned out to be quite difficult. There are 2 operators in Launceston but neither had any bookings for thursday or friday so no wineries :( I was able to squueze myself into "Beer Lovers" brewery tour to Boag's brewery though. Boag's beers are among the most highly awarded beers in entire world. Have won many gold medals and after full tasting...I can understand why. They do have lot more taste than your average VB crap :-)

Now I'm still in Launceston watching thunderstorm outside and waiting for my bus to Devonport and ferry to take me back to Melbourne. Tomorrow my plan is to file insurance claim to IF and hopefully get around 500 euros back from them. On monday I'm hoping to book winery tour to Victoria's most famous wine area, Yarra Yarra Valley and buy some nice b-day wines for myself and b-day guests.

Bah, just realized that within 59 days I will be in home again...I don't want to leave from here :-/

Taste Of Tasmania

2009-03-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Day 251

"Many faces I have know
Many way in which I've grown
Moving closer on my own"

What to do when you lose Passport in foreign country? Well, I guess this trip wouldn't be complete if I didn't have to find it out. But let's start the story from beginning. Last tuesday March 3rd I hopped onto Adventure Tour bus at 6:30am and started 6-day tour around the island with 9 other people.

Day one
First day included lot of driving towards wild west coast. West coast of Tasmania is basically one big National Park with one road going through it. It is complete wilderness without even footpaths. There are some short walks from the one road but that is it. We did some of these small walks, even though weather was just crazy. High winds and heavy rain all day. But rainfall ment that waterfalls were nice :)

During day we managed to see couple of more rare Australian animals in wild including this Pandemelon(or something), smalles marsupial in Oz

...and Echidna.

Towards late afternoon we arived to a funny little town, Queenstown. Place was not quite the same as Queenstown in New Zealand as you can see.

Queenstown is perfect example how delicate nature in Australia is to human influence. Few decades ago Queenstown was thriving mining town with beautiful forests surrounding it. Population was close to 20,000. As miners extracted rock from mines and burned it, they didn't realise that rock in the area had lot of acid in it. This acid then got released into air and result was acid rains which destroyed all forests and native plants in area leaving Queenstown area looking like a crater from the Moon. Population decreased and is about 1,500 these days and is not increasing despite the fact that area is slowly healing and plants are returning. Our guide summed up Queenstown like this:

"Guys, if you ever need to escape from the world, there are some really cheap real estates in Queenstown."

Anyway, all were happy to leave Australia's Queenstown behind after 15 minutes and we headed to our first night stop in Strahan. House we stayed in was pretty cool with nice kitchen where we were really able to get to know each other while having quite a few beers.

Day two
Second day we woke up to extremely heavy rain and winds. We stopped for morning coffee in Strahan were main attraction I guess were these suicidal ducks.

We continued road up the west coast and stopped first at a "beach". Apparently this beach was one of the nicest in west coast and people quite often came there to swim and surf. Well, it wasn't really a weather for either of those :)

I think our tour guide put it best when he said:

"Anyone wanna go down to the beach and poke the dead seal?"

Yup, there was indeed dead rotten seal in the beach. I didn't take a picture of it cause it was honestly quite grosse. But I guess that summed up the beach well enough...fact that there was dead seal right in middle and it had been rotting there for quite a while.

So, next stop was sandhills where we had some luck and rain stopped. So we engaged into some childish activities like jumping down a 50m sandcliff.

After sandhills we headed to next destination...more waterfalls! This one was suppose to be one of the biggest in Tasmania and was called Montezuma falls. Montezuma falls was named by aboriginal people who met early seafaring Aztecs and exchanged gifts way before any Europeans stepped on Australia...yea right :-D Our guide told us that story and we almost believed him. He said that he is amazed the amount of bullshit he can tell to tourists and most of it they actually believe.

Walk to falls was quite long, little over hour through very wet and cold rainforest. That is why we were very surprised and shocked when all the sudden we stumbled on this Tigersnake right in the middle of the path.

For the record, Tigersnakes are 4th most venomous snakes in world so not something you want to get too close with. So now I have seen 3 out of 4 most venomous snakes in world: Taipan in Cooktown, Western Brown in Rottnest and Tigersnake in Tasmania. Only thing missing is Eastern Brown.

Finally we arrived to waterfall and yea, it was big and pretty. Almost worth getting completely soaked :)

After waterfall we headed to our 2nd night stop in Cradle Mountains. Since our hut was at 900m altitude, temperature dropped to +2 during night, damn it was freezing! Again we stayed up quite late with help of beer and 2 norwegian girls :-)

Day three
Third day was our big hike day. We set off from our hut to Cradle Mountain.

I was really hoping to walk to summit, but weather wasn't permitting it. There was actually a snowstorm up in the summit so I wasn't going to walk up there with my summer sneakers. Some of us did manage to climb up to first lookout about half-way to summit but the snowline started even from there so we did't continue and instead took our silly photos from there(Christ, I had to jump like 10 times before Tatjana managed to press the button at right moment).

After about 5h of walking and getting snowball to my head from Steffi we jumped back into the bus and headed to Devonport, our 3rd night stop. On way there, our guide told us quite interesting things about Tasmanian aboriginals. After this story I can safely say that indians in America were treated like royalty compared to what settlers did to aboriginals in Tasmania.

First of all, last full-blooded aboriginal in Tasmania died over 100 years ago. When Tasmania was settled, aboriginals were hunted and killed to almost extinction. There was an actual martial law against them which allowed anyone to shoot aboriginal and no questions were asked. Tasmania had 0ver 10,000 aboriginals before settlers and that number decresed to 150 before someone thought "hey, maybe this is not right". Unfortunately it was too late.

At Devonport we took our first big group photo at the lighthouse there since Chris was leaving us and heading back to mainland from Devonport.

Day four
On (now infamous)fourth day we started to move towards east coast. On the way we said goodbyes to Chris and picked up 3 more passengers from Launceston to join our tour. Funny, Tasmania is not that small island but its not big. It's actually little bigger than Ireland, but contrasts are huge. Whereas west coast was full of rain, waterfalls, rainforests and mountains, then east coast is the tropical side with very dry landscape and beautiful beaches.

First stop for us was Bay Of Fires in northeast corner, gorgeous beach where 2 of us(Johannes and I) were actually brave enough to go swimming...it was cold, shrimp cold.

Now, this is where it happened. We headed off from Bay Of Fires towards Devil's Park near Bicheno where we were going to watch Tasmanian Devils being fed. Our tour guide forgot to lock trailer in our minibus and during the 100km drive door in the trailer opened and everything fell off...without anyone seeing or hearing anything. Hmm...sweet, my passport was in my bag.

Well, we still went to Devil's Park and our guide headed back to road in desperate effort to find our lost luggage. At this point our spirits were surprisingly high and we didn't really think about the lost luggage and insted just wondered how cute and cuddly the Tasmanian Devils are.

After about 1.5h Jason came back...no luggage. At this point we knew that some of the bags would never be found, but we still kept our spirits high. We went to our 4th night stop in Bicheno and guide continued on back to where we came from in search of the bags. He eventually came bnack at 11pm with just 2 bags.

Day five
Ok, we forgot about the bag episode this day because otherwise it would ruin the visit to Wineglass Bay, widely regarded as one of the best beaches in entire world. Weather was beatiful for hike up the hill for view of the beach...omg, now THIS is a beach!

After hill walk and nice leisurely walk down to beach for more silly photos(this time I only had to jump 3 times before Hester got the photo).

What a gorgeous beach this really was!

We were also treated with very surprising visit, all the sudden I saw like 5 thins in the water coming towards beach, Dolphins. They came just within 30m from beach and played around with swimmers, was quite amazing to see it. Unfortunately I had my camera tucked away at that point so I couldn't get photos.

After about 6h in Wineglass Bay we headed off south towards Tasman Peninsula and our 5th night stop in Port Arthur where we had yet another great evening drinking, playing pool and cards.

Day six
Port Arthur. Now, this place is one of the most popular tourist attractions in entire Australia. Port Arthur was a penal colony back in 19th century. It was founded 1830 and closed down 1877. During it's time, it was said to be too inhuman and cruel. Now, if they said it was inhuman at 1830, I can only imagine how cruel place it actually was...no, I can't really understand.

Port Arthur is also infamous about episode in 1996 when young man went to Port Arthur from Hobart and killed 35 people within an hour or so. As a result, Australia completely changed their gunlaws. These days this country has one of the most strict gunlaws in entire world. Dammit, more I spend time in this country the more I wonder how RIGHT Australia has it. I mean...in Finland we had 2 school massacres within year and what has government done to improve things?? Nothing!! We have so fucking much to learn from Australia.

Anyway, back to present day. So Porth Arthur has a very black history. They actually tried to change town name while ago to attract more people to move in but since Port Arthur penal colony site was so popular tourist attraction, they kept the name.

We arrived very early in the morning which was nice since by the time we left the area, there was literally thousands of tourists and more coming in all the time. Area itself was huge, I could have spent all day there reading stories about prisoners but we only had about 4h.

As we started our way back to Hobart we stopped few times to see coastal features of Tasman Peninsula and grabbed the last group photo.

*sniff* was kinda sad to finally say goodbye to all the friends I spent last 6 days living, breathing and eating with. Here is pic of the route we took around Tasmania.

So now it's time to come back to reality with the passport issue. After few calls and police reports it looks like I have to visit Consulate in Sydney very briefly because they are only place who can issue new passport. Dunno if my travel insurance will cover the flights to Sydney since I'm not really planning to stay there again so I'll be flying there in the morning and back to Hobart in the evening. I'll keep updating situation...

Whew, done. I was dreading to write this entry and actually had so much more to say but even now this has taken me 2.5h internet in Hobart is not cheap. I guess it's good thing I didn't get all things to this entry, have some stories still left when I get back home...wherever that will be.... :-)

Tasmania

2009-03-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

Day 244

"Get Away, run away, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway"

Hmm...Melbourne. I only spent 2 days in Melbourne but I did form quite a strong opinion of the city already. Whereas Sydney is stunningly beautiful, Melbourne is just pretty. I think biggest difference is that in Melbourne, you need to have friend or preferably group of friends to really appreciate it, then I think it might even be more enjoyable city than Sydney. But...for solo traveller Sydney is so much better. Within 2 days I couldn't really find places in Melbourne to hang around, whereas in Sydney there are numerous: Opera House park, Botanical Gardens, Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, The Rocks, etc. In Melbourne you really need to know where you are going. In Sydney you can just head to Circular Quay and be awed by the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. They say that Sydney is more touristy and thats true, but still I was easily able to find quiet spots right in middle of town to enjoy picnic, book and watch amazing views. I wasn't able to find any in Melbourne yet. Everywhere I went there was so many people and so much action going on.

Oh, and then there was the tram episode. Our infamous tour guide Lawrence told us that ticket inspectors in trams are so rare that we shouldn't buy tickets when going around in trams. Well, on my first tram ride there was inspector. So what I did was putting on my best possible russian accent, waving 5 dollar note at him saying "Can I buy ticket?"(obviously I should have bought one before entering tram...). Dont know how convincing I was but managed got only warning hehe :-)

So after 2 days I was off to Tasmania with ferry Spirit Of Tasmania, which apparently is built in Finland btw. Ferry was more or less similar to ferries which travel between Helsinki and Tallinn(or Stockholm) with plenty of places to get drunk. Pretty sunset btw when we left Melbourne harbour.

Ferry ride itself was quite short. We left at 20:00 and arrived at 06:00 next morning to Devonport, Tasmania. I think I managed to get about 3-4h sleep in reclining seat I had booked(heck, only 94 dollars!). From Devonport it was yet another 4.5h bus ride to Hobart, Tasmania's capital.

When I finally arrived to Hobart at around 12:30 I got off bus and first thing I see is teenage boy walking past and vomiting his stomach out right in front of me. He should have turned on to me, smiled and said "Welcome to Tasmania", then it would have been perfect hehe.

Anyways, after first encounter with Hobart this city has improved day by day. So far I like this town more and more each day. It's not very big town but big enough(200,000 people), very european like and general drinking culture here is closer to what we have in Finland. Nightclubs are not big thing here, people just sit around in charming pubs getting drunk and swapping stories each evening. Very nice and inviting atmosphere. Oh, and seafood here is amazing.

Today I went to Cascade brewery about 5km from town centre.

As I got there I asked wheter there were any room for brewery tours today and I was told that all were already booked...and this was at 11am! Weird, I had no problem getting into tour straight away in Brisbane and in Dunedin but here they have huge queues for some reason. Well, I just decided to skip the tour then and go straight to business which was tasting. Managed to taste 7 beers and was generally very impressed by the quality of their beer. They even had beer quiz where they served 6 different beers in small tasting glasses and you had to guess which beer it was. If you got 3 out of 6 right, you won "Cascade Beer Taster"-cap. I got 4 out of 6 so yet another ugly cap to go along with my 5E-cap :-)

Tomorrow my big 6-day Tasmania tour starts then. That also means I won't be able to update blog until tour is finished. Can't wait to get out there and see this island's nature.

Road To Victoria

2009-02-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Day 240

"Come To Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your blood is bound to be spilled
With fear your pants will be filled
Because you might accidentally get killed"

Funny, in New Zealand it was no problem to write entries every 5-6 days and even then I couldn't really fill them with anything interesting. Here in Oz, its so different. I really should have written another entry on Sunday after Blue Mountains because past 5 days have just been so full of new, funny and interesting stuff.

So back to Saturday 21st and Blue Mountain tour. For uneducated folk, Blue Mountains are part of Great Dividing Range just 70km from Sydney. They get their name from oily mist that trees there evaporate which let's through every color but blue, which it scatters around, thus making landscape blueish.

Apart from pretty crap weather, this tour turned out to be really great and fun. Mostly thanks to our hilarious tour guide Hoops(27-year old girl from Manly). She was still quite fresh guide and thus much more authentic and enthusiastic than most other tour guides I have encountered...and she was cute as well :-) Turned out that she also has finnish friend and so we had lot to chat about during drive since I took the shotgun seat next to her.

One thing we talked about was how Australia intentionally creates completely wrong image to countries overseas. For example, ask any Finn about their assumptions of Australia and their answer is: "It's always very hot there. And they have lot of shark attacks." That statement is so not true. Average summer in Sydney for example is about 25 degrees and rainfall every second day. And Australia has only 5-8 shark attacks per year which is next to nothing compared how many tourists visit Oz each year and how full this country's beaches are all the time. Australia deliberately creates this false image of itself to keep tourists coming. I just read a headline in Finnish newspaper the other week how people of Sydney are terrified at their beaches because one Bullshark attacked 2 people inside a week. Ok, I was at Manly beach last week when shark alarm went off. Reluctantly everyone walked out of the water but 10 minutes later people got bored and went back in again...so much for fear of sharks here.

Back to tour. Hoops also had hilarious way to tell stories during tour, always tuning them down to mundane level so everyone could actually understand them and also adding bit of humor to each story. Here are some of the things I learned about Kangaroos for example:

1. Male kangaroo pulls his testicles inside his body when it starts fighting with another male.

2. Female kangaroo is pregnant 100% of her lifetime. She can turn her embryo "off" if she wants to and turn it back "on" later.

3. Female kangaroo can actually choose the sex of the baby before giving birth.

4. Female can squirt 3 different type of milk from her nipples. She can even choose what kind of milk comes from each nipple.

5. Male kangaroos have so sharp claws that they can puncture each other's eyes in fight. That why kangaroos pull their head back when fighting which in essence makes it look like bitch fight(Hoops' words, not mine!)

Ok, so back to Blue Mountains. As it apparently was common, it was very cloudy there. Mountains are after all 1000m above sea level. Luckily there were few gaps among clouds so we were able to see famous landmarks such as Three Sisters here,

Otherwise it was more or less cloudy which in fact made Blue Mountains look quite pretty in totally different way. Take a look at these pics.

On Sunday I came back to Sydney for 1 night before embarking on 3-day tour to Melbourne. On Monday morning I said goodbye's to beautiful Sydney, but definetly not final farewells. I will come back hehe. So, I climb to tour bus very early on Monday morning and who is sitting on front seat again...Hoops :-) Apparently she was assisting guide on the tour learning to do the tour on her own later on. Our actual guide was Lawrence, quite a good performer as I will later explain.

Our first stop of the day was Canberra, capital of Australia. Now, everyone has always had quite bad things to say about Canberra. I just figured that since I love this country so much, I just cannot do full circle around it without seeing the actual capital city as well. Luckily we stayed in Canberra only for few hours, which was quite enough.

Canberra is funny place. It's completely artificial town. It even has huge lake in middle which is also artificial. Why? I guess most people know that when Australia was formed Sydney and Melbourne couldn't decide which was to become capital so they decided to build a capital city inland between Sydney and Melbourne. City was designed and built from scratch, there wasn't anything were Canberra now stands when it was designed. Bill Bryson describes Canberra as one big park from where there seems to be no escape. Here is pic of hill lookout just outside city.

In Canberra we visited Parliament House and sat for a while inside Senate listening some senator making a speech about "Identification of documentation" or "Documentation of identification" or...whatever :-) Here is Parliament house from outside

In Parliament House I got to see painting of my personal favourite Prime Minister of Australia, Harold Holt.

Why? Ok, I'm going to bore you again with story. Harold Holt was Prime Minister some decades ago. On his vacation he went to beach in Victoria and headed to sea for swim...and disappeared. They found his clothes nicely folded in beach but he was never seen again and his body was never found. About 10 years later they decided to build a memorial for Harold Holt in Melbourne, any guess what it was and still is?

A public swimming pool! I love this country :-D

After Canberra we headed towards Australia's tallest mountain and only ski resort, Mount Kosciuzky, height 2228m. Not that there was snow now, they apparently get snow during midwinter enough to run the ski resort for 3 months. We arrived there quite late and had quite a wild night with this custom made shot-tray(thats Hoops btw second from left).

On following day we set out to climb to the roof of Australia. Climb was made easy with chair lift that took us all the way to 1900 meters. Walk was then only 6.5km with 300m elevation. Nothing compared to some of the climbs I did in New Zealand where elevation was over 1000m. Views weren't really that impressive on top but come on! I reached highest point of entire continent, thats something. Here is pic of first 5 on the top. From left: Claudia, Greg, Hoops, Me and Jana.

So after climb we headed down to Victoria and crossed state border. Wohoo, my 5th State in Australia has been reached now. Only 2 more to go. Road was through this National Park with quite amazing views again.

We drove for quite long time until we reached south coast and small holiday town called Lake Entrance. We just barely were able to see sunset at the beach.

On final day we were suppose to visit yet another National Park on road to Melbourne but apparently that park was closed because of bushfires so we took alternative plan and headed to Phillip Island, famous for it's Penguin Parade(more about that later on). Just before Phillip Island we stopped at small place where it was possible to feed native Australian animals such as...

...wallabies...

...goats...

...kangaroos...

...emus...

...and sharks :-)

After feeding it was Phillip Island and penguins. Phillip Island is famous for it's daily event called Penguin Parade. That happens during sunset when hundreds of penguins come out from ocean and into their dwellings on protected beach. What makes this a parade is that all the penguins do it same time. So you have chance to watch 500 penguins marching like an army across the beach. Well, we weren't there on sunset but still we were able to see few penguins who were too lazy that do to go into ocean.

All good things must come to an end. It was great tour mostly because of nice people we had on tour. Unfortunately end left little bitter taste. When we got to Melbourne, our tour guide Lawrence, asked us to fill out feedback forms. After we handed them over his behaviour changed. He was suppose to drop us off to our accomodations in Melbourne but instead he dumped us to Melbourne Central station and said: "Take a tram. Ask driver where you need to get off". Err, not very cool getting left in the middle of the city with heavy backpacks during worst traffic hour.

Other thing, he told us that he has arranged dinner for all of us at Hotel Espy in Ackland Street and that he would come there as well for few drinks. First of all Hotel Espy wasn't in Ackland street, it was in Esplanade. Everyone had problems finding it. Second, Lawrence never showed up nor was there any kind of table reservation for us. Pretty rude ending to otherwise nice trip, just left bitter taste to it. Anyway we were still able to get table and raise couple of drinks before saying goodbye(sniff) and moving on in our own adventures.

Now I'm in Melbourne for just 2 nights and tomorrow heading to Tasmania, land of the inbreeds hehe. First impression of Melbourne? Dont know really...this is so different from all other big towns in Australia. It isn't as beautiful as Sydney and it isn't as appealing as Perth. I need little bit more time after Tasmania here to figure out this town.

Back in Sydney

2009-02-19T22:56:00.000-08:00

Day 234

"Redback, Funnel-Web, Blue-ringed octopus
Tiapan, Tigersnake and a Box jellyfish
Big shark just waiting for you to go swimming
At Bondi Beach

Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed"

Here we go again! Little over 4 months ago I ended my Australia tour 2008 in Sydney. It was only fitting that in 2009 it continues from there. I wanted to see entire Australia so in order to keep circle intact, I had to start from Sydney again.

Ok, that wasn't only reason to come to Sydney again. Other reason was that last time I felt like I only scratched the surface of this beautiful city and missed couple of things I really wanted to see/do. One was Blue Mountains, where I am going tomorrow for 2 days, and second was world-famous harbour bridge climb. Here is the bridge at night btw.

This harbour bridge climb is truly epic. First of all check-in hall has pictures on the wall of all the celebrities at the bridge summit who have done the climb. There are pictures of Will Smith, Jodie Foster, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, etc.

Unfortunately we couldn't bring our cameras up there. In fact we couldn't take anything up there which might have chance to fall down. So only pics I have are the ones our guide took and they are on CD atm. Otherwise it was quite an epic experience. That bridge is huge! Funny detail how they built it btw...they started to build the bridge from both ends and met at the middle. Bridge was built between 1925-1932 so there was no computers to help calculations. Imagine what kind of wizardry it required to have those 2 ends meet in the middle at precise pre-calculated location. Amazing work if you ask me...New Zealand couldn't have pulled it off ;-D

After climb I was quite exhausted so what better way to fill my stomach and quench my thirst than with Kangaroo Pizza and pint of Little Creatures Pale Ale(voted as the best Pale Ale in entire world!)

Australia...this country doesn't stop to surprise me. Last night I went to Botanical Gardens at sunset to take some night photos of Opera House and generally just walk around. Then I stumble on huge open air cinema built across bay to Opera House. What a setting! Big screen and Opera House+Harbour Bridge on backround. I immediately noticed that this was no ordinary screening since everyone entering inside gates was dressed to kill. So...me as backpacker snuck back behind the fence, up the hill and found spot where I was able to see screen between bushes. Movie turned out to be Tenderness(starring Russell Crowe) and apparently it was film's first ever screening to any audience! Director and writer was there but not Russell. So there I sat on grass for nearly 2h to see the film which btw was surprisingly good!

Today it was yet another hot and sunny day so I dragged my ass to Circular Quay and into ferry to Manly Beach, Sydney's 2nd most famous beach after Bondi.

After sunbating for about an hour I jump into ocean and manage to get within knee depth when all the sudden big alarm sounds from beach speakers:

"Attention everyone in water. There has been shark sighting nearby so shark alarm went off, we advice to stay out of the water for now!"

Eh...sweet! So Mr.Sharky hasn't given up hope to catch some Finnish meat this summer. Unfortunately no attack came, even though I was very hopeful since couple of surfers ignored the warning and went out anyway.

Tomorrow I'm off to Blue Mountains for 2 days. On sunday back to Sydney and on monday journey moves on...

Going back to Oz

2009-02-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

Day 230

"We're off to see the wizard
the wonderful wizard of Oz"

Tomorrow I'm going back to Oz! Honestly I can't wait to see my favourite country again. It's been over 4 months now and I already miss Oz more than Finland. Besides, 84 days in New Zealand is really starting to be enough.

Before summing up this country, let's rewind few days to Wellington. I passed through Wellington earlier with Tuulia and Sami on Christmas Day. Since my flight was set to depart from Auckland, I traveled through Wellington again. This time I decided to stay few days and say hi to Tommi(former co-worker) who had settled to Wellington for 2 years. As it turned out, weather in Wellngton was God awful. It poured rain without a stop for 2 days so there really wasn't anything to do. I tried to catch couple of gaps to walk up the hill of Mount Victoria and to find LOTR filming locations. Apparently, it wasn't that hard :)

After walking little while I stumbled these 4 geeks re-enacting scene from Fellowship Of The Ring at precise location where it was originally shot.

Also went up to Botanical Gardens with Cable Car, one of the major Wellington icons. But as you can see, there weren't any good views cause of rain.

Last evening in Wellington we had quite funny Finnish gathering. Grand total of 7 finns having dinner together at local Indian Restaurant.

It's funny how small world is. As we were chatting there I heard one of the finns say "Unioninkatu" so I asked where in Unioninkatu they lived. It turned out that couple lives in same building as I :) Small world really...

Now I'm back in Auckland again after 1-night side trip to New Plymouth. West coast of North Island was only area I had not seen yet here so I stopped there for 1 night. Hehe, again less is said about New Plymouth the better. In short: gang infested, rundown little township.

So New Zealand...NZ is very high on people's list of "dream holiday destinations". After 84 days here I think I can form pretty clear picture what this country is about. New Zealand is extremely pretty on the outside, but more or less rotten from the inside. There are no attractive cities in New Zealand what's worse, there is major security issue.

All towns seem to have some form of gang culture going on, it's nothing big and certainly nothing too organised but none the less...teenage gangs mostly 15-20 year olds flock the streets after shops go down with their pimped cars. And if they happen to see tourist alone walking by they more than often start barking to them trying to scare tourist for their own pathetic little amusement. Not once did I feel scared, I more or less felt like I'm in kindergarden watching grown-ups make fool of themselfs. Really pathetic.

What else? There are lot of small issues that I found so wrong here. First of all 90% of commercial breaks in TV are filled by "educational videos" educating citizens to drink less, drink responsibly, not drink and driving, road safety, fire safety, earthquake safety, beach safety etc. etc. Watching TV here makes me feel like all New Zealanders are bunch of morons who need to see this stuff on TV or otherwise whole country would be in chaos. Oh, and even with all this educational crap, people still get themselfs killed here on the roads and beaches more than in Australia for example. Just month ago one of New Zealand's brightest stars in Rugby died when he went swimming near Auckland and torrent took him. What is wrong with Kiwis?!

I guess it's a bit unfair to make comparison between New Zealand and Australia but I can't help it. In paper these 2 countries are fairly similar, but they are so different from one another. Even traveling scene here is completely different. I guess it's pretty clear I like Australia so much more. All the problems I pointed out above are non-existent in Australia. That country can offer 1000 more ways to get yourself killed yet, people can take care of themselfs there without constant educational commercials. I think overall New Zealand is prettier, but lacks soul completely.

Ok, so this is only an opinion by one person. I have met lot of people in New Zealand who say they like New Zealand more than Oz. Mostly I have been hearing this opinion from females. Only way to form your own opinion is to travel both these countries ;-)

Enough with the rant now, lets move on to positive stuff. What were the highlights of New Zealand? As I started to think this through I realised I have to divide North and South Island experiences because these 2 islands are so different. Why? South Island is like Australia's east coast. It's themepark with gorgeous sceneries but filled with tourists. North Island feels like authentic New Zealand and has much better atmosphere and vibe.

North Islands highlights:

1. Tongariro Crossing. Anyone visiting NZ needs to do this day walk. What makes this so great is how the scenery changes multiple times. First you are walking in valley next to mountain, then you climb up rocky mountain, then you are inside crater, then...There was just so many different amazing landscapes.

2. Bay Of Island. Great place little off the major tourist track. Very beautiful with relaxed atmosphere.

3. Tauranga&Mount Maunganui. Easily best town in NZ. Scenery in Mount Maunganui was breathtaking and vibe on the Esplanade bars in Tauranga was very comfortable.

South Island highlights:

1. Mount Cook. Easily my favourite spot in South Island. Scenery there was just stunning and it lacked all the annoying partying teenagers which most other locations in South Island had.

2. Abel Tasman National Park. Yes, it was gorgeous. Bit repetitive scenery but still great. Good thing was that it too was little out of the beaten track.

3. Arthur's Pass. Again, this out-of-the-way place became my favourite(hehe, see the pattern here?). I was blessed with gorgeous views on top of Avalance Peak.

Why not Fiordland? Hmm, I thought about it long and hard. It was beautiful place but I guess the constant rain ruined it a bit for me. If weather would been there similar that it was in Mount Cook for example it might have maded into top 3.

Now I'll finish this long entry. I might have forgotten something but doesn't matter. Tomorrow I'm finally going back to Oz, yay! But where in Oz am I going...hmmm...any bets?

Abel Tasman...again

2009-02-10T23:30:00.000-08:00

Day 223

"Freedom is mine. The earth is still.
I feel the wind. I breathe again.
And the sky clears"

Sun, blue sky, clear turqoise water, sandy beaches, warm weather...these are not generally how someone would describe New Zealand but this country certainly has it all. Snowcapped mountain peaks in middle of summer as well as...picture perfect paradise beaches. This is Abel Tasman National Park.

I visited Abel Tasman quickly before, on December 26th when I passed it with Tuulia and Sami quickly. Since it was only 3h detour as I was heading back to North Island, I decided to spend another 3 days there and really try to see the area fully.

So I arrived to Motueka and to my horror, I had booked bed for myself in a frigging hippie hostel in Motueka! Now, I have a simple message to all hippies, smoking weed does NOT make you better singer after 23:00 when someone exhausted from day's walk is trying to sleep. V*tun nuotiokitaristit sanon mina per...Er, sorry about the Finnish. Hostel had some group of hippies smoking dope in the evening and at around 23:00 someone gets an idea to get guitar out of their trunk and start playign/singing so badly(of course they all thought he was great!) that I wished Simon Cowell(or even Jone Nikula) would have been there to render some honest judgement.

Anyway, I didn't arrive to Motueka to spend time in hostel, I came to Abel Tasman. Most popular activity by far in there is sea kayaking. I decided to skip that just because I got my life's worth of sea kayaking done in Tonga, first circle around Ofu and then Uoleva. So instead kayaking I took the cheaper option, walking. Abel Tasman has one big walk, its one of New Zealands Great Walks called Abel Tasman Coastal Track, length 45km and designated as 3-day walk. Well, what makes Abel Tasman park so different and easily accessible with it's water taxi system. People can just take water taxi into several bays and walk to any other bay and get picked up by taxi later on, brilliant system.

So I ended up doing so called 2-bay walk, which was 15km in total. Amazing weather all day and it was so hot I actually managed to drag my ass into ocean and swim a bit...first time I have done that in New Zealand so far(excluding diving). Water was still freezing, about 20-22 degrees. Here are some of the views during walk.

After Abel Tasman I headed to Nelson for 2 days. Statistically, Nelson has 2 interesting facts. One fact is that it is sunniest town in New Zealand having more sunshine per year than any other town. Second, it is also location of geographical center point of New Zealand(yea, quite a feat...sigh).

And about the sunshine...how ironic is it that when I get there it rains. Luckily it was only shower but still it felt funny. Other than sunny and warm weather, Nelson was surprisingly dull. Pretty town, but dull.

After going through almost all towns worth seeing in New Zealand, there is clear winner. Twin town of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui in North Island's Bay of Plenty is clear winner. It was also only town in New Zealand where I might even remotly consider settling in to.

So now it's only 6 more nights left in Kiwiland till I'm whisked away in Oz again. I do hope don't find my Oz in smoke and ashes after those horrible bushfires in Victoria, where I am scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks time. Still one more entry to come from NZ where I will try to wrap up this country, its flaws and its high points. Till then...take care and see you all soon!

Marlborough

2009-02-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

Day 217

"Drink with me to days gone by
Sing with me the songs we knew
Here's to pretty girls who went to our heads.
Here's to witty girls who went to out beds.
Here's to them and here's to you!"

Sometimes I know I'm the luckiest guy in world. Every now and again comes along day that keeps reminding me of that. This time I had amazing 3 days in Renwick, heart of Marlborough wine region. I had already seen other major wine regions in New Zealand(Hawkes Bay, Otago, Martinborough and Waiheke) and I secretly hoped the most famous one would also be the crown jewel, it was!

But lets rewind the clock back few more days. After Christchurch I went to Kaikoura. Now, I wasn't exactly sure why I decided to stop there, maybe because word of mouth since many had been praising that place. Main attraction in Kaikoura is whale watching which I so was not going to do. I mean, come on, after Tonga and that Humpback breaching 30 times in front of our boat I wasn't going to waste my money on whalewatching trip where I could have a chance to observe whale's tail from 100m distance. So, I was planning on doing diving there since I was told that sometimes there is chance to have seals swimming along you during dive, that could have been pretty cool.

But emphasize on the word could. There were 2 reasons I ended up skipping diving. One was weather, for some odd reason the day I was in Kaikoura temperature dropped down to +14 and it rained all day. Other reason was Federer and Nadal. Hehe, their Australian Open final ended up lasting almost 5 hours and clock was 2:30am when it ended. Was it worth staying up? Hell yea! This is rivalry in tennis history that will be talked about years and years to come. Commentators and spectators will compare future matches and future players to these 2 individuals. This time their match wasn't as good as Wimbledon final but thrilling and amazing still. Some of the rallies these 2 did were just unhuman. Never ever have I seen tennis played like this. In my opinion Federer and Nadal are reason why serve&volley players have completely disappeared from tennis top level. Anyway, great match and way too little sleep after that :-D

Day after that I just decided to have a walk around Kaikoura Peninsula which I canceled midway cause rain just started to get way too heavy and headed back to hostel to watch Superbowl :-D I did manage to make it to Kaikoura's wild seal colony and grab one shot before I tucked away my camera to prevent damage to it.

On it was from Kaikoura to Marlborough and Renwick. On the road clouds turned away and New Zealand's most famous wine region greeted me with almost clear blue sky. I had 3 days in there so on first day I decided to do walking tour and check couple of wineries close by, 2nd day I booked full-day wine tour and on 3rd day I planned to rent a bicycle and go check whatever was left in area.

I think the wine tour topped all my expectations. For 74 dollars(thats about 30 euros) guide took us to grand total of 10 wineries during day! One being the famous Cloudy Bay(which btw is terribly overprized compared to other wineries in region). Wine tour was just blast again. I had especially good time with 2 irish girls(Schnaps factory was just hilarious visit). Whats with the irish? I have had some of the best memories during this trip with irish girls, go figure...

On last day I took bicycle out to visit yet few more wineries. My grand total ended up being 16 wineries during 3 days, not bad hu? What was fantastic about this area was the quality of their wines. There wasn't single bad winery and people in smaller boutique wineries were just fantastic. There was couple smaller ones(Gibson Bridge and Grove Mill) were I ended up chatting with the winemaker for over hour while he kept bringing me some of his more rare reserve bottles for tasting. I have been in quite a few wine areas and visited even more wineries so I can say that it was highly unusal. I guess they realised that I was actually someone who was actually interested in wines. Oh yea, and the landscapes were amazing there, but since this is New Zealand, that goes without saying.

Oh winery of the area award goes to Saint Clair with Te Whare Ra coming as runner-up.

Now I am in Motueka, yet again. I was here with Tuulia and Sami about 5-6 weeks ago for brief visit, but now that I have little more time I came here again to walk(and burn those wine calories) in Abel Tasman Park. Pics to come in next entry ;-)

Rest of Canterbury

2009-01-26T20:06:00.001-08:00

Day 211

"Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed."

Over 7 months now. I guess the length of this trip has just recently really struck me. 7 months behind and yet still over 3 remains...thats almost one third still remaining and I already feel like there is way too much to digest. It's funny how human memory work. I remember picture clearly my last evening in Finland like it was yesterday, sitting in Kaisla and having beer with my mates. In same time I try to remember 2 weeks in Darwin, it feels like it happened ages ago. And there is just so much after Darwin as well. That's also one of the reasons for this blog, its here not only to tell my mates what's going on and what am I doing, its also here to document this trip so I have this amazing travel story to read years and years forward. This blog is also for myself.

I told in couple of earlier entries how this is getting tougher...it is. But in same time I have to say that every single day I have enjoyed it, and life. I can say that I have enjoyed this experience every single day. 211 days so far and counting, how many days in a row I was(or will be) able to enjoy life back in home?

Ok, I'm getting all mental now, time to jump back to reality. I was ment to write entry 2 days ago when I last was in Christchurch but I ended up getting stuck in TV room watching Australian Open instead. So now I'm back in Christchurch and I have 1.5h before Nadal is playing :-)

After Mt Cook I spent 2 days in Lake Tekapo. I had heard how beautiful, calm and chill that place was so I decided to stop there for 2 nights. Oh my, it was pretty!

In Tekapo I was struck again by New Zealand's peculiar weather. First I am in Mt Cook freezing and having snowball war and after 1h drive, I am sunbathing in +32 weather! Overall Tekapo was maybe even too quiet for my taste...weird, few months ago I would have propably loved it more but now it's different. I guess these quiet, beautiful locations need good bunch of people around you, that is if you want to spend more than 2 days in one location. It seems it wasn't a problem in Australia to find such people, but it's almost impossible to do same in New Zealand. I'll get back to reasons little further...

After Tekapo I arrived to Christchurch for 2 days, what a dreadful and crappy city again! It's clear pattern now. New Zealand is very pretty on the outside, it has gorgeous landscapes and stunning scenery but every single city is just worse than previous. It really doesn't make it too appealing to move here permanently cause I couldn't imagine myself living in any of these ugly cities. It looks like none of the big cities in NZ have had any kind of design. So you have mixture of every single style built by the lowest bidder(clearly!). It looks like New Zealanders don't even care how their cities look, as long as buildings get the job done and are cost effective. That's also what is so different with Aussies and Kiwis. 2 days ago in news some officials in Australia announced that they are going to rebuild Melbourne Tennis Park into best Tennis Park in entire world! Knowing Aussies, they will do that. Kiwis...they just don't care or wouldn't have the will to do it. In short, I love Austalia :-)

Oh, no pictures from Christchurch so far...couldn't think of anything so far which was worth the space in my memory card :-D

From Christchurch I booked a trip to Banks Peninsula nearby. Now, this is sort of interesting peninsula and it looks weird as hell if you look at it with Google Earth. 9 million years ago Peninsula was big volcano, but these days it's crater looks like this:

I had booked 2 nights in a sheepfarm hostel right in middle of nowhere. I spent 2 days in authentic Australian farm back in September so I figured I should see what the farm life is like in NZ as well. Experience _almost_ turned out to be great, but just almost. Settings were amazing, just look at the view from farm's terrace:

...and views around Peninsula were amazing, again:

...but, hehe there always seem to be but when speaking about NZ. Place needed right bunch of people to stay longer than 2 days and there lies the problem here. People aren't staying anywhere long enough, everyone is just madly rushing from place to place and mostly spending 1 or 2 nights in one place, max. You don't get to know people because they are gone the next morning.

There are couple of reasons for this, but mostly it's logistics. Public bus network is very limited and cover's only major locations. Why? Because there are no travelers in public buses! Majority of travelers use either their own rented car(which btw is cheap) or take one of the 3 major backpacker buses(Kiwi Experience, Magic or Naked). Backpacker buses are in general cheaper than public buses, but they bind you to certain route and to certain timeframe which mostly is way too short. Travelers mostly take one of this backpacker bus passes which for example allow you to travel predetermined South Island circle in 2 weeks. After buing pass you are bound to that route, you can't retrace your steps and you have to finish the route within 2 weeks...which is why people just madly rush from place to place. New Zealand is not traveling mecca, this is holiday country...sadly.

Oh and these backpacker buses, they organize everything for you. Bus drivers hand out lists where people can check accomodation list where they want to stay in next destination and activity list where people can choose which activities they want to do in that destination. After everyone has checked those lists, bus driver makes phone calls and makes all bookings acting like any travel agent. So in essence, people on backpacker buses are on a package trip where every destination is told to them, where every booking and activity is made for them while they can just sit down, relax and get drunk. Sound like typical holiday? Yes, and typical holiday is exactly what I am NOT looking for. Having someone do all the work for you and telling you where to go next takes away all the fun. I enjoy the hassle of finding out destinations by myself, do all the bookings myself and having freedom to choose my next destination independently.

Jesus, I have been ranting a lot in this entry :-D Nah, it's just that I'm trying to explain what I feel is wrong with New Zealand and why traveling through this country seems like a struggle sometimes. Anyways, even with the rant, I have enjoyed New Zealand a lot. Fantastic scenery, but it's very unlikely that I will return here as a backpacker again, not alone at least.

Now I have another day to spend in Christchurch, was hoping to catch some movie while I'm in big city...and trying to find a shop that sells swimshorts. Some jerk decided to steal my swimmers in Mt Cook, go figure...

A Kick Ass Ride!

2009-01-18T21:38:00.000-08:00

Day 204

"When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I'll find another way
Find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life"

Helicopter ride to top of Tasman Glacier and around Mt Cook(highest mountain in NZ), what a ride!

Today weather was so amazing, picture perfect blue sky which is not so common in these Southern Alps so I decided to skip future dive trip in Kaikoura and invest my money on this once in a lifetime(yet again) experience. It's not too many times one can ride with helicopter on top of mountain in middle of summer. Ride was rather shaky cause of wind but hugely enjoyable still. And scenery...it was nothing short of amazing.

We landed on top of Tasman Glacier at around 3000m for quick photoshoot and snowball war :)

Oh, and for peeps at office, you are welcome for this one :)

Ok, lets rewind the clock back a bit. Before arriving to Mt Cook I spent 2 days in Queenstown, again.

I have to say that my feelings for that town improved significantly now that I wasn't sick and had time. Queenstown is easily the most picturesque city in New Zealand, gorgeous town by lake surrounded by mountains. I had planned to do some sort of activity there on other day and after thinking through what I REALLY wanted...I chose wine tour around Central Otago wine area :)

Other option would have been bungy jump but...I have done it once before(granted, was very drunk that time) and after skydive it just didn't have that big appeal anymore. Here is pic of one of the bungy locations around Queenstown(there are 3 total). This location is actually officially the first bungy location in entire world, started by AJ Hackett on 80s.

...and here is another quite cinematic location above Queenstown and at the end of Gondola(=skyrail).

So, wine tour...I was hugely surprised. When speaking about NZ wines people usually always know 2 areas: Hawkes Bay and Marlborough(some might know Martinborough), but I had no clue about Otago area. This place was fantastic, easily best Pinot Noirs I have tasted in NZ(or even in Australia) so far. This is very small area but the quality of their Pinot Noirs was stunning. If anyone happens to run across Otago Pinots anywhere, grab a bottle. Overall it was yet another fun wine tour. Its funny, when wine tour usually starts, people are a bit shy, quiet and keep to themselfs...but after 2nd winery everyone is talking and having a laugh :-D

After revisit to Queenstown I headed to ultimate mountain destination in NZ, Mount Cook National Park. Now, if I said on my last entry how spark seems to be gone and how it's harder and harder to get impressed anymore, then Mt Cook turned new page. This place impressed and seriously wowed me.

During past 3 days I have walked about 50-55km around in this National Park seeing absolutely stunning views. I can safely say that spark has been lighted again, I hope it stays that way. But no matter what happens, I am NOT quiting this trip before it was ment to end.

Next stop is Lake Tekapo for 2 days and after that I won't be seeing anymore mountains during this trip. Then it's back towards ocean, warmth and beaches :)

Ok, I'm going to end this entry now. For some reason I don't have inspiration to write that much...and this internet hotspot is in TV room where people are quite loud so it makes focusing impossible...and air-conditioning doesn't really work here so it's getting quite uncomfortably hot.

Until next time...

Young perish and the old linger

2009-01-15T21:03:00.000-08:00

Day 199

"I have to find the will to carry on
On with the -
On with the show -
The show must go on"

Topic describes how I feel now. All the people I have met so far in this trip have gone back to their respective homes, but I still linger here. I still have almost 4 months to go before heading back. As time goes by, social game becomes tougher and tougher. It's harder and harder to motivate yourself to show interest towards people's travel stories...because at this point you have heard them all. And as for me, I'm not nearly as eager to tell my stories for 1378th time. But...show must go on.

I did survive Shining hostel in Catlins without losing my mind. Place was so bizarre, it was in middle of nowhere in small country village(pop 200). I have no clue why anyone ever built such a big hospital into that place since closest big town, Dunedin, wasn't that far away(2h drive). Anyway, place was pretty cool with kickboards to drive around the complex :)

Catlins itself offered some nice scenery and wildlife. I don't know how numb I am getting, but I wasn't totally blown away by the scenery, it was just...ok.

Oh, and here is shot of Yellow-Eye Penguin. The most rare penguin in world. There are only 99 of them left at the moment so when this fella swam to shore it was quite a treat.

More interesting thing in Catlins was how nervous the sheeps there were :DD So far I haven't seen so spooked sheeps anywhere in New Zealand. I guess the remotness of Catlins makes farmers lonely and sheeps nervous :D

On 13th I arrived from remote farmlands to first real city for while, Dunedin, population 110 000. Place is modeled and streets are named based on Edinburgh in Scotland so no wonder Dunedin is said to be the most scotish town in New Zealand. City also boasts South Islands largest University which makes it big student town. Unfortunately(or fortunately) it's school holidays here atm so town is more or less ghost town cause all students are out in holiday destinations across country.

Dunedin itself is architecturally different than any other NZ town. It has lot of gothic look with its churches and european styled buildings. Here for example is church called "First Church"(because it was first church built in South Island).
\
...and here is town's railway station.

...and here is high school for boys.

I spent total of 3 days here which I found was quite quite enough. There was surprisingly lot to see in town. One of the highlights was of course the Speights Brewery where I was finally able to taste New Zealand beer that has more alcohol than 4.0%! Yea, apparently NZ has had such bad history with alcohol that all NZ beers have only 4.0% alcohol in them. And that 4%-rule is not only thing. Everywhere I go they have big signs "24h Liquor free zone", "All public drinking of alcohol is forbidden", etc. and to top this, they have campaign commercials in TV every 5mins about "proper use of alcohol". Weird, cause so far I have seen nothing in NZ that would suggest alcohol problem, no news in papers about drunken brawls or husbands offloading their families after heavy drinking(like in Finland every week).

So now I'm still in Dunedin, waiting to catch a bus to Queenstown. My plan is take to little side trek across inland towards Christchurch and see(and hike) mountains again. My current plan is to be in Christchurch around 28th, Wellington 8th, Auckland 12th and...lets see where plane takes from there.

Ok...this is first time that I admit it, but after almost 7 months on the road mostly alone, traveling is starting to get tough. It's getting harder and harder to get excited about new things. Everything around is starting to feel more and more boring. I wouldn't say that I have homesickness just yet, but spark is definetly gone and I need to relight it again somehow. I think part of the reason might be New Zealand and how depressing this country(and it's weather) is turning out to be.

NZ is definetly not modern country. This country is in many ways 4-5 years behind current modern world. This country is also quite poor, people can't really afford to travel so they are stuck in their own little islands and need to spend their holidays always within borders of NZ.

Now, I still have nearly 4 months to go and I'm not going to quit before May. I know that if I quit, I will never forgive it to myself. I just need to find the spark again for just few more months. I figured that one of the problems has to be weather atm. It's nice and warm but it's not what it was the first 6 months. So in essence I have to get back to Australia and hopefully find my spark there again.

...and it was suppose to be Summer here!

2009-01-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

Day 194

"Bring me home or leave me be
My love in the dark heart of the night
I have lost the path before me
The one behind will lead me"

From here on trip literally changes into return trip. Slowly but surely I have to start retracing my steps towards Australia, Perth and then home. But still many many days till that.

First little time warp back to Fiordland with some pictures(which really aren't that great). First we have world famous Milford Sound

...then Doubtful Sound.

...and finally 2 pics of spectacular sunrise I witnessed on last day in Te Anau while waiting for my shuttle bus to Stewart Island ferry at 6am in morning.

Last 4 days went by slowly in Stewart Island, New Zealands southernmost point. Geologically talking, if someone would drill hole from Stewart Island they would end up somewhere in northern France so island is not that close to antarctic circle but because New Zealand lacks Gulf Stream, place was nothing like northern France in summer. Out of 3 full days I spent there, only one day was sunny and mostly without rain. Thats when I managed to grab picture of the place I stayed, South Sea hotel

...and of the Halfmoon Bay, center "hub" of Stewart Island :)

That was also the day I decided to head out to walks and to see bird sanctuary in Ulva Island.

Bird Sanctuary = Free open pvp zone for birds. I'll never set foot on these so called bird sanctuaries and neither will I ever become "lintubongari". Birds on Stewart Island were so dumb and insane. Let me try to make a comparison to put this into perspective:

Man and his wife are living on a house by a road with 2 small children. All the sudden Hell's Angels motorcycle gang drives slowly by armed to the teeth. Now, this dumbass man sees these passing motorists a threat to his offspring so he grabs a stick and runs to road and starts beating passing motorists with it causing no damage but definetly draws party's attention to himself, in worst case even angers them enough so he might get his brains blown off. Nice, so kids can grow without their father.

This is pretty much how birds acted on this "sanctuary". Because they are protected no one dares to harm them so they become stupid morons who attack anything on their sight. This happened to me several times. I was walking calmly and never even saw bird's nests much less baby birds but still from out of nowhere came berserking bird at me. Worst out of all were these Oystercatchers

...then there were also these duck-like birds which just came to scene while I was having lunch and started rummaging my bag for any goodies.

Overall nice place to chill, read and unwind but I think 4 nights was 2 nights too much :) I got my batteries charged again and was off to Invercargil for 1 night on 10th.

Invercargill...Oh my! Lonely Planet said that the place is "rough around the edges", but more accurate description would have been "shithole". Then again, its always an experience to spend a night in places like that. I arrived there quite late, around 17:00 and headed out to check town and buy some groceries from supermarket nearby. I haven't felt so unsecure in any place so far during this trip. Town was empty apart from gangs consisting of teens aged 12-20 riding around in their pimped 80's cars making as much noise as possible. After I got my shopping done I decided to walk into a pub 10m from hostel to grab beer and have a look at the atmosphere. Well, I opened pub door and all the sudden everyone in pub stopped what they were doing, all conversationes ceased and everyone started to stare me...feeling was more than uncomfortable so I just closed door and ran back into hostel and didn't go out anymore. Phew!

Next day I quickly walked to Infocenter and got into Catlins Coaster bus and away from Invercargil.

So right now I'm in Catlins countryside and in small village called Owaka southeast corner of South Island. Very charming place with great countrypub. Hostel I am staying at is also amazing! Place is basically huge abandoned countryside hospital which someone has turned into hostel. Halls are huge and very eerie since there is maybe 2-3 other people staying here and thats it. I so get Shining-vibes from this place atm hehe

Ok, but more about Catlins and Shining-hostel in next entry. Tomorrow I'm hopefully off to Dunedin which is more civilised locations and I would finally have some time to write proper entry instead of just quick rundown of last few days.

Wet, Wetter, Fjordland

2009-01-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

Day 189

"In the rain,
The pavement shines like silver.
All the lights
Are misty in the river."

This will be a rare pictureless entry for long time so bare with me...those checking this blog for pictures only can wait for next entry *cough* Shadar *cough* ;-P Reason is simple, there are 2 computers in Stewart Island - my current location for next 4 days - and neither has usb ports. Otherwise I would have to wait another week or so before being able to write new entry, so I figured to update situation a bit now.

Last time I wrote Sami, Tuulia and I were suffering from weird virus, which has mostly passed now. At the moment Sami and Tuulia are already on their way back to Finland and I decided to take some time for myself at this very remote location of New Zealand, not too many tourists around here. But more about Stewart Island on next entry.

My purpose to visit Fjordland was 2 magnificient fjords there, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. Yea yea, they are named Sounds, but are in fact fjords. People who named them originally back in 18th century thought they were sounds. Now, according to quite popular travel website, TripAdvisor(Facebook users should know this), Milford Sound is voted as #1 travel destination in entire world so expectations were more than high for it.

As I got to Te Anau, I noticed there were 30 or so boats going to Milford Sound every day, nearly all were Samsonite pleasure cruises. Now, I figured I wanted something different, so I booked place for only dive operator doing trips to Milford. Why enjoy this magnificient fjord from above water only when I was able to go underwater as well? Yea, price was lot bigger but then again, in how many places in world are you able to dive a fjord? I have to say that diving conditions were more unique than ever. I'm going to bore people now and explain them :)

Fjordland gets heavy rain all year round and is surrounded by mountain peaks which some even have snowcaps. As this rain falls down from mountains it is very very cold. It creates 5-7m freshwater layer into the fjord which is very cold, +9 at this time of the year. This cold freshwater is very dark, thus it blocks lot of the sunlight making conditions 10m below surface like it's 70m below. Because of this effect, there is lot of deep water marine life in Milford Sound just 10-15m below surface that you normally wouldn't able to see anywhere. Below freshwater is normal saltwater with pretty tolerable temperature, +16 on my dives.

Before trip I was little scared how my extremely sore and infected throat would cope the cold water and diving, but...I figured what doesn't kill me, simply makes me strang...stronger :) All in all, it went better than I expected. It was cold, but for some reason under the water I didn't feel any soreness. Other thing that puzzled me afterwards was that I was able to drop all the way to 20m without having the need to equalize even once...am I turning into fish?

Otherwise trip to Milford was okish, weather was horrible but as they told us, it has been horrible for past month or so. It just rained and rained and clouds were very low making it impossible to see the high peaks surrounding fjord. But even with the cloudcover, it was clear how massive and spectacular that fjord was. I definetly felt like I was in middle of a movie set.

After Milford I went to see Doubtful Sound the next day. To this I had to choose Samsonite cruise since it was pretty much the only option. Where as Milford is easily accessible, Doubtful isn't. Thats also why less tourists go there which is always nice. Difference between Milford and Doubful are pretty apparent from pictures(if I ever get them online). Doubtful is much more massive and peaks surrounding it are bigger, but Milford is more picturesque with beatiful waterfalls surrounding it all the time.

Ok, time is up soon. I wish I could write more about my current state of mind, how traveling gets tougher and tougher after 6 months, how it gets more and more difficult to get impressed or even excited about new things, how pathetic New Zealanders are behind wheel, how this country seems constantly to be under watchful eye of Big Brother, how accident prone all Kiwi's are, etc. ...but all this has to wait. I hope I find cheap enough internet on the road and write all this and more.

But for now it's bye bye. Next entry won't be sooner than 13th or 14th January...assuming I survive Stewart Island crazy wildlife(=local fishermen).

Road To Fjordland

2008-12-31T17:31:00.000-08:00

Day 184

"Give me all the peace and joy in your mind
I want the peace and joy in your mind
Give me the peace and joy in your mind"

So last entry was written in Wellington with annoying flu. 7 days later I am in Te Anau, gateway town to magnificient Fjordland suffering some kind of nasty bacteria or virus. Tuulia and Sami are atm both sleeping in Motel with 38+ fever suffering from same thing. Typical that my immune system works so weirdly that I have no fever but extremely sore throat. Needless to say that this virus kinda ruined our New Year in Queenstown since everyone was more or less sick and out of strength to do anything.

After last entry in Wellington we wandered around in town for half a day during Christmas Day and ended up in local National Museum. I'm not a big museum fan but that place was fantastic. 6 floors of exhibitions and best of all it was FREE. Excellent place alltogether so we spent there most the day since everything in town was closed. We also stopped at hill to grab some city pictures.

Overall, Wellington didn't look that bad. It was quite decent city compared to horrible Auckland. But I wasn't weeping when we left there at 4:30 next morning on a ferry towards South Island. Sun came up just as we left Wellington and after 2h of sleepy ride we arrived to South Island and gorgeous Marlborough Sounds.

As the boat arrived to Picton in South Island we just hit the pedal and sped away, Picton was that ugly :) Our first destination in South Island was Abel Tasman National Park up in northwest corner. We were blessed with beautiful weather all day and managed to see most of the famous landmarks in clear blue sky. It was funny though, Abel Tasman Park is not even near tropical zone but place certainly looks like it could be there.

After day in tropical Abel Tasman park we started heading towards south and small place called St Arnaud, gateway to Nelson Lakes National Park. This is a relatively small place which I might have skipped, but because some of the pictures I had seen of that area were so gorgeous that we decided to do small sidetrack. It was definetly worth it.

Yet another beautiful location in New Zealand. At that point I had only about 4 weeks behind me and already I was constantly blown away by the scenery, again and again. Unfortunately we didn't have too much time there so we kept pushing on the next day towards south. But not before I got a physical memory from Lakes that I still carry, sandfly bites. Sandflies were insanely aggressive there and for some reason they targeted me all the time. I still carry nasty looking infected bites from them.

Our next target on trek towards south was small alpine village little out of the beaten track called Arthur's Pass. What a stunning location it was. Place was literally "a pass", a gorge in surrounded by high mountain lines.

On way there we had weird episode with a Kea. Kea is near flightless bird which is listed in New Zealand on endangered species list. What an annoying and stupid wanker that bird turned out to be. We stopped on a lookout 10km from Arthurs Pass and there we saw 2 Keas. One was chewing concrete asfalt and other iron fence(!).

Hmmm...ok, after minute other Kea jumped on our car, climbed to roof and started chewing on our roof!

We started to move the car a bit but still the bird wouldnt move...no wonder this dumbass was close to exctinction. Finally I stepped out of the car, roared like an ogre and the bird jumped away.

Arthur's Pass was fantastic location. It was clearly out of the beaten track and very very small. Yet it had nice amount of tourists and most were trampers and trekkers seeking to do various hikes in the wilderness. No partying 20-year old brits at all.

We had only one day there so I decided to do the most popular and hyped day walk called Arthur's Peak. Steady 1100m climb to Arthur's Peak(1800m above sea level). Oh...my...God...it was by far toughest and hardest walk I have done during this trip, tougher than Mount Sorrow in Cape Tribulation. Walk itself wasn't long, but it was constant uphill, not even 1 meter wasn't climb and most the time it was 30-45 degree angle. Afterwards I couldn't understand how I did it...especialy since climb was rated hard and was suppose to take 4h for average tramper...I did it in 1 hour and 45 minutes :) Was it worth it? Most certainly, since I have never been to Alps, I have never seen view like this

After I had finished walk in 3h40min that was suppose to take 6-10h we took off towards south and world famous glaciers, Franz Josef and Fox. Hehe, these pitiful little icefields were propably biggest disappointments in New Zealand so far, and in so many levels. No wonder there aren't any good areal pictures of them...because otherwise people would see how pathetic they really are. As we arrived to first glacier, Franz Josef we encountered first shock. Village was...literally a copy Las Palmas, Torremolinos, Rodos, etc. Stripped of originality and filled with partying teenagers and bars to fill their needs. At same time there were all the time atleast 3 helicopters flying around village taking people up to glacier every 5 minutes or so. Peace, chill, relax, enjoyment were definetly last words that came to mind as when thinking of Franz Josef. On top of that village was full, and I mean literally full. Every single hostel, hotel and motel was fully booked so we happily escaped Franz Josef and headed 20km south towards Fox Glacier.

Now, LP said that Fox is smaller and quieter of the 2 glaciers...what a load of bullshit. It was same tourist hellhole as Franz Josef. What couldn't stop to amaze me is why? Why would people fill these 2 villages so full. Its not like there is amazing beach or loads of activities to quench your adrenaline thirst. There is the glacier...and thats it. Only activity is to...walk on it, and thats it! Yet for some unknown reason tourists seemed to get stuck there for days if not even weeks.

Oh, needless to say that Fox was entirely booked as well so we decided to move on south. It was little disappointment to me that I couldnt get my single Kodak shots. 25km south from Fox Glacier, in middle of nowhere, we spotted a roadsign "Pine Grove Motel - Vacancy". It was starting to get late, almost 20:00 so we stopped. Place had one cottage available, 2 bedrooms and 1 lounge area with open kitchen for 85 dollars(=40 euros) a night. Not bad price for 3 people to split. We decided to stop there for 2 nights, make our way back to glaciers on next day, grab our Kodak shots and then head back for good nights sleep in same place. Here is picture of the road at the motel.

Next day we headed back to Glaciers and...just stopped at the lookouts to grab our shots. I had originally planned to do day ice walk there as well, but after seeing glaciers and the immature tourist flock there, I just didn't want to. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Here is Fox glacier.

...and here is Franz Josef.

After glaciers our plan was to head to Wanaka for 1 day and then to Queenstown for New Year. That plan was scrapped after we arrived to Wanaka and noticed that town was even more full of partying teenagers than glaciers! After little research, we found out that Wanaka is supposedly the big party place for New Year in South Island, fact that we didn't know but apparently 10000 young brits knew. So we pushed the pedal and headed towards Queenstown. We decided to spend 2 days in Queenstown and head towards Fjordland on January 1st.

Well, Queenstown as almost was full as Wanaka and glaciers but with much more mature folk. After 2h of searching place to stay for 2 nights we stumbled upon a holiday apartments by lakeside and managed to get 2 floor apartment. View from balcony was quite sweet.

Also in Queenstown it was time to visit Post Office and grab my only Christmas gift. Sweet! Even though I cried out in horror after pulling out that ugly...I mean pretty black FE cap, it really warmed my heart to see how people still remember me even after being gone from home for 6 months. Here I am wearing every piece I got :)

We had great evening on 30th but 31st was just horror. We all got some sort of virus(no, this virus wasn't called hangover). Sami and Tuulia developed 38+ degree fever, everyone of us had extremely sore throats and all of us were feeling very weak. Needless to say our New Year was kinda ruined. We were barely able to stay awake till midnight and witness surprisingly quiet New Year celebration in Queenstown.

So now we are in Te Anau, gateway to Fjordland which is advertised as the most beautiful area in New Zealand. Sami and Tuulia are still very sick and they are hoping to recover tomorrow so they could atleast see Milford Sound before they need to start their way back towards Auckland and home. I'm feeling quite good with the exception of sore throat so I'm not heading out to Sounds before 4th. In fact, Te Anau is such refreshing place after tourist infested Queenstown, Wanaka and Glaciers that I'm staying here for next 5 days.

Ok, thats most of the story in past week which has been little too hectic for my taste. But I knew it was going to be like this since Sami and Tuulia had only less than 3 weeks here compared to my limitless time. From now on its time to get back into backpacker life. Life without schedule, life without money and life without worries ;)

Happy New Year to all!

Mount Doom and Christmas

2008-12-24T21:33:00.000-08:00

Day 178

"Think of me long enough to make a memory"

Yes, it's been few days since last entry but quite frankly this is my first opportunity to access internet with ability to upload any content for almost week. Last entry was written in Taupo and I wrote how much I was looking forward to see familiar faces again. No, this most definetly didn't mean that I was returning home, not by long shot. If Moses could not go to the mountain then mountain had to come to Moses. So it ment that my cousin Tuulia and her spouse Sami came to New Zealand to celebrate Christmas and New Year with me.

We met in Taupo and continued trip towards south. Next stop was to be one of the most epic locations in entire country, Tongariro National Park and also home of various locations used in LOTR-movies such as Mount Doom and Mordor. My plan was to do the day walk called Tongariro Crossing which is regarded as the best day walk in entire world. I was very lucky with weather since the day I had planned my walk turned out to be amazing, Mount Doom was waiting for me in clear blue sky.

If I would say that walk and landscapes were breathtaking, it would again be understatement. There are no words to describe the beauty of it. So I'm just going to shut up and let pictures speak for themselfs. Be sure to check bigger versions as well and you will get a tiny taste of what it was like.

Walk was rated as challenging, 20km long with 900m height difference and was suppose to take 7-8hr for any average tramper...I did it in 4h20min and managed to take 100+ pics on the way :)

After magnificient scenery in Tongariro we started heading down south towards our Christmas location. There wasn't many things to see on the road...apart from this giant carrot which Tuulia just wanted to hug...

...also I got kicked in the ass by this giant gumboot...

...and this windy gorge.

On way we stopped for one night in place called Palmerston North...less is said about that place the better...again. If landscapes are magnificient here then on contrary cities and townships in New Zealand are really not that pretty or appealing at all.

Finally on 23rd we arrived to Martinborough were I had booked a holiday house which was to be our Christmas location for 2 nights. Reason I chose Martinborough for Christmas was it's wineries and location close to Wellington. House was amazing and I think we really managed to make luxury Christmas from pretty crappy food selection local "supermarket" had. Oh, and I also cut down branch from pine tree nearby to create something resembling xmas tree :)

Now it's 25th and we have reached Wellington. Because Tuulia and Sami are on tight schedule we have only 1 day here. Tomorrow morning at 4:50am we need to check in at a ferry which will take us to south island and towards even more impressive locations.

I was I could write more details, but I'm suffering from annoying and resilient flu and sitting in front of screen aint helping it. Hopefully next entry from south island will have more details in it.

Take care all and Merry (late)Christmas!

East Coast and Skydive!

2008-12-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

Day 173

"Fear and panic in the air
I want to be free
From desolation and despair
And I feel like everything I saw
Is being swept away
When I refuse to let you go"

There is nothing like feeling when jumping out of an airplane at 15000ft.

...but let's rewind the clock a bit first, back to East Coast. Last update was written in Whakatane, Bay Of Plenty. From there road led through magnificient gorge all the way to East Coast and Gisborne. Bus trip was exciting in a way, trip was "only" 150km but it still took almost 3 hours because roads were so narrow, hilly and windy. Few people were actually puking in the bus cause of motion sickness. Me...I'm solid as a rock :)

So my first stop in East Coast was Gisborne, the most eastern city in entire world and so the first city in world so see sunlight.

Gisborne area has also lot of Chardonnay fields and 3rd of all Chardonnay's in New Zealand are grown around Gisborne area. So my plan was to take a wine tour and get familiar with Gisborne Chardonnay's. Well, that idea was scrapped because Gisborne is not a tourist town, not by long shot. I arrived to Information Center and asked wheter there are any wine tours going and lady there looked at me with amazement:"Wine tours...hey, Kathy! Can anyone take this gentleman into a wine tour? Is your brother doing anything today?" Ok...at that point I just told them to forget it. So only thing to do was to explore the city a bit.

Hmm less is said about Gisborne the better. City wasn't very nice, it didn't really have anything to hold attention. Captain Cook's lookout hill was ok, but that was it.

So I just sat at hostel, read a book and got good nights sleep.

Next stop for me was Napier, the main hub of Hawkes Bay wine area. I was told that Napier is much more touristy place and booking a wine tour there shouldn't be a problem. Other than wines, Napier is also famous for it's art deco architecture. Most of the houses in town center were built 50-60 years ago and still maintain this art deco style.

Compared to Gisborne, Napier was heaps better place. Much more lively, better designed and overall prettier. My hostel was also awesome, built in old 1930-style art deco house. As I was told, booking a wine tour wasn't a problem here, after looking at the options I chose a guy who had been running wine tours in that area for 16 years, figured that he could tell more about wines there than other guides.

So next day it was wine tour...and oh boy what mess I managed to make within 15 minutes in his bus. It all started with sports, guy was praising how great game rugby is and asked us what did we think about it. Well, me being me I spat out my honest opinion. My reply was something like this:

"Well, I have tried to get it, I really have. I have watched several games...but there is just no skill in rugby. It's 2 teams banging their heads against each other for over an hour and thats it. No skill or talent whatsoever."

Hehe that reply got him visibly angry. He asked what sport did I like then and I replied soccer. After that he gave us 30 minute lecture why soccer sucks...and at that point I just decided to be quiet and not drag it any further. Guy was clearly upset that I "insulted" their national sport and couldn't understand that there are people who just don't have same opinions.

Anyway, other peeps in the bus felt kinda same as I did and came to me at the first winery saying that the guide shouldn't have gotten so upset, he is tour guide after all and they should check their temper. So all in all, tour guide managed to alienate himself from the group, but we as group got tighter and rest of the tour was nice with lots of laughs especially after 2nd or 3rd winery :) Oh, and gorgeous wineries they were.

So yesterday morning I left Napier towards Taupo. I had booked my skydive the next day but as I arrived to hostel and told about my plans they asked if I wanted to do skydive same day since weather was better that day. "Sure. Why not?", I replied and 30 minutes later I was in minibus heading to airfield. Nice, didn't even have time to get nervous.

Hour later we were all geared up, I was hooked into my brazilian jumpmaster named Jonathan and in the plane. It was only at this point that I realised what the hell was I doing. I was up in the air inside this pitiful little aircraft and only way down was jumping off from it. All the while we were up I tried to put up my best Arnold impression, german accent and kept repeating "Get Down!" every time someone ahead of me was jumping. Apart from one german jumpmaster...others didn't get it :-/

Wow, just wow! The first 5 seconds after jumping from the plane are undescribable. Its like...brain tells you that this your end, you just jumped from plane that was 5km high in the air towards nothing, but still you feel more alive than ever. It's impossible not to love it. Jumping from 5km also ment 1min freefall which was...propably best minute I have ever had in my life. Feeling was just insane.

As I was expecting, only part I didn't quite enjoy was the parachute part. After jumpmaster gave me the ropes which to guide the parachute I felt more comfortable. Coming down with parachute took several minutes so he tauhgt me how to use the ropes which was pretty cool.

Hmmm, intenet time is ending...too much to write and too little time.

So today I'm just chilling around in Taupo...and really, really, really looking forward to seeing first 2 familiar faces from back home for the first time in nearly 6 months :)

Bay of Plenty

2008-12-13T21:19:00.000-08:00

Day 168

"Dead to the world. Alive for the journey.
One night I dreamt a white rose withering,
a newborn drowning a lifetime loneliness.
I dreamt all my future. Relived my past."

It's funny to look my reflection in the mirror now and then look some of the first pictures I took of myself at the start of the trip. Allthough it's only been about 5.5 months, I look like completely different person. Weirdest thing is my hair which is turning more and more blonde each day. I know that sun can bleach hair but lately it has been accelerating for some reason. Check this out.

Last entry was written on first night in Tauranga and I mentioned how nice that city was. What made it great was it's relaxed and chilled atmosphere and all the nice bars, pubs and restaurants at the Strand, next to harbour. Really nice relaxed atmosphere there with mostly people aged 25 to 35 having cold beer in the sunshine. Food was excellent there as well, 4 cheese woodfire pizza was propably best pizza I have bad during this trip(hehe, haven't had many).

Next day I walked all the way to neighbour town of Mt Maunganui(8km) and then to the 235m hill at the end of the town which is called...Mt Maunganui. Views from up there were quite commanding. It was easy to see twin towns of Tauranga and Mt Maunganui on opposite peninsulas. Anyway, here are some areal views from the summit.

After Tauranga I was off to Whakatane, small township on the eastern Bay Of Plenty. My only reason for going there was White Island. White Island is small active volcano island 50km off the coast. They do 3 different tours to there: one being helicopter ride, second being boat trip with opportunity to walk in the island and the third - and my tour - was dive trip where you can actually dive on this island and basically into an active volcano. Now, after getting diving certificate there was no frigging way I was going to pass this sort of unique possibility so there I went.

Day started off perfectly. Weather was beautiful, nearly cloudless blue sky and not much wind. I was also lucky this time with my dive group since this time it wasn't filled with 50-year old couples. We had Swede who had been traveling for 15 months, girl from Switzerland, girl from Germany and guy from UK.

Well, dives turned out to be little disappointment. First of all we couldnt dive the best sites cause wind was blowing from southeast and eastern side had the best spots. We dived 2 spots on western side with only 1 guide and weird thing was that we all had to come up when first person was running low on air(!). Since I pretty much kick ass with air consumption I had half tank left after both dives, which btw was more than even our instructor had :) I guess I'm growing gills and starting to breathe like a fish. Anyway, despite little disappointing dives I can't complain. Diving is always fun and after each and every dive feeling is just great, I guess it's some sort of nitrogen high :) Oh, and the island was gorgeous.

Great group of people though, afterwards we all went to town's Irish pub for beer and see local Jazz band playing(yes, Jazz band in Irish pub, go figure...).

Now I'm still in quiet and sleepy town of Whakatane waiting for my bus which is not going to arrive in another 4 hours so I have some time to kill and get some reading done. Originally I was planning to head back to west from here towards Rotorua, but I decided to scrap that plan. Instead of going to Rotorua, I'm taking the long way around to Taupo and heading towards East Coast and Hawkes Bay wine area. First stop will be Gisborne.

I just realised yesterday that it's only like a week until Christmas. There are Xmas trees around here and some lights but it surely doesn't feel like Christmas when temperature is steady +25 and sun doesn't go down till about 20:30-21:00. Heh, I'm not complaining though. I prefer this sort of Christmas to crappy Finnish version anytime.

Speaking of Summer...I remember clearly comments from many Finns back home that "Oh, but you don't appreciate Summer without Winter", "I really like 4 seasons", "You get bored of Sun within 3 months", etc. Well, all those comments are bunch of bullsh*t. I have now enjoyed Sun away from Finland almost 6 months and I can't get enough of it. Trust me, you don't need to endure 8 months of crap weather to appreciate warm, light and Sun. There is no other mood lifter like seeing Sun high up in the sky every single day - and most mornings. The more I spend time here, the less I miss winter, spring and autumn. Do I really want to come back?

Coromandel Peninsula

2008-12-10T15:52:00.001-08:00

Day 164

"Home is behind
The world ahead
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow, to the edge of night"

Two weeks is almost up in Kiwiland. I have now barely scratched the surface of this beautiful country and I have this feeling like I'm rushing forward. I just don't understand people who say New Zealand is possible to explore in 10 days, yea right...

Last entry was written in Paihia waiting for bus to Whangarei. Well, didn't get to see much of Whangarei since my hostel was located 5km outside in small suburb called Whangarei Falls, named after big waterfall there. Place didn't hold my interest too much since only reason for my stopover there was divetrip to Poor Knights Islands. Oh boy it was so worth it!

Poor Knights islands was one of the first marine reservers in entire New Zealand and because of it, marine life is very preserved and rich there, amazingly rich if you ask me. I never thought subtropical waters had that much life, fish and color in them. It was just stunning, absolutely stunning to see it. Again, I kicked ass with air consumption :) On my both dives I was last to surface with divemaster(=guide) in our guided group. Amazing dives, so far easily best dives I have done in my short diving career.

Next day I was off from Whangarei and headed towards Coromandel Peninsula. Again, the transport system here just SUCKED! After 2 bus changes and 7 hours I finally reached Whitianga, very pretty township in heart of Coromandel Peninsula.

Coromandel turned out to be pleasant surprise where I could have spent 3 days instead of just 2. On the day I arrived it rained like crazy. Hostel was called On The Beach but even though it was within 50m from beach, I couldnt see the beach cause of the rain! Well, thankfully there were lot of nice peeps staying so we played Trivial Pursuit...which of course I won :DDDD Here is pic of the hostel.

Second day I rented bicycle and went to see the famous Hot Water Beach 20km away(yes, 20km with rented bicycle one way!). Special thing about the beach is that there are underground hot springs on the beach and you can dig a hole during low tide and have your own private hot spa. Oh well, place was pretty, no question about that.

...but as I got closer I noticed apparently I wasn't the only one there to dig a hole :(

Ok, so I set to work and started digging...which I did for hour until I started getting blisters on my hands and water in my precious hole wasn't getting any warmer. At that point I gave up, got on my bike and went to see another popular sight nearby, Cathedral Cove.

If Hot Water Beach was disappointment, then Cathedral Cove made up for it. That place was gorgeous even from distance.

After 45min walk through bushes I finally arrived at the sight and was just stunned. Place was amazing. Final entrance to this Cove was through huge cave which made it even more amazing.

Beach around the Cove was amazing as well.

Just amazing location, again. New Zealand seems to have these little natural surprises around each and every corner.

So today I arrived to Bay Of Plenty and its westernmost city of Tauranga after another 5h bus trip and 2 changes. My first impression is...really nice town! Finally a really nice and pleasant town. But more about Tauranga and Bay of Plenty on next entry ;)

Finally some thoughts about New Zealand so far.

New Zealand is beautiful country, there is no denying on that. It just might be the most picturesque country in entire world, yet for some reason I feel something is missing. Wherever I turn my head there is this amazing landscape which just drops your jaw but still for some reason I don't feel anything more, something is missing. I know now what it is, excitment aka danger.

See, in Australia when you started bushwalk there were these warning posts: "Be ware of Redbacks, Funnelwebs, Taipans, Brown snakes, Adders, Tigersnakes, occasional Cassowarys and don't walk too close to riveredge cause there might be Saltwater Crocodiles." Heh, after Oz this country feels like a bloody Disneyland. Tramping here is just ok, you know that you will get amazing landscapes, sceneries and natural wonders...but thats it, its just too easy. I loved bushwalks in Australia so much more because you had to be wary of wildlife, it was always possible to encounter deadly snake or spider and that always made walks much more fun and exciting...atleast for me.

Thats it for now, hopefully on next entry I can tell about the ultimate dive experience in world. It's still not confirmed if it will happen but I'm trying my best.

Bay Of Islands

2008-12-06T14:29:00.001-08:00

Day 159

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can"

I'm now sitting on bus station in Paihia, waiting for my bus to Whangarei. Past 4 days just flew by in Bay Of Islands, paradise-like holiday destination in New Zealand's Northland. This place is truly beautiful, especially when weather stays good and sun shines on sea and grassy green hills surrounding the bay.

I will miss this place a bit, could have spent another day or 2 here but schedule does not permit that at the moment.

Bay Of Islands is also very important historically for few reasons. First of all town of Russell(below) is oldest town in New Zealand. Boring town these days with full of 65+ year old people :)

Secondly, its also location where british settlers made treaty with Maori to officially create country of New Zealand back in 1840. Treaty was actually made because French threatened New Zealand and british and Maori figured they better bury their differences and unite against the French. Good call, if you ask me :D Naturally I took a trip to this historical place one day. Here is the old historical Meeting House where treaty was actually signed.

On friday I went diving. Location was historically famous shipwreck, Rainbow Warrior. Now, little bit history for uneducated.

Imagine if you drill a hole through Earth starting from France, you will end up in South Pacific. Thats where French chickens decided to have their nuclear tests 1985. Needless to say Greenpeace wasn't too fond of it so they prepared their flagship Rainbow Warrior for trip there to protest nuclear tests. France didn't like them so they sent covert op team to Auckland harbour and detonated 2 bombs on Rainbow Warrior that was anchored there sinking it...and killing one portugese activist. Now, these French terrorists were captured and after months and months of talks between New Zealand and France, they were finally sent to prison in French Polynesia(=Tahiti)...hmm, doesnt sound too much like punishment to me. They were imprisoned there for 2 years until they returned to France and got hero's welcome. Well, to me this is just another good reason to hate France. ;)

Rainbow Warrior was brought back to surface and while NZ was thinking what to do with it one senator raised his hand in senate and proposed that ship would be taken to Cavalli Islands north of Auckland for recreational dive sight. Since no one had better suggestions, then thats what happened. Of course, this senator also owned a resort and dive centre in Cavalli Islands so he made quite a nice profit :) Here is picture of Cavalli Islands, Rainbow Warrior lies in front of 2nd island from the left.

Anyway, enough of history lessons. This was the wreck I went to see. Needless to say that after all the hype and history behind this vessel it was more than exciting to go down there and see it. Initially I was little scared on how I would enjoy the dive since water was only +17 here. Temperature wasn't even an issue, wet suits offered such a good protection that I hardly noticed that water was cold.

Personally I loved the dive. Coming down to 30m depth on clear sandy bottom with about 8m-10m visibility was eerie enough and when I turned, there was this huge ship in front of me. Hair on the back of my neck just rose up, it was just so eerie and exciting at same time, loved it. I had great dive and was able to explore ship much longer than I had expected. This was my dive number 9 and managed to do 45min dive which was mostly done in depth of 25m-30m. I loved diving here so much that I now will skip some of my plans and head towards Whakatane where there is one dive operator offering a unique diving experience unlike anything anywhere in world. Expensive as hell, but it only means I have to cancel some other activities on the way...but more about that dive thing later cause I don't even know if I can book it atm.

Next day was saturday and my sailing day. Apparently sailing the Bay Of Islands is one must-do thing here. There were lot of ships to choose from but I ended up going with style and chose the only Tallship they had here, R Tucker Thompson. Day was fantastic, near perfect weather, small wind so we didnt have to use engines that much and not too many people on board either. Crew also came up with all sorts of activities during trip, one which was climbing up to top mast which I just couldn't refuse.

Overall, nice chill day and amazing scenery.

So now I am waiting for my bus to Whangarei where I'll be staying just 2 nights. Only reason for my stopover in there are the Poor Knights Islands which according to Jaques Custoe, are among top 10 dive spots in entire world. We will see about that :)

On final note, its now 6th month of my travels and I think that for the first time, I feel like I actually could make return back home. No, I am not coming back just yet, but I do feel like I can return back to work again. I feel like batteries have finally been recharged and most of the questions I needed an answer have an answer now. Still, life at the moment is just so damn cool that I don't want to come back too early ;)

Far North

2008-12-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

Day 155

"Eneumbered forever by desire and ambition
Theres a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road weve been so many time"

Bloody hell, after 5 months under constant sun and most of the time in Tropics I arrive to New Zealand and get sunburnt for first time! Nothing too bad though, just a fleshwound :)

After Cook Islands I stayed 1 day in Auckland and this time decided to take trip up to Sky Tower since weather was absolutely brilliant. Here some photos of Auckland from up high.

No, didn't end up doing Sky Jump. My budget just cannot handle 10 seconds of thrill which costs 270 dollars.

So my plan to explore New Zealand is to do it from top to bottom. For the top part I needed to head 400km north of Auckland and all the way to Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand. First job was to get as close as possible there using public transportation system - which btw. SUCKS in New Zealand. After almost 8h and 2 bus changes I finally arrived to Ahipara, southernmost tip of 90 mile beach. I had booked dorm bed there in YHA hostel but as I got there the reception bodybuilder-lady told me "we dont have share rooms". WTF?! "Well, why is it possible to book share room from here via YHA website and pay for it as well?", I answered. "But we have cabins available, you can sleep there." Nice. So now I had cabin with own TV, Fridge, Double bed and veranda for dorm bed price of 26 dollars(12 euros), not bad.

Next day was I took a tour to Cape Reinga. Ahipara was still good 100km south from New Zealand's north tip so basically only way to get there was by tour. Weather was just funny again, it poured down like crazy most of the trip up there but 5km before Cape, clouds moved away and we had clear blue sky at the Cape where Tasman Sea and Pacific meet. Managed to grab my Kodak moments there with near perfect weather.

On way back we drove down the 90 mile beach which had major dejavu...Fraser Island. It was just like Fraser Island all over again. We made last stop on sandhills for some...um, not that usual activity :)

Nice day, nice tour and good value for money since it costed only 55 dollars and included lunch. And btw. since some of the people brought their own lunch(wtf?!), I grabbed extra sandwiches after tour for dinner, free food ftw! :)

Next day I went walking up the hills of Ahipara and got my sunburn. Was a bit careless and didn't put sunscreen on since it looked like it would be cloudy day. Well, we are in New Zealand with it's 4 seasons so clouds just cleared up all the sudden and it was again almost cloudless sky for most the day. Here is one shot of Ahipara from hills.

Today I left Far North and heading south again. Now I'm in Paihia, centre of Bay Of Islands. Really beautiful place and historically quite significant, but more about that in next entry.

How is New Zealand so far? Hmmm, there is something not quite right here. I can't put my finger on it, but something is out of place. Traveling scene is very different from Australia which kinda surprised me since I was expecting more or less same. It looks like there are much less single travelers here and LOT more couples traveling. Also, whereas in Australia majority were traveling with buses, here vast majority have their own car. Well, I guess it makes sense since distances here are not that big.

Farewell to Paradise

2008-11-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

Day 150

"When you're talkin to yourself
And nobody's home
You can fool yourself
You came in this world alone"

It's now my last day in Cook Islands and in tropics before heading out to New Zealand for Christmas, New Year and most of the winter as well. This also marks the end of the 2nd leg of this journey and I am also closing in on midway mark, which means train will soon start heading back home.

Yea, been long time since last entry but there has been reason for it. First of all internet aint cheap in Cook Islands(9 dollars for hour compared to 2 dollars for hour in Auckland) and second, I have had to spend all my precious internet time in planning New Zealand and making all the necessary bookings. I'll just write down here my internet checklist for the other day so you get idea how much planning just simple 10 days takes:

- Buy Flexipass
- Reserve bus ticket to Kaitaia
- Book accomodation in Kaitaia
- Book Cape Reinga trip
- Reserve bus ticket to Paihia
- Book accomodation in Paihia
- Enquire about diving at Rainbow Warrior
- Enquire about sailing on Bay of Islands
- Reserve bus ticket to Whangarei
- Book accomodation in Whanagrei
- Enquire about diving in Poor Knights Island

...well, I guess you get the point ;) Sometimes it's handy to have travel agent but then you lose half the fun.

My last 6 days in Rarotonga was spent quietly, lot more quietly than those crazy nights at Vara's at the start of the trip. I did lot of hiking and went diving one day. On last day I wanted to catch up with Matt and Cherry at Vara's so went there to watch Matt's team succesfully defending their Cook Islands cricket trophy. Was pretty crazy night afterwards though :)

Oh, one creepy story about backpacker place I stayed my last 4 nights in Rarotonga. I woke up one morning around 6am to hear owner couple arguing. My room was right next to their office so I was propably only one hearing them. I was still kinda sleepy so slept till 8am and woke up. Got out and saw the owner lady with big swollen right eye! Ummm...ok, so I make myself brekkie and the guy comes to me: "Good morning, Tero. Did you hear us talking this morning? I was kinda loud." Ok...I immediately understood what is going on, this loser had beat up his wife and now he was making sure there was no witnesses. "No, I slept like a log", I responded. Last thing I wanted was to get involved into their mess. Entire day the guy came to me asking "Hey Tero, how are you? you good?". It was getting outright creepy since the guy wouldn't talk to me on any other days, only that day.

So how was Cook Islands?

People traveling to Cook Islands can be categorized into 2 groups: 7 out of 10 travelers are on Round-The-World ticket(RTW) and rest are basically vacationing from New Zealand. Reason for this is simple, only 2 cities with flights there are Auckland and Los Angeles. What I found weird was that nearly everyone was doing RTW from east to west, which basically means you lose a day instead of gaining a day. Well, after little chatting I found out that apparently flights are heaps cheaper that way so thats why people do it that way.

Other thing that caught my attention was that there were hardly any American tourists in Cook Islands. Reason to this is global recession and extremely weak US dollar. My divemaster in Aitutaki told me that 3-4 years ago there was 4 weekly flights from Los Angeles to Cook Islands and 2 of those planes were 747s. Now there is single 737 and they are planning to cancel that flight as well cause its always half empty.

On Cook Islands I also started to notice how my state of mind is changing. First 2-3 months on this journey I was happy doing absolutely nothing. I feel that period has passed and now I need stuff to do, sitting down and doing nothing just doesn't have the same appeal anymore. Well, I'm sure glad that I am in New Zealand at the moment because this place has the activities. Entire country is geared towards extreme activities to keep mind and body busy. I have now planned next 30 days so almost every day is has some sort of activity going on. Looking forward to it.

F*ck its hot!

2008-11-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

Day 143

"Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
All I wish is to dream again"

Back in Raro now. So 3 days passed in Aitutaki's insane heat. People told me it was going to be hot out there, but I didn't realize just how hot it was going to be. Temperature was constant 33-34 in shade and humidity always above 60%, sometimes even as high as 80%. Other than heat I will remember Aitutaki as quiet place...and propably first real disappointment I have had so far.

And by disappointment I mean that island fell well below my expectations. I wasn't expecting much, but Jesus...place was so dead. If Ha'apai in Tonga was quiet then this place was just dead. There wasn't even single cafe, restaurant, bar, etc. in the island where one could meet other people. Only other tourists in island apparently stayed in resorts never leaving resort areas...and naturally resorts are don't accept non-guests, not even to their bars.

Well, this all ment that I had to make my own activities for 3 days I spent there. On tuesday I rented bicycle and decided to bike around the island. I don't even want to know how much temperature was in sun, but it was just scorching. After 2h I had circled the island and ended up in Aitutaki Lagoon Resort, the best and most expensive resort on island. After little persuasion, I was given permission to enter there for few hours and have lunch without paying 100 dollar daypass. I have to admit, place was stunning and scallop salad I had with Heineken wasn't bad either :)

On wednesday I went diving with local operator there. Now that was another "adventure". They were PADI licensed operator but their gear just looked dodgy as hell. On first dive we went quite deep, 23m when all the sudden I saw that my pressure meter needle(=one that shows how much air you have) started going haywire and I had trouble taking long breaths. Also, my divemaster was 10m away in front of me and I couldn't get his attention in any way. I had no choice but to start surfacing and it turned out that once I finally got to surface, my tank was literally empty.

On second dive I got new regulator but even that thing was broken! When we were descending I kept checking my depth meter and it wouldnt go below 3m. Was better dive at the end allthough I didn't really have clue how deep we were, afterwards divemaster told me we were only at about 18m.

On thursday it was time to take famous lagoon cruise inside Aitutaki's beautiful lagoon. From air lagoon seems like 8th wonder of the world, but unfortunately closer inspection was bit of letdown. Apparently 2005 there was series of cyclone's in Aitutaki which destroyed nearly all it's coral. Snorkeling was nice but it was clear how damaged the lagoon still is and that recovery process hasn't even started yet. Lunch was eaten in lagoon actually, they set up a table in the water and offered fish BBQ while Butterfly fishes kept poking our toes :)

On lagoon cruise I also got to visit islands where they shot Survivor: Cook Islands and Shipwrecked. Below is Survivor's Exile Island btw.

Beautiful day which was almost ruined at the end by ignorant, deaf and arrogant british "lady", but just almost ;)

Guesthouse I stayed in Aitutaki was...okish. Host family was great, they made me dinner 2 times and were constantly chatting, until it got to a point where my only choice for peace and chill was to lock inside my room. First 2 days were great with them but after that they just wouldn't let me read a book for 10 minutes without starting some sort of chat.

Now I'm back in Raro for 6 more days before heading back to New Zealand. Atm I really feel exhausted and tired, having very little energy to do anything new(not that there is anything "new" left to do). I just need a good night's sleep now which hopefully ain't constantly interrupted by bloody roosters singing.

I am a diver!

2008-11-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

Day 138

"Sea without a shore for the vanished one unheard
He lightens the beacon, light at the end of world.
Showing the way, lighting hope in their hearts,
The ones and their travels homeward from afar."

Yes, I am now a certified open water diver.

Course took 4 days and 420 NZD(about 200 euros). My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner. I think there was 2 big pushes that I needed. First of all I had 19 days to spend in Cook Islands so time was not an issue, I had plenty of time. Second, met few fellow travelers in Tonga who kinda inspired me to do it as well.

It's amazing how all the sudden entire travel planning takes another dimension, underwater world. I am no longer looking/picking my future destinations based only on what they can offer above sealevel. There is whole new world underwater where I now have access, and all it took was 4 days and 200 euros.

Other than that, diving is bloody cool and fun. I have always liked swimming, snorkeling and generally being in water, especially when it's temperature is +27 degrees like here. I now have only 4 official dives behind me and already the aquatic life has been more divers than I have ever seen while snorkeling.

What else is going on? Well, I have been taking it quite easy while this course was on. Just sunbathing in Vara's amazing sundeck and cooling myself in picturesque lagoon.

On thursday we went to island night in Staircase nightclub. Entry ticket was only 5 NZD. Well, it was truly a 5 dollar show, nothing more. Basically dancers danced one same dance 6 times and had different name for each. When comparing, Island Night in Tonga beat the living crap out of this one.

Today is sunday...on monday I am heading out from Rarotonga, main island of Cook Islands to Aitutaki. I have 4 nights/3 days there. Was planning to do atleast 2 dives there, maybe even 4 if price is good. Coming back to Rarotonga on friday for 6 more nights. Today was planning to exercise little by taking 6h walk to islands highest mountain(693m), see ya :)

Beyond Dream

2008-11-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

Day 135

"An old man by a sea shore at the end of day
Gazes the horizon with sea winds in his face.
Tempest-tossed island, seasons all the same."

Cook Islands, beyond heaven, beyond dream. Now this is what South Pacific paradise is in everyone's mind. This place is that image made into reality. Stunning beaches, lagoons, palm trees, majestic hills, CLEAN streets, no dogs barking 24/7, no pigs, warm weather, cool nights, coral reefs, etc. Okay, few too many roosters who still can't figure out the clock and start their concerts around 2-3am, but other than those, its all paradise.

Already when I stepped from airplane and into terminal in Rarotonga my jaw dropped. There was band playing local island music to welcome new arrivals. Quite different experience compared to Tonga where there wasn't even electricity and place was swarmed by spiders and cockroaches. Next I was taken to my guesthouse, Vara's, in east side of the island and that was second time my jaw dropped. Apparently I was living in one of the three rooms in this huge hillside mansion with giant veranda, huge kitchen and then TV and DVD player! All that for only 44 NZD per night(22 euros).

Next day I walked down to Vara's beach where they had office to check in. Did that and started chatting with Matt, guy who runs a shack/bar/grill/snorkel rental service there. I asked him if there would be chance to do diving course in island on coming week. After 30 minutes he came to me and said "hey mate, Pacific Divers around the corner can give you a course next week. Just go and talk to them." Wow! So, I went there and told I wanted to do Open Water course to which guy said: "Sure, when you want to start". "Hmmm, wednesday?", I replied to which he said "Ok, wednesday 8:30 we start, here is manual to read before course if you want to."

I mean...OMG! After Tonga and all the difficulties in arranging anything there I was positively shocked. Everything works here, people are so friendly and helpful, they talk english and place is so CLEAN. I really started to like Cook Islands more and more, despite the fact that it is very touristy(but not really totally spoiled by overtourism).

So on monday I went to do one thing I have dreamed of doing for years, spearfishing.

We went to lagoon reef for 3 hours and our group of 5 managed to get 9 fish in total, setting new record! I got just one, Parrotfish. Despite the fact that I only nailed one, and missed about 30 it was one of the coolest experiences in this trip so far. Will go again if I have time.

Here is the parrotfish I killed up and close.

Today I finally managed to go to town and travel agancy. Again I was stunned how well everything worked. I booked return flight to Aitutaki for monday next week and return flight on friday plus 4 nights in guesthouse. All this took less than 5 minutes! So my plan atm is to finish diving course by saturday, then as I am hopefully certified diver, travel to Aitutaki and do some diving there since apparently dive spots there are one of the best in entire Pacific.

Anyway, I was feeling little reserved about traveling to Pacific again after 3 weeks in Tonga. But Cook Islands is so differnet, so relaxed, chilled and full of true tropical paradise activities that I am really glad I took this 3 week sidetrip...so far. Vara's Guesthouse arranges barbecue nights every evening so meeting other travelers and making friends is so easy.

Now, I just pray that this annoying little flu will pass so I can start my course tomorrow and be a diver by saturday.

Heading to tropics, one last time

2008-11-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

Day 131

"Come hell or high water
My search will go on
Clayborn Voyage without an end"

It's my last day in Auckland for now. Today I'll be heading towards Pacific again, destination Cook Islands, where I'll be arriving yesterday. So in essence I'll be time traveling to the past :)

So what's my impression of New Zealand so far? Well, I'm hoping not to offend few of my friends who reside in New Zealand atm, but one word that springs to my mind when thinking about Auckland is fail. This city is just failure in many aspects. It's not very pretty, poorly designed, some horrible arcitechture that reminds me almost of DDR, parks have no design, traffic doesn't work, very difficult to find basic services, weather sucks, etc. Auckland's harbour is very similar to Sydney's allthough smaller and not nearly as pretty.

People in New Zealand are nice though. I went to Air New Zealand office the other day to work out my travel plan on Cook Islands and there was this great guy called Michael assisting me. He made tons of calls and suggestions when something didn't work out they way I wanted. I was impressed until I got SMS from him later in the evening asking me if he could show me around in Auckland :-/

Hmm...it's entirely possible his intentions were completely innocent, but my weak gaydar had blinked couple of times before so I decided to skip his offer :)

Some people I met in Tonga told me to get out of Auckland as soon as possible. Well, finally on saturday I was able to do it and went to Waiheke island which is 40 minute ferry ride from Auckland. I'm so glad I did cause there I was able to get my first glimpses of actual New Zealand. I'm sure Waiheke is just a small teaser of what New Zealand has to offer in terms of landscape and people, but it was enough to restore faith. I'm now certain that when I get back here at the end of November and start my NZ tour, it will be awesome.

Waiheke island is more or less wine island. They have about 20 wineries there in total and all sell wines grown specifically in the island. I bought an all-day bus pass for 8 dollars and circled around the island all day. Weather was superb there and wines were just stunningly good. I was actually amazed that they were heaps better than wines I tasted in Hunter Valley, Australia.

So now it's time to head out into tropics, one last time on this trip. It's more than likely that this is the last time I will cross over the Tropic of Capricorn before heading out to home...sometime in the 2009.

From Paradise to Middle Earth

2008-11-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Day 127

"And now I'm all alone again
Nowhere to turn, no one to go to."

First little flashback back to Uoleva island. Here are some of the pictures I took there.

Traveling in Kingdom of Tonga went relatively easy...until saturday. It seems that everything piled on that day. I was suppose to fly from Ha'apai to Tongatapu at 15:00 so we had booked Taxi to pick us up from guesthouse at 13:45. At 14:00 there was still no Taxi so Andrew called the guy and apperantly he wasn't in the "mood" to drive us to airport and told us to get someone else...wtf?! Well, after some persuasion we finally managed to drag his ass to our guesthouse and got to airport around 14:15. But that was just start of it.

At check-in there was chaos. Flight was full so lot of Tongans were there asking for possible standby seats if someone doesn't show up. Well, it required to be rude to them to finally make it to counter and get seats. I sat down and watched as they were throwing our luggage in to the belly of the plane. All the sudden they stopped when about half was inside. Pilot came back from plane and told us that plane was overweight so they were going to leave all luggage behind and get them to Tongatapu later in the evening. We weren't too happy about that, but after he convinced that he himself was going to fly back and get the luggage we boarded the plane.

Ok, so now we went to Tongatapu and immediately in the counter there we asked when are our bags coming. You can imagine our faces when attendant told us that there are no planes going back to Ha'apai tonight and since next day was sunday(Tongans are not allowed to work on sunday's by law), it ment we were going to have to wait for our luggage till monday! Well, at this moment we started to cause a riot. We demanded to speak their manager and boss. After about 1 hour yelling at them and threatening lawsuits, there finally was plane going back to get our bags.

Now, if only this was the end of it. Guesthouse had sent car to pick me up but since we were still waiting for our luggage, I told him if he could return in 1.5h again. He told me "yes yes, no problem". Well, finally when I got my bag at 20:00 it was 2.5h after that and no car(Guesthouse was 35km away from airport). I called guesthouse and the guy had forgot to pick me up again!

Eh, so after all the hassle I got to guesthouse and decided that I needed a drink. I walked 5 mins to nearest store and asked for sixpack. Took it and started walking back when local police came to me "you are not allowed to buy beer after 17!". So I had to return beer back to store. At that point I decided to just go in my room and do nothing cause things clearly weren't going my way that day.

Next 4 days I spent in Tongatapu not doing much really. On last night I finally got chance to drink Kava. Had about 20 cups and was feeling QUITE light-headed :)

Finally, little info about Tonga:

To understand Tonga and what life is there, you need to understand people. Tongans do not have ambitions or thrive to make more money and wealth. When they reach certain income level which is enough to feed their family, dogs and pigs, then they stop. The easiest way to do this is to send 1-2 children overseas and have them send money back to them. That basically leaves entire family "unemployed" but still they have enough money to live and live happily. THAT is also reason why nothing works in Tonga, nothing ever gets done because no one wants to do it.

Other thing is their funerals...when someone in village dies, entire village participates in funeral ceremony that lasts 3-5 days, and of course no one works during that time. Then when funeral ends it's most likely someone's birthday, then some get married, then someone else dies, etc. So no wonder nothing ever gets done.

All in all...I am happy to have traveled to Tonga and it was definetly worth it. But...I seriously doubt that I will ever go back there.

So what's going on now? Now I have reached New Zealand and Auckland where I'm spending next 4 days before heading out to Pacific again. It's bloody freezing here atm, temperatures are around +15 and inside 24h I have learned what famous description of NZ weather really means: "Four seasons in one day".

Living on deserted island

2008-10-29T16:41:00.001-07:00

Day 122

"And before you know
You're feeling old
And your heart is breaking
Don't hold on to the past
Well that's too much to ask"

It's now start of my 3rd week in Kingdom Of Tonga and already this has been an experience beyond my imagination. The true traveler culture that was so difficult to find in Australia is here, alive and well. Most if not all people are solo travelers, all looking for something different, something beyond the beaten tourist trail. One would think, that by using less than 300 euros for return trip to South Pacific Paradise from Sydney, this place would be crowded like hell...but no, I think Vava'u had about 30-40 tourists in island total and Haapai(where I am now) has 10-15.

That being said, I have just returned to Lifuka, main island of Haapai group, from island of Uoleva where I spent 4 days and 3 nights. Uoleva is the island made famous by Madventures in their season 1. Its truly a deserted island without any tourists, any electricity and any running water. Just beach, palm trees, ocean, stars and bonfire after sunset...paradise. Funny, owner of the place in Uoleva still very clearly remembers summer 2001, when 13 finnish people stayed in his resort for 2 weeks, got drunk every single evening, had massive fight where one girl hit his boyfriend in the head with empty glass bottle, asked him to shoot a bat so they could eat it, etc. ;)

Other than chilling on hammock and reading book, there wasn't anything to do in Uoleva, allthough I liked it that way. Have had plenty of duracell activity in Vava'u so I was more than ready to just chill for few days and swim in crystal clear turqoise waters.

So now I'm back in Pan'ga, capital of Haapai group for 2 more days before heading back to main island of Tongatapu on saturday. Then its another 4 days there before my flight leaves to New Zealand on wednesday.

PS. Don't know when I will be able to upload more pics, might be in Auckland next week.

Living in the South Pacific paradise

2008-10-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

Day 116

"How can I ever feel again?
Given the chance would I return?"

It doesn't get more paradise than this.

I have now been in Tonga for 8 days and feeling is still bizarre. I still don't really understand that I AM actually here, almost 19 000km away from home, middle of South Pacific. Life and environment here is so different from home, so different from anything I have ever seen.

Biggest highlight of the week(if not even entire trip) was the whale watching on tuesday. It's getting to be the end of the whale watchign season here so as we stumbled on 2 whales(mother and baby) we just sticked with them cause they were so playful with us. Baby was such a showoff as pictures can tell.

Now, if seeing this massive whale breaching water 30m from boat wasnt cool enough, we went snorkeling into the water with them as well...THAT was COOL! Seeing this massive, giant animal up close in water where visibility was around 50 meters was just stunning! We were snorkeling literally 10m from the mother at one point and feeling was just awesome, you don't realize the size of these creatures until you are in water with them, it was just mindboggling.

On same trip we also visited pretty cool place called Mariner's Cave. Its a cave inside wall of rock and only entrance is 4m long tunnel 3m below surface. We did it without scuba gear and dive was quite exciting since I basically couldn't see where I was going cause of darkness. But the view inside cave...omg, only light was light coming from the entrance tunnel and that made the cave so eerie but beautiful at same time.

Yesterday, thursday, I took day trip to Ofu island. I was told there was ferry service to Ofu daily and as I got to Old Harbour all sweating there was only one ancient "bathtub" boat made from wood that looked like it would sink any second. Well, I was approached by man who said "yea, this is the ferry". Ok...I survived trip and spent day snorkeling, swimming and kayaking in paradise island of Ofu.

Tomorrow, saturday, I am heading of to the least populated island group of Tonga called Haapai. Planning to spend something like 5-7 days there, depends really on situation in island. Problem is that because Tonga hasn't been getting fuel shipments in few weeks, ferries are not traveling from main island to outer islands which means supplies are running low here on Vavau and apparently on Haapai as well. So if living there starts to resemble more or less a typical episode of Survivor, then I might as well take flight back to main island few days earlier. Oh well...we will see, luckily traveler don't have to make decisions too early here, nearly everything can be booked 1 day before.

Tonight peeps are heading to harbour to watch weekly yacht race in Port Refuge harbour. Not sure yet if I am going to volunteer for any ship or just sit in bar and watch them racing.

Malo e lelei!

2008-10-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Day 111

"For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise."

...which is "Hello!" in tongan. So here I am, Tonga, in middle of Pacific. Really bizarre feeling to be here and I'm struggling to find words so I'll do it the easy way and describe events of past few days, all the way to thursday when I left Australia and landed to Tonga.

Already on check-in in Sydney international I had good vibes about the trip. I was in queue with 2 gay guys going to Tonga as well and we just had hilarious time chatting. Flight was 4.5h long so not too tough at all. We landed on Tonga at 22:00 local time and immediately as I stepped of plane I knew I was somewhere FAR away from home. Humidity, heat and the smell was something I have never felt before. I got my bag out and headed out to find guy holding sign "Toni's guesthouse"(my pickup) so there I went. 30 minute journey from airport was experience itself driving through surprisingly densely populated main island dodging other cars, kids, adults, dogs, pigs and chickens.

Now, I told in earlier entry that I was finnish magnet and what you know? In Tonga and in Toni's Guesthouse I run into 2 finnish girls again, Tiina and Sara. Later it turns out that they had arrived to Tonga as well earlier the day and they had exactly the same itinerary as I did, even the same exact flight away from Tonga. So needless to say that we teamed up and are now traveling together around the Kingdom of Tonga.

I arrived on thursday and on friday it was Kiran's birthday(english girls who was traveling there with her friend Shawn) so we took her to Toni's famous island tours. Entire day we spent driving around island seeing its major sights which included 37 mormon churches, 28 catholic churches, 3-headed palm tree, blowholes and Captain Cook's landing site. Toni is clearly getting old but he is still funny as hell, his humor is so full of sarcasm. Here are some pics I took during tour.

After tour we started preparing for Tongan dinner show where Toni managed to get us seats. It included buffet menu from local dishes and really great dance show by local village dancers...dont get to experience something like that too often so I was impressed. Great night, great food, great company and great show.

For some reason Shawn, Tiina, Sara and I stayed up that night drinking local booze and chatting all the way till 6am so you can imagine the tropical hangover next "morning". I managed to get myself into town of Nukualofa and ate best bacon panini I have ever had. Otherwise we just chilled at the hostel and waited for our flight to Vavau which we had booked day before at Air New Zealand office in Nukualofa.

So on saturday 3 of us flew to Vavau from main island. It was about 50 minute flight and surprisingly comfortable considering the plane looked like it was ready to crash any second. We arrived at Vavau 18:50 in the evening, found a cab, drove to main town of Nefaia and checked into Tonga's only backpacker place, Adventure backpackers.

To those who care, there are about 70,000 people living in main island of Tongatapu, but only 22,000 in Vavau so its lot smaller. Then again Vavau is also lot prettier than Tongatapu.

Now its monday...on sunday everything is closed in Tonga because this is highly religious country, nothing was open but we were able to find person who was able to drive us on south tip of the island for some swimming at very picturesque beach and turqoise water.

We had quite weird incident on the beach as well...when we arrived there we were only people on beach, kinda what we expected. But then after 30mins I saw warship closing in on the bay. It kept coming and coming and coming until it finally dropped anchor about 100m from shore. Then rubberboat came out, people went in and they started to drive directly toward us. Now, I suppose everyone has heard about stories where pirates/terrorists kidnap tourists in Pacific and demand ransom from their governments. To be honest I was little scared but it turned out it was New Zealand survey ship and soldiers just came to shore to have some RnR. So what was secluded paradise beach was instantly turned into 20-year old soldiers playground with all sorts of watersport equipment, kinda weird.

Today, monday we booked whale watching tour on tuesday(supposedly Tonga is best place in world to see whales), flights to Haapai for saturday(we originally wanted to go to Haapai by ferry but ferry isnt going for next 3 weeks cause they have no fuel...) and walked to hill close to town for some amazing scenery.

So what is my impression of Tonga? It is different than any other place I have ever been to, thats for sure. People do speak very good english here though. They are very friendly for most the time and kids here are just fantastic, I just hope my kid one day would be something close to tongan kids cause they seem so happy and enjoying life...plus they are polite.

Weather here is very humid which makes nights tough to sleep cause we keep sweating all the time. And then there are insects, dont come to Tonga if you are scared of insects or spiders. This place is literally full of big palm-size spiders(they are totaly harmless but huge). But all in all, I love this place. It is so different, so chilled and so fun every single day.

See ya all on other side,
Tero(far away from home)

One More Day

2008-10-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Day 106

"Tomorrow I'll be far away,
Tomorrow is the judgement day
Tomorrow I'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store"

Theme music for entry

One part of my journey is over, another begins. After months and months of planning this trip eventually shaped itself into 4 parts: Australia 2008, South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia 2009. This first 3.5 month part took the most amount of preparation and planning. Behind me is over 10 000km inside this continent. Days if not even weeks sitting in buses, trains, airplanes and boats.

Well, was it worth it? Every damn second! Now its time to sum up past 3.5 months. If I say "amazing" it would be understatement. Already past 106 days have been the most life-altering experience one can have. It hasn't always been happy journey, allthough I have never felt like quitting yet, not even close.

I think the toughest and hardest part that took me by surprise was the constant social aspect of it. I mean, you arrive to new place, try to make friends, infiltrate yourself into already established community and generally find your place. Sometimes it was easy(Treehouse), sometimes it was downright impossible(Port Douglas) and sometimes you are just too tired to do it(Brisbane). And...just when you managed to do it, you move on, say goodbye to people you met and arrive to new place where no one knows you and you have to start everything all over again. I think THAT has so far been the toughest thing to cope with.

But...as with humans everywhere around the globe, we build social security networks. We build relationships in where we can rely upon on tougher times. Even when you are traveling alone thousands of kilometers from home, you start to look for social security network. For me that means quality over quantity. I prefer to have just few friends who I really like and trust them. I feel Frankie and Becky(later on Sanna and Susse as well) became the core of my network here.

So what were the highlights so far?

Lets start with highlights and make trip's Top 3 so far. I gave this little thought but in the end it was very easy to pick the three, but impossible to place one of them above the other. All were so fantastic experiences in their own way so I'll just go with the chronological order.

1. Darwin
There was just something about Darwin. Its hard to describe what it is. The whole place just has special vibe, atmosphere and characteristics. Its definetly not a place for everyone, I have been hearing most praise from travelers aged 25-35. Darwin doesn't offer that much to see for tourist, apart from the jumping crocs in Adelaide River, Lichfield National Park and Kakadu...but those 3 more than make up for it. Oh, and that 6m croc was soooo cool!

2. Cape Tribulation
The sheer beauty of this place blew me away. I had seen pictures, I had heard talk but I wasn't prepared how jaw-droppingly beautiful it was. It was like walking into a forbidden paradise where you have to pay 1000 dollars to enter...but instead it was free. There were moments when I just stood at there in awe thinking "I must be breaking some law to be able to stand here and looking at this without paying anything".

3. Whitsundays
I had huge expectations on this trip and...they were exceeded. Fantastic boat, fantastic crew, fantastic scenery and most importantly, fantastic company(thanks Sanna and Susse!).

Honorary mentions: Treehouse, Uluru, Fraser Island and Desert Venture tour.

I will close this last entry from Australia with 2 more pics from Sydney, the Emerald City.

Emerald City

2008-10-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

Day 104

"Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?"

Dorothy fell asleep in her home. As she dreamed, her house was grabbed by tornado and thrown into Oz, place where dreams come true. Everything was so different that Dorothy said "I think we are not in Kansas anymore". She arrived into Munchkinland and followed the yellow brick road all the way to Emerald City, the most beautiful place in Oz and home of the Wizard, picking up few friends along the way.

Three and hald months ago I arrived through air and turbulence to Oz and in Perth. Everything around me was different, I definetly wasn't in Helsinki anymore. I too followed the yellow brick road which was considerably longer than Dorothy's. Along the way I too picked up friends allthough most of them had brains(unlike Scarecrow), they definetly had hearts(unlike Tin man) and all were blessed with courage to travel(unlike Lion). But in the end yellow brick road took me to Emerald City, the most beautiful city in Oz, Sydney.

Ok, lets do little timewarp before Emerald City, Hunter Valley. So my 11h bus journey wasn't that tough. I arrived 22:30 to Newcastle to have a decent sleep before heading to Hunter Valley next morning at 8:30. As is common in Australia, bus drivers are generally very nice people and so was this. He took 2km sidetrack from his route just to drop me off at my hostel door, very nice. When I arrived at my hostel I saw a sign with 5 letters. At first I thought it can't be true, pinched myself and looked at it again: S-A-U-N-A. Jumalauta Sauna! Sauna Perkele! V*ttu jee!! Over three months in Australia and there is sauna! Needless to say I went to market, bought 6-pack of beer for evening sauna.

But first I rented a bicycle for the day and went on self-guided wine tour. Managed to visit 5 wineries with full tastings until I called it day. Also managed to get attacked by vicious Magpie. That insane bird chased me for over kilometer doing over 10 swoops hitting my bike helmet each time. Christ, when I arrived to Australia, I didn't realize that the most dangerous wildlife encounters would be with birds, first Cassowary and now Magpie.

Anyway, managed to get back to hostel unscarred and fired up Sauna. Now, it seems I have become some sort of Finnish magnet pulling every single Finnish traveller to me wherever I go. This time her name was Annette. I'm quite proud that I actually picked her finnish accent within seconds. We had nice evening with Sauna and drinking the wines I picked that day at wineries along with her and Tina(little older aussie).

Next day I went touring along with YHA minibus. We had absolutely hilarious tour with our nude model Michael driving and Gay-Bob offering commentary :D On tour I also managed to actually grab some pictures of the fantastic Hunter Valley landscapes.

Evening featured yet another 1.5h in Sauna and wine drinking :)

So...after 2 days being totally wasted in wine country it was time to head Sydney. As Michael was driving me to Cessnock we realized that it was saturday and that ment no buses went back to Newcastle today...crap! So Michael made me new travel plan, bus to Maitland(I had no clue where that place was), then switch to train in Maitland and go to Hamilton(still no clue where that place was) and finally switch trains in Hamilton to go to Sydney. I still haven't looked at the map where those places were but it took me to Emerald City at last...and it is beautiful.

My original plan was to do as little as possible here. I planned to just relax, do "inventory" on my gear, wash all clothes, sort out bank stuff and generally prepare for upcoming trip to Pacific and New Zealand. Oh well, plans are made to be changed. First of all it's almost impossible to not do anything in Sydney, this city is so full of things to do and places to see. Second, Annette came to Sydney as well so we have been spending some time sightseeing together including this picnic at very famous location :)

Gonna try to squeeze in atleast one more entry before heading to Tonga. Until then...greetings from Oz and Emerald City.

Surf and cookies

2008-10-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Day 98

"Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend I'm not the man I was before?"

Byron Bay, the surfer's Mecca of the world. Byron Bay was never very high on my list of must-see places, but it has such big history and reputation that it's just one of those places you can't skip if you are trekking along east coast.

If I understand right, Byron Bay started as this sort of hippie-surfer low-key travel destination some 30 years ago. Over the years as world has gotten smaller, it has overwent change as has every place along east coast, but it somehow still manages to have small-town charm. In a way, Byron Bay reminds me a lot of Broome on West Australia. Allthough its now active travel hub, hippie history is clearly visible here.

So the main reason people come here is to surf. I tried that on first day but I have to say that surf here is not as good as Agnes Waters. Waves are much more unpredictable here and tide affects them much more. There are only hour or 2 each day for good waves, unlike Agnes Waters which had basically constant good waves. Other than surf, town boasts active party scene, nice beaches and famous historical lighthouse.
All in all, this would be nice place but it seems that the more south I get, younger the travelers become. In Byron Bay they are hardly 20, so I feel older than ever here...plus its pretty clear after few chats that I have absolutely nothing in common with these people.

Now, trip to Byron Bay would be for nothing without day tour to Nimbin. The undisputed hippie and drug capital of Australia 75km inland from Byron Bay. There are 2 guys who run tours there, I asked hostel reception which one is better and guy said: "This one is the better one, it has barbecue lunch and swim at the waterfall. This other tour...its more for dope smokers, guy takes you to Nimbin, buys some dope, then takes you to farm and you spend afternoon smoking and eating mushrooms there". Ok...let me make one thing clear, smoking, possession, buying, selling, etc. is illegal in Australia, but for some reason cops dont give a shit about it in Nimbin.

So on we went towards Nimbin with bus driver that obviously wasn't playing with full deck anymore. Here are some exerpts from his speech during the 1h drive there:

"I come from South Africa when things were really rough there. So that makes me perfect tour guide for this trip because I have zero respect to authority and police."

"Drugs are bad and they are illegal...Ok, now that I got the legal shit out of the way I want to inform you of safe dosages..."

"When you buy marijuana in Nimbin, dont buy from teenagers, they will just use the money to buy speed. Buy from adults, that keeps the system running smooth."

"Remember, only half a cookie, take rest with you to Byron Bay. We had irish bloke the other day who ate two and half cookies and guy spent half hour on sidewalk crying cause he couldnt find his legs."

"If the cake lady is in town, take only 1/8 piece. We had israeli guy on tour who ate over quarter and he refused to come back in to the bus cause he was convinced there was 25 palestinians inside wanting to kill him."

"If you want to eat real food in Nimbin, remember that everything takes twice as long there...for obvious reasons."

Bus driver warned us that once we step out of the bus, it would take 2mins until someone was offering us cookies and dope. Well, that wasnt quite true, it took me 10 seconds and there was old lady in her fifties walking by trying to sell her cookies and cake to me. Anyway, here is some pics of Nimbin.

...and here some lines locals said to me while there:

"Want to buy cookies? cake? marijuana?"

"...I was really emotionally unstable but this herb here really made me better person..."

We spent 1.5h in Nimbin, but took me only 15mins to realize that this wasn't my cup of tea. I mean, I just cannot imagine myself looking at a mirror spelling GURU out loud(I'm not kidding, they were selling mirrors there with painted text that said "Look in the mirror and spell out loud GURU"), if that ever happens can someone please pull the trigger? You can have many opinions about hippies and smoking weed, but I haven't got anything positive to say. I mean...even the driver said to us that teenagers are buying speed there...Hello!? That should already be a warning sign!

Anyway, trip was definetly worth doing. Now I know that hippie communities will never be my thing. Was more than happy to leave the town since the whole place smelled of weed since people were just smoking joints openly.

So now I am spending last day in Byron Bay enjoying scorchingly hot sun and flawless weather. Frankie and Becky should be coming to town this evening so we might do something in town later on. Tomorrow I have nightmarish 11h bus journey down south to Newcastle where I'll be spending one night before heading to Hunter Valley for some wine touring.

Only 9 more days left in Australia this year, gotta make most out of it.

Big City Lights and Reunions

2008-10-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Day 94

"Distance is covering my way,
Tears my memory
All this beauty is killing me"

Just before I came to Brisbane I realised I hadn't actually been in big city for almost 3 months(I dont really count Darwin or Cairns as cities), which is very very long time for someone who has lived his entire life so far in big city. What was also weird was that didn't have any longing for big city life. So with mixed emotions I arrived at Brisbane on monday evening, after some hassle managed to settle in to Chill Backpackers quite close to Transit Center and downtown. View from their rooftop balcony was quite nice ;)

Well, big city didn't turn out to be so bad experience after all. It was actually scary how easily I was able to get back into hectic city life because Brisbane is VERY hectic city. Like some aussie told me in Fraser Island, "its business city" and it shows. Huge modern 30-story office buildings dominate the skyline while most street corners have wine bars instead of normal pubs. Yes, Brisbane is clearly identifying itself as more poshy, classy and stylistic city. One can argue if such thing makes city nice, but it DOES give Brisbane lot of character and uniqueness and that I like. I like when place has its own style and identity, and Brisbane has that.

Here are 2 pics of Brissy, first during day and 2nd during night.

So what was I doing there for 4 full days? Well, first 2 days I just spent walking a lot. I walked and walked all over city just to get feeling and grab some pictures. Also to scout some shops where I could update my T-shirts, its been now almost 3.5 months that I have been forced to choose between 4 same T-shirts so it was time to say goodbye to few and buy new ones. I also found amazing bookstore where I grabbed last 2 books of the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.

3rd and 4th day were happy reunion days. When I arrived on monday to Brissy I got message from Sanna and Susse(girls from Whitsunday trip) that they are coming to Brissy on wednesday as well so we arranged meet on a brewery tour to XXXX-brewery on Thursday. Was really great to see them again and had great time drinking all the free beer after tour :)

...on way back there was quite a nice sunset(no, sky is not on fire, its sunset).

Last day Frankie and Becky arrived to Brissy so I went out with them to do some shopping, beer drinking and when sun was getting down we decided to catch a movie at the historical Regent theatre. Movie we chose was Mummy 3...wasnt good :(

So now I am in Byron Bay for next 3 days. First impression? Well, town is full of partying 20-year olds, just exactly the kind of people I am desperately trying to avoid all the time. Nonetheless, even after just 2h here I understand what the fuss about Byron Bay is. This town has lots of charm, identity and characteristics. So far I actually find myself quite enjoying this town(not its people though...) and there seems to be heaps of things to do here(surfing, bushwalking, swimming, surfing, skydiving, surfing,...). One must thing to do here is to take day trip to Nimbin which I'm planning to do on Monday...but more about that place on next entry ;)

World's biggest sand castle

2008-09-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

Day 91

"A siren from the deep came to me
Sang my name my longing
Still I write my songs about that dream of mine
Worth everything I may ever be"

...thats what they call Fraser Island. Place itself is sort of a freak of nature, in a way that it shouldn't actually exist. Island is 125km long and 30km wide and its almost entirely pure silica sand(98.5% to be exact). There shouldn't be rainforest growing from pure sand but in Fraser Island there is. Its hard to understand what sand island is like until you spend a day there driving around these rollercoaster roads with 4WD getting stuck every hour or so. I had beautiful weather entire 3 days and fantastic company since by mere chance, Becky, Frankie and Kyla(Canadian girl I met in Agnes Waters) had all booked same tour. In this tour I also met Andrea from States who I traveled to Brisbane with after tour.

Anyway, on with the trip. First day we visited 2 Lakes, first lake I just can't remember...but it wasn't that spectacular anyway. Second lake was one of the most photographed lake in entire island, Lake Mackenzie. It was nice, but since I come from Finland, land of 1000 lakes, it just didnt have that big effect on me.
We also walked on the rainforest a bit where I saw an Ent!!

2nd day was Ocean Highway day. We drove along the 75 mile beach road entire day all the way north to Champagne Pools, only stopping on Eli Greek on the way for little swim and beach activities. Finally we climbed up to Indian Head, one of the only rock formations in entire island, to watch some marine life. First some pic of Ocean highway.

Then Eli Greek.
Then Champagne Pools.
...and finally Indian Head rock where we climbed to watch whales.
3rd day we visited 2 more lakes. First lake, Lake Wabby, was just breathtaking. I wont say a word about it anymore, I just let pictures speak for themselfs.
Last lake we visited was Lake Birrabee, nothing too spectacular, pretty similar to Lake Mackenzie. My battery ran out from camera at Lake Wabby so no pictures from there :)

Overall, nice trip. Wasn't even close to Whitsundays, allthough I understand what the fuss about Fraser Island is, scenery there is quite unique and astonishing compared to any other place in Australia. With Frankie and Becky it was fun, but otherwise I wasn't THAT impressed. Rainforest was lot more beautiful at Cape Tribulation and beaches here couldn't rival Whitehaven or even Cape Tribulation. I guess Fraser Island would seem much better if you do east coast from south to north so this would your first stop after Brisbane.

Lastly pic of us three with incredible tans(except poor Becky...) :)

Waves!!!

2008-09-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

Day 86

"For my dreams I hold my life
For wishes I behold my nights
A truth at the end of time
Losing faith makes a crime"

Gimme waves dammit!! I never realised that surfing was actually so cool. I'm now considering stopping at Surfer's Paradise on the way down south just to catch some waves :) ...or maybe not, from everything I hear Gold Coast seems so crappy place that I will just skip it.

Fate works in mysterious ways. Because of my ear infection about 2 weeks ago my east coast tour got 4 day delay, and because of that, Becky and Frankie from Treehouse managed to catch me on Airlie Beach so now 3 of us are basically traveling east coast together which makes this themepark ride quite a lot more nicer.

Past 4 days I spent in small surf town called Agnes Waters. It wasnt until yesterday(wednesday) though that 3 of us managed to drag ourselfs to surf lessons and completed the basic training, so cool. It was actually lot easier than I tought it was, managed to stand up on the board several times. I kinda felt that hardest part was to keep the board steady while paddling on it. Can't wait for Byron Bay now and do some more surfing there :)

Where are we now? Just arrived at Hervey Bay and tomorrow we are heading to Fraser Island for 3 days and 3 nights. For those who don't know...Fraser Island is the world's biggest sand island, one of the most praised tourist destinations in entire Australia. Some even rate it better than Whitsundays, allthough I doubt anything on can beat Whitsundays.

PS. Sorry, no pictures. This computer has usb port but its interface wont allow me to access file system.

PPS. Kauhajoki is number 1 news item here as well, but I wont discuss about it here.

From beaches to farm

2008-09-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

Day 82

"So much to live for
So much to die for
If only my heart had a home"

Weird, when I left Finland July 2nd I honestly thought idea of going back home would enter my mind every now and then. I was prepared for that and knew what I needed to brush off such silly ideas. Well, it took me 79 days before that I would have those thoughts in my mind for the first time...and they didn't stay there for long :)

I think the reason was the Whitsundays. I felt so good and complete after it. I have done lot of self-searching on this trip, much more than what I have written in this blog, and issues are becoming so much clearer all the time. I know now what I will do when I get back home. I am starting to see what is Me and what are the things that define Me...and let me say that I am partially surprised myself :) Its weird how things seem so much clearer when taking distance from everything. That being said...no, I am not coming home just yet, no home-sickness yet, but I know now what adventures wait for me back home in Finland next year...and I am really looking forward to them as well.

Now that we got "shrinktalk" away, on with the journey. What's going on since Whitsundays? After Whitsundays my original plan was to go down south to Rockhampton and from there to Great Keppel Island for few days. Well, I scrapped that plan since I felt I needed break from beaches and from the main tourist route so instead of beach, I headed to cattle farm 125km inland from Rockhampton. I had been spending so many days now on the coast so I wanted to do something different before last stretch in Australia. Yea, it was very different experience.

I stayed at Myella farm for 3 days and 2 nights. In that time I learned to ride motorbike, ride horses, use a whip properly and improved my Didgeridoo skills. I also managed to take some nice pics of various wildlife in that area. First we have some kangaroos.

Here we have 3 Treefrogs(yes, they are alive and breathing animals, not statues)

That last pic is the famous Redback Spider, member of the Black Widow spider family(Black Widow's are the ones where female eats male after sex). It IS one of the most deadly spiders in entire Australia. This spider wasn't there on display or anything, people in farm actually found it one day about 200m from farm making a web inside barrel, so it was 100% wild.

Right now I am in small town called Agnes Waters, about 2h south from Rockhampton and still 500km north from Brisbane. This town is actually the starting point of the Great Barrier Reef, it starts here so I figured I might as well see the Reef one last time tomorrow. I am going on this "Advanced Snorkel" cruise at the outer reef, supposedly tougher waters than normal reef and only recommended for good swimmers...lets hope I am one. Town is also famous for its surfing, since this is northernmost place in east coast where there are good enough waves for surfing. Surfing lessons are also very cheap here, 20 dollars for 2h so I might take one.

Thats all for now...hope someone still reads this thing :P

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

2008-09-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

Day 79

"Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true"

There are some precious moments when you realize that This is It. This is one of those moments you will cherish for the rest of your life. It is the moment you go back to thinking, "life was good then". I just had 3 full days of that exact feeling sailing Whitsundays, it was everything I hoped for and then some. Weather was perfect, ship was perfect, scenery was perfect and as it turned out...I had great company from other passengers on this trip.

So we started our journey at 19:30 Saturday 13th September. On our first evening we just sailed to our overnight anchorage on the passage between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island. Now, as I was walking along the deck that evening, all the sudden I heard finnish...I turned around and there were 2 finnish girls, Sanna and Susanne(or Susse). I dont know if it was my incredible charm or what but our chemistries just matched like clockwork. All 3 of us had a such a great time entire trip. Here is pic of us(from left: Susse, Sanna and myself)

So next morning we got up and started sailing towards world famous Whitehaven beach, which is considered as one of the best beaches in entire world...it was! It was just an awesome jawdropper.

It also spoiled every single beach before it and after it. After you have seen it, all beaches just dont spark any feeling anymore. It is THAT gorgeous. After looking at it from lookout we went down and had swim and beach activities. Thats also when Susse managed to take this epic photo of me :)

After our beach activities it was back to ship where we had our first rope swings with the Tarzan rope, this thing was so cool and addictive.

So after lunch we headed back to north on the coast of Whitsunday Island and towards Hook Island. We arrived at our second night anchorage at a small bay north side of Hook Island where we had some more rope swings and swimming.

2nd day of this trip was Dive-day. It ment lot of diving and snorkeling. Our first stop was this bay were we anchored the night. I have to say...I was snorkeling at Great Barrier Reef about month ago, but Whitsundays beats The Reef hands down. Coral was just amazing down there and the fish...tons of different fish in such small area. I even managed to find Zebra Shark among them.

After snorkeling we headed out to our second dive spot, Langford Island. This was gorgeous little sandy island which apparently is only accessible when tide is right. Coral here was just as amazing as it was on the first location.

After Langford Island we headed towards south and to South Molle island for our 3rd night. On the way there we witnessed quite a pretty sunset.

Our 3rd day was bushwalk-day. We climbed on top of the hill in South Molle island to see all the beauty of the Whitsundays. It was nothing short of breathtaking.

After walk we just relaxed at the resort which was located at the island before setting sail back to Airlie Beach.

Lastly pic of our ship, Solway Lass.

Hoist The Colors!

2008-09-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Day 74

"Hoist the coloooors!!"

Yea yea, I haven't written a new entry for 5 days now. There are 2 major reasons for this.

First of all there is nothing really to write. Past week has been most boring week on this trip so far. Airlie Beach is so small and boring place that there is really nothing to do here except hang around in the Lagoon during day and drink like pirate during night. And since I don't really have money or interest to party with these drunken teenagers, days can be quite boring. This place is clearly just a gateway to Whitsundays, nothing more. Good news is that yesterday doctor cleared me to dive again :)

Second reason was that I wanted to finish the book I was reading since I want to mention it here as well. It was 8th book I finished during this trip so I have done quite a lot of reading compared to what I do at home. Book was The Terror by Dan Simmons and it was one of the most remarkable things I have read in years. It's a complete assault to your senses and emotions, I have never felt so depressed reading a book but same time marveled how well Simmons was able to put reader directly into the minds of his characters. Book left me exhausted and head spinning. I was both glad and sad for finishing it since I doubt I will reading anything that good during this trip, but in same time I was glad it was over since I was getting so depressed for the characters in the book which were so real.

Ok, on with the show...

Day's theme music (open in another window, play and continue reading)

Today is the day. Today I'm heading to Whitsunday paradise islands for 3 day/3 night sailing trip. Biggest attraction in these islands is without a doubt the world famous Whitehaven beach, which not only ranks as the most beautiful beach of Australia, many also say its easily the most beautiful beach in entire world.

I spent many many hours trying to decide vessel and eventually ended up choosing big 100-year old tallship Solway Lass. Not only did it look gorgeous, I also met 3 different people before arriving to Airlie Beach who praised it to heavens. I always wanted to do this sailing on a very old fashioned sailing boat and the fact that ship has this pirate theme going on was just a bonus. YARRRR!!

Now I can only hope that weather stays as good as it has been here for past 2 days(sunny, 29 degrees). This is my dream come true. Hoist the colors and bring me that horizon!

Change In Plans

2008-09-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

Day 69

"Where have all the feelings gone?
Why has all the laughter ceased?"

(I just had to write entry today :P)

It's Monday now and I think yesterday was first day I felt like I might actually survive this infection. Today I think I feel 70%, so almost there.

Because of this infection I had to change plans a bit. Originally I was planning to go to Airlie Beach on Sunday and sailing to Whitsundays on Tuesday. Now I'm leaving to Airlie on Tuesday and heading to Whitsundays on Saturday, thus giving my ear enough time to heal.

I'm not taking any chances with this Whitsunday trip. After all, it IS the one thing I have been looking forward the most on this entire trip. Not even Uluru, Tonga or New Zealand are above Whitsundays on that list. Ask any aussie what they want to do most in Australia and 90% will answer "Sailing Whitsundays". Read any foreign travel publish about top 3 things to do in Australia and answer is always: Dive at Great Barrier Reef, See Uluru and Sail Whitsundays. I have seen dreams about that sailing ever since August 2007 when I started to plan this trip, only week more now...

Also because of this delay, rest of my trip towards Sydney starts to get more or less rushed feeling. I already spent more days than I had planned in Mission Beach Treehouse and now this delay...I might have to cut down something on the way, it might be Great Keppel Island near Rockhampton.

So now I am still in Magnetic Island, unable to swim in these pretty little beaches around island. Funny thing is that this island reminds me of Mediterranean islands when I am at the beach, scenery there is very similar.

Of course when I go back to inland, the wildlife reminds me that I am in Australia :)

So tonight is my last night on Magnetic Island, slightly annoying that I wasnt able to swim here at all and I will always remember this island from this ear infection. Overall, nice place with not too much tourism and decent people.

All Good Things...

2008-09-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

Day 66

"The flowers of wonder and the hidden treasures,
In the meadow of life, my acre of Heaven."

Even though I am now in Magnetic Island suffering from worst possible ear infection, I'll do timejump and go back to Mission Beach and The Treehouse. I realised that I hadn't uploaded any pictures of Mission Beach yet, so here are few for those who are not using Facebook(hint: there are lot more pics in my Facebook profile).

First a pic of the actual Mission Beach

View from hill nearby, Dunk Island in backround.
So my intial plan was to come to Mission Beach for 3 days and visit Dunk Island. Well, I ended up staying in Mission Beach for 7 days and was not able to move my arse from Treehouse and into Dunk Island until 5th day. I had read from internet sources that there was nice Jet Ski tour in Dunk Island which lasted 1.5h and took you around the paradise island. According to sources, price was only 110 dollars. When I got to this pretty little island I found out the tour costed 230 dollars!! Ok...so much for that tour, so I just rented Jet Ski for 20 minutes. When I was given my Jet Ski the guy told me: "just be careful, these things can go 65 km/h"...I managed to hit 85 km/h :D Anyway, here some pics of Dunk Island, it was pretty but not much to do there, especially since water wasn't clear enough for snorkeling, visibility was really bad.

So finally last tuesday evening was my last night at Treehouse. Damn I will miss the place and peeps in there. At least I went out in style and we organised big fiesta for me. Here are some pics of fiesta and Treehouse in general.

The barbecue incredients readied.

The posse enjoying the food.

The Treehouse gang from left: Frankie, Seli, Uli, Tero, Mandi, Max, Becky and Harry(owner)

And then some general pics from Treehouse to try to give you and idea what
it was like there. First general lounge area.
View from pool.
Resident pets, Boycat and Grizzly having a "fight" :) Well, truth was that Grizzly wanted to be friends with the cat all the time, but cat didnt. So in the end Boycat just bullied Grizzly around :)
Max chilling at this most relaxing couch. I actually fell asleep there one night for 4 hours.

What made Treehouse so great? Well, they had all the small details right. First of all place was very clean, despite the fact that it was in middle of rainforest. Staff had personality and they were fun. Pets...its amazing what difference having 2 pets around can do to a person, they really can lift your spirit when needed. People...everyone who stayed there were in the end very similar, everyone was looking for same kind of peace, quiet and relaxation what this place had to offer. Because everyone was so similar we also got along so well with everyone.

So on wednesday it was emotional goodbyes and I went towards Townsville where I was planning to stay one night since I needed to sort out some issues with my bank there. During trip there my right ear started to ache a bit. I didnt pay too much attention to it, but towards evening it just got worse and worse. When I headed to Magnetic Island on thursday it just got horribly painful. Try to imagine a needle stuck in your ear and someone twisting and turning it there, that was how it felt.

I had no choice but to see doctor. He looked at my ear and first words were: "Oh my God...", very encouraging indeed. Apparently I had very severe ear infection which now requires 10 days with antibiotics, no alcohol and worst of all, no swimming for week. Just great, just bloody f*cking great! I just arrive to Magnetic Island which boasts to have one of the best snorkeling beaches in entire east coast and I can't swim! This just plain sucks...I only wish now that this pain goes away cause I can't even enjoy sceneries around here with this pain.

Oh well...it can't rain all the time.

- Tero

2008-08-31T00:13:00.000-07:00

Day 61

"The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder"

Heaven!

Mission Beach Treehouse. Middle of the rainforest this feels so homey and so like spending relaxing time at any summer cottages in Finland. On top of that people here are so cool, fun, relaxed, chilled and great. This is what I have been looking for in Australia so far. It will be very hard to leave this place and people(Frankie, Becky, Max, Uli, Seli,...) when time comes.

This is truly a place where traveller can get stuck for weeks. I originally booked for 3 nights, but I'm planning to stay here for atleast week. Days just go by lying on couch, reading, playing volleyball in the bool, drinking games in evening, etc. I have even slept on hammock outside for past 4 nights :)

Mission Beach itself is also gorgeous, allthough I haven't spend that much time there. Just little strolls on the beach and rainforest, where I stumbled on this magnificent Birdwing Butterfly, one of the biggest butterflies in world with wingspan of 18cm.

For first time during this trip I have difficulty finding words when writing an entry. It's also first time I really feel peaceful and relaxed, not a worry in the world. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and so will this. I propably will leave this place either tuesday or wednesday. But until then I won't worry about the future...nor the past.

- Tero

Cairns, Port Douglas, Kuranda,...

2008-08-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from latest locations I have been in. As you can see, its been quite cloudy recently. Warm still though...

First Cairns

...then Port Douglas

...and finally Kuranda.

Themepark ride continues

2008-08-26T02:42:00.000-07:00

Day 56

"...And he sang as he watched
And waited till his billy boiled
Who'll come a waltzing matilda with me?"

No usb ports...again, allthough this hostel in Cairns has free internet which is always big bonus. So no pictures from Port Douglas or Cairns coming...like there is anything worthwhile to show.

Ok, Port Douglas wasn't bad. It was pretty little holiday village with tons of uber rich tourists. Then why was there 3 backpacker places in Port Douglas as well? I found an answer to that question after arriving there, hostels are for workers. 90% of people in my hostel were working in Port Douglas because apparently money was really good there. In anyway somehow 5 days I spent there just flew by. One day I spent at the Reef, others just relaxing and reading at the pool.

Port Douglas also became an unexpected money hole for me. I broke 2 things while there, my camera and diving goggles, so I had to buy new ones. Because of this, I canceled my original plan to take tour to Kuranda from Cairns which would have costed 89 dollars and lived with very minimal budget for past 3 days(about 30 euros a day).

So now I have been laying low in Cairns for 3 days, spending as little money as possible which is quite easy in this pisshole. I don't feel even slightly tempted to use money here and food in supermarkets is really cheap. Funny thing is that I have now spent total of 5 days in Cairns and haven't had a single beer or any alcohol here during that time. In most places I usually sit down during evening with other quests and have few beers before bed, but not here.

Speaking of Kuranda, yesterday I found out there is daily schoolbus that goes to this praised rainforest village 30km from Cairns. I also found out that they take passengers there for 4 dollars(one way) if there is room. SO this morning at 8am I was at the busstation and hopped in to the bus. There are million companies that charge 80-120 euros for day trip to that village, I spent day there for 8 dollars! Sweet little hippie village btw, they have coffee shops and sell funny looking biscuits there as well :)

Tomorrow I am leaving Cairns for good, wont be missing this place. Next stop is about 200km south, small place called Mission Beach. Have booked 5 nights there for now. So I will stay there till 1st of September. Whitsundays is getting closer... :)

- Tero

One Day

2008-08-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Day 52

"Now... bring me that horizon." - Jack Sparrow

I can only assume most people who live in northern hemisphere have one common dream...to one day dive at the Great Barrier Reef. I can happily say now that I can write that off my list. In my very initial travel plan I did not plan to go to Reef, but I figured that since I am so close to it now and I don't know if I'll ever again have the chance, then I might as well do it.

So I booked the trip from Port Douglas on ship called Poseidon. Originally I wanted to go with Wavelength since one woman in Cooktown recommended it to me, but it turns out someone else has been recommending it as well...they were totally booked out till September 1st! Well, I wasnt going to sit on my ass here for 2 weeks waiting for open slot so I called other companies and from what I heard, Poseidon was suppose to be pretty good as well.

To be perfectly honest, my expectations weren't high for this trip...and maybe because of that, I wasn't so disappointed. Yes, reef looked great. Yes, there was tons of different fish. Yes, colors were almost as spectacular underwater as they seem to be in millions of pictures. But...for some reason it just wasn't anything unusual after seeing Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia year ago. In my opinion, Ningaloo Reef was better, it offered more and in smaller area. Great Barrier Reef didn't offer anything spectacular for mundane eye. I guess if you are marine biologist, there might be more than meets the eye. But for casual observer I give hint: go to Western Australia and see Ningaloo Reef instead. Fewer tourists, fewer boats and much better preserved corals.

Here are some pics boat photographer took of me in water.

What else? Oh yea, did I mention I dont really like east coast? After over week here I can say that east coast has absolutely nothing to do with real Australia I fell in love with. The Real Australia was in Western Australia and for most part, in Northern Territory as well. This is a themepark for tourists. Granted, beaches and scenery are stunning here, better than anywhere else, but every place lacks soul, spirit and characteristics. Everything is built on tourism, not for every day life.

But all in all, there are still several "must-do" things in east coast(Whitsundays, Fraser Island) and I don't really have to spend that long here. Little less than 2 months and I am on my way to Tonga!

Cape Tribulation in pictures

2008-08-21T00:12:00.000-07:00

Another flashback entry, this time some pics from Cape Tribulation. I truly think this place is the very definition of Paradise

Cooktown in pictures

2008-08-20T00:10:00.001-07:00

This is more or less "unofficial" entry. Just showing some pics from Cooktown to those who are not on Facebook :)

Since arcitechture in Cooktown is somewhat...oldish, I took some periodic bw-pictures. I think they turned out quite authentic

Next some normal pics of Cooktown's main street.

Captain Cook's statue and sunset on harbour.

Pics from Grassy Hill lookout.

PS. Now in Port Douglas, nice place...but I still feel east coast has nothing to do with Australia. This feels more like a themepark...