Someone's turning 30 (part 5)

Here is a shot of the ocean on the way up to Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers. We were getting attacked by some mozzies (mosquitos) and we had to get back to the car shortly after this picture.... definitely worth the shot though. We attempted to take the glacier tours, but avalanches had covered the roads and made it difficult to pass (although this looks more like a tropical island). We decided to spend an extra day in Christchurch since we didn't get to see much of it on our first day.

We pulled over and went through a 5-minute forest trek to get this shot. We tried to get a shot where it appeared we were drinking straight from the waterfall, but none of them came out quite right.

One of my favourite places on our trip was the Puzzling World in Wanaka. It had heaps of logic puzzles to attempt and illusion rooms to observe. Below we are both in the same room and an onlooker to a photo of us through the bars of the room. There was also a hall of faces which followed you as you walked around the room even though they were inanimate objects. It was pretty creepy although the video we took did not do it any justice...it was awesome (not included)! We also got a video below of Sharpie rolling a pool ball down the table only to have it come back to her- we could've spent all day there. We also performed a maze which took us 1.25 hours to complete. We were pretty proud of ourselves although we didn't perform the maze in the correct order.

Someone's turning 30 (part 4)

We were able to capture a couple of shots from our much more relaxed journey down the Fiordland and I was excited about the big birthday to come in Queenstown.

We arrived in Queenstown on the evening of the 1st December and I prepared to say goodbye to my 20's.

(A shot taken from the top of the mountain....a little Where's Waldo- can you find Dupskies? Hint: He's not white)

I didn't feel any different when I woke up on the 2nd. No arthritis setting in.....no memory loss.

The same could not be said for poor Dupskie as the power door was no longer working....ha, maybe he was undergoing some sympathy aging for me or maybe I accidentally left the parking lights on before we went to bed.....doh! The battery was completely dead, but at least we were amongst 50 other campers and could easily be jumped. Yep, we would deal with this the next day and not let it affect the birthday plans.

We started out the birthday with a trip to the Shot-Over Jet, which is basically a boat holding 12 people that goes 80 km/hr over 2-3 inches of water while narrowly missing rock walls (and I mean I could have lost a limb or two). The boat could also perform 360 degree spins and got my birthday off to a white-knuckle start!

We made up a game where we walked around downtown Queenstown and if we turned off a street then we would have to find a pub on that street and have a drink/shot and move on quickly. By 5:00 we had had 7 turns "drinks" and decided that it was the perfect time to head up to the top of the mountain and ride a luge down the mountain. We took a couple turns luging down the mountain and decided to head to my birthday dinner at the peak.

Some more shots from Queenstown. I am wearing my blue beanie on the left. It was a completely unnecessary purchase (especially to bring back to Brissy), which is what made if fun. I really splurged with this purchase and really got my $15 worth for the remaining 3 days of the trip.

The shot below is overlooking the city centre (yes that is spelled correctly). If you look real closely you can see the legendary Fergberger. Wow, hamburgers that are as good as the local hype.

Someone's turning 30 (part 3)

Dad- I know this picture to the left looks like most of our other family camping excursions.....except the burner actually worked and it wasn't raining. Also, the following conversation did not take place.

Son: Are you sure you want my sister and I to collect all the wet firewood we can find?

Father: Yep

Son: What are you going to do with all that firewood once we have it here in a pile?

Father: Naturally, I will start a fire to keep your mother and the rest of us warm, then I will open up the can of beans and cook those over the carefully controlled fire, and finally we'll share some ghost stories/marshmellows as the flame slowly dies out.

Daughter: Here are all the logs we could find- how come the matches are wet?

Son: Dad, I'm rubbing some sticks against this stone here, but I don't see any sparks yet.

Father: No problem- we'll go borrow a lighter from our fellow campers.

Daughter: It's getting dark dad- how will I find other campers?

Father: Simple, we just need to turn on this kerosene lantern by pushing this button here and then.....by pushing this button here.....I'm following the damn picutre and this stupid thing...I don't get it-

Mother: I'm sleeping in the car!

Anyway, we enjoyed a scenic lunch and then headed off for Milford Sound, a trek of 300 kilometers, the last 100 of which are a dead-end journey up the Fiordland. I've gotta say, this stretch of road is among the most enjoyable to navigate in the world. I actually felt like I was in a video game as I was going in and out of narrow forests, over scenic plains, along lakes and amoung towering peaks with waterfalls, all while not having to brake and winding around at average speeds of 100 km/hr. If one had a sports car or motorcycle, this would be your heaven. Even Dupskie seemed to enjoy getting out and spreading his wings. Unfortunately, like a video game, sometimes you are so absorbed by trying to control your speed in and out of turns that you fail to realise that you are running out of gas......oh yeah, and there's no gas all the way up the Fiordlands. We were teetering on 1/4 tank 50 kms past the last town with gas and completely missed the sign "No gas in Milford Sound"....which we took to mean, there's heaps of gas stations along the way, but just none once you get there.

As we got closer to Milford Sound it occurred to us that it didn't make sense for gas tankers to bring gas to intermediate places along the way since it is not a through road. We stopped and asked some nice sight see-ers heading back from Milford Sound if they happened to remember passing any gas stations. Unfortunately, the first couple was from Korea and could only utter, "Milfowd Soun....nice" Our second couple was French and determined that there was emergency gas in Guns Camp on a fork in the upcoming road and then down gravel for about 20 kms .....she handed me a guide and said "see here" which clearly showed me in French that there must have been gas somewhere ahead. So.....we forged onward! Our dilemma, we were now below 1/4 tank and had another 70 kms to Guns Camp. If we were wrong? You guessed it, nowhere near enough gas to get the 125 kms back to that nice town with that gas sign.

We headed another 30 kms towards this split in the road and after talking to an elderly gentlemen speaking of spare gas cans (but no gas station) rumored to be in Guns Camp, we decided to turn around and try to coast all the way back to gas. At this point we were at 1/8 tank and knew our odds were very slim - none. The van got extremely quiet as we hoped to roll within 20 kms of the town and hitchhike to and from the gas station. Luckily, Dupskies pulled through and we were more than happy to fill up and make the trip back up again.....especially me because I could try to beat my previous high score!

When we arrived in Milford Sound that night, the atmosphere was incredible with people from many different nations speaking in one common language....beer. We took a scenic cruise the next morning and got the shots below. I got to stand underneath a natural waterfall and the clouds and rain began to roll in. Unfortunately, our camera wasn't able to capture any pictures from the aforementioned drive up because our camera needed a little rest/charge from the first day and a half.

Someone's turning 30 (part 2)

Well, day 2 had us off to Dunedin, NZ where we got to go on a Cadburry chocolate tour, visit the castle (inset on right) and hang out with the locals. That's me driving Dupree above and I have learned quite easily to drive from the "wrong" side of the vehicle and road. It now appears strange to see a clip of a person driving in the United States. I always feel like they're going head on into somebody...

The chocolate factory pictures were intentionally left off as I went swimming in the chocolate waterfalls and had to be detained by the Oompa-Loompas.... Once we got the chocolate washed off, we headed for Lanarch castle. The castle tour included some story telling and free reign of the rooms and gardens. The rooms were very intricately designed and took 20 years for 50 workers to construct. The views on the way to the castle overlooked the Otago peninsula and the city of Dunedin.

Notice the charming architecture of the city to the left. The city Denedin is Scottish for Edinborough, oddly enough. The settlement is clearly Scottish and much of the architecture has remained unchanged since the 1800's. The city is actually the 5th biggest city in the world by area (50 kms), but most of the area still contains sheep and the most amazing rolling hills, lakes and ocean.

The picture to the right was us heading into town to party with the local Dundenites. I also thought I knew better than my wife and packed my own bag according to the temperatures posted on weather.com.au, rather than listen to her sound advice. What I failed to take into consideration was the Antarctic winds coming from the south......brrrrrr! So while the temperature might have been a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius, the wind chill was about 5 degrees....and this is the middle of summer. Luckily, Olga brought two scarves as she was prepared for my foolishness - I am learning more and more to trust the wife's instincts. The town hosts a university with 35,000 students and the seniors had just graduated. The city centre (Octogon) was packed with party-goers and we shared some drinks with them before calling it a night. We wanted to get back to our home on wheels and get some sleep for the big drive in the morning. Unfortunately, the pictures between 8:00 PM and 12:00 PM were a bit too blurry and in no way reflect the sobriety of the individual(s) taking the pictures.

Someone's turning 30... (part 1)

Olga surprised me with the most amazing birthday present by arranging an 8-day trip to New Zealand for my upcoming 30th birthday. To welcome in the new decade I decided to shed my old job in chartered (public) accounting. The last day at my job here in Brisbane was Thursday, 27 November. We arrived to Christchurch, NZ on Friday, 28 November. We decided that we would name our new home on wheels Dupree ("Dupskies") after the movie You, Me & Dupree.

We set out for Dunedin in our new ride the first night we arrived and stopped to take a picture at Lake Tekapo. We almost made it to Dunedin when we realised it was close to midnight and we better pull over and get some rest. I followed a sign that said 1 kilometer to the beach and parked amidst pure darkness. The stars were so bright and vibrant and the sound of the ocean crashing in was amazing. Unfortunately, we weren't sure what else was around us and I just parked on the grass just meters from the ocean and decided to call it a night. I wish that our camera was good enough to pick up the stars, unfortunately you will have to take my word for it. When we woke up we found the spot we had chosen for our first night of sleep. We still don't know the name of this little town, but the moral of the story is when in doubt about where to settle down for the night, follow the sound of the ocean and drive towards it. We just had to hope that the animals didn't have the same idea we had.

We woke up and cooked up a nice warm breakfast. Now, I am not one to read an entire set of directions and our portable stove was no exception. I gave it the ol' Lundy try and quickly surmised that the stove must be defective as I could clearly smell gas but had no flame. I even read carefully selected instruction steps (steps 1,2,5, and 7....mainly because they had pictures) and decided that I had executed these steps to the best of any camper's ability. Frustrated, I accepted my fate and grabbed a yogurt when I looked up at my smiling wife delicately holding her hands over an open flame. How did she do that? Had she found a revised set of directions? It remains one of life's mysteries, but I always know that my wife can compliment areas that I may be lacking.

Brissy- Day 171 and counting

A lot has happened since the last blog update on 9 June-

The Dow Jones has gone from 12,307 to 8,480

Avg gasonoline price has gone from $4.04 to $1.89 per gallon
Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, WAMU and Wachovia all collapsed

The first black president has been named to lead the United States

Oh yeah, and we bought a "new" car

It has the feel of....."when I was a kid we used to pay 1 cent for a stamp and 5 cents to go to the cinema".....except this is less than 6 months!

So what have the crazy kids in Oz been up to? Well, we took a trip to Sydney in September and have posted a smattering of pictures below from that trip. We saw all the usual Sydney sights and even tried sneaking into a matinee of an opera, but security was pretty tight. We learned pretty quick to stay away from King's Cross unless we were looking for a fight, strippers, drugs or a dirt cheap backpackers hostel (ding-ding-ding!!!). The funny thing is that we were denied entrance into several clubs in the same area because we were not appropriately dressed. I'm all for the dress code, but it's amusing to strictly enforce this code while unspeakable acts are being peformed just meters away. On the other hand, perhaps that is the reason to enforce such strict obedience.

The picture below was from my first day of work at Grant Thornton in Brisbane in June. From memory, this had to be one of the very few days it rained between June - November, but as luck would have it, the puddles only added to my nervousness that day. Olga did everything in her power to make sure she sent me off in style including letting me hold the umbrella by myself all the way to the subway station while she did her did her best popporazzi impression. Shortly after, we went and bought a man-size umbrella so I don't have to withstand the local children pointing and laughing at me. Insert on the left, you will see a cool, confident dryer version of me heading off to the daily grind. I've got my I-pod in hand and what appears to be a beverage....I'm going to assume that was an energy drink of some kind, although you never know.

I have included pictures from Noosa Beach below on the Sunshine Coast. Noosa is a 1.5 hour drive from Brisbane and has some of the best most relaxing beaches in Queensland and has a nice feel to it. Lazy Sundays are what this place is all about. It's actually quite popular among the older crowd- the schoolies (teens/early 20's) actually prefer heading down to the Gold Coast (45 mintues away) for some beach action. This leaves a much more peaceful beach to enjoy for us heading towards our 30's (see below). We also decided to hit up a strawberry farm on our way back into Brisbane. We got to go select our own strawberries from an entire field full and it went a little something like this: one for the basket, one for me, one for the basket, two for me, one for me, four for me. By the time we paid for our kilo of strawberries, I didn't even want to look at one.....that is, until the next day when the entire kilo mysteriously disappered.

The video below is from our trip to the Koala sanctuary. While the name is a bit misleading, they actually have kangaroos running wild there as well as other animals in cages like dingoes and wombats. The sanctuary is strictly Australian animals and is so close to home that trips to the zoo are not even necessary. I highly recommend including this place on your itinerary for your next trip to Australia. The koalas are absolutely adorable, although they sleep 20 hours a day...not a bad life.












The picture below is from an Island just off the coast of Brisbane called Stradbroke Island. The place is pretty remote and there were only a handful of people walking around the coastline. The waves were magnificent and so loud as they came crashing to the shore. We were actually perched high up on some rocks overlooking the water, but they did have areas where you could walk down to a beach. Another peaceful place to visit and we'll definitely be back soon.

We are heading to New Zealand for my 30th birthday tomorrow. We are bringing our smiles and a blank camera. Expect to see pictures posted here shortly of one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Hopefully, if things go well, I will be in a bar in Queenstown, NZ screaming the words to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" and putting another Heffeweissen to bed as I say goodbye to my 20's.

Until then,

Cory & Olga