The whole trip on a map

Hard to fit the whole map onto the blog due to the immensity of the area of the globe we covered. It'd need the whole page all to itself including the margins which would be an eye-sore. Have a look at the tiny one below. If you're feeling curious click on the link below to see more detail on Google Maps. Someday the map may even be expanded to include fancy stuff like pictures. May be...

THE LINK!


View Larger Map

The very last batch of photos are here! (Sniffle)

Saying Goodbye

We left Ireland with a furry little grass muncher in tow (Dougal of course!) on the 2nd May 2007 and visited Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Niagara Falls, Boston, San Francisco, Yosemite Valley, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, and Los Angeles in the space of a month before settling in Sydney.

It was so easy to fall in love with this city. It really is the most beautiful city we have ever been to and there is so much to do!

After working and saving for 12 months we travelled to Vietnam for 2 weeks then back to Australia to see Melbourne, Cairns, Mission Beach, Magnetic Island, The Whitsundays, 1770, Fraser Island, Noosa Heads, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay and Brisbane before going over for a week in New Zealand and then back to Sydney.

These last few days we have shopped, did the Bondi to Bronte walk and saw the City to Surf Race (it started raining so we couldn't reach Coogee Beach), went to Delhi O Delhi and The Duke in our old neighbourhood for Chris' birthday, walked around the harbours for the last time and had a buffet lunch in the Sydney Tower Restaurant.



When we leave and travel back to Derry we will have travelled 41,000 miles!


We've had an amazing time living in Sydney and travelling for the last few months. So many new and exciting experiences our heads are almost still spinning. It will be very sad to leave here tomorrow despite the fact that we are so excited about getting to see all our friends and family again. We'd be fugitive's from immigration if we stayed longer, they made that clear on our arrival from New Zealand.



It will also be great to eat some food from home. We have been thinking about this over the last year and a bit and have come up with a list of the foods we've missed.

Wheaten Bread
Bridie's Chips
Garlic Chips
Fat Home Made Chips
Paolo's Pizza
A fry up with Potato Bread
A Soda
Real Bacon
Pork Sausages
Roast Dinners
Roasties
Champ
Tayto Crisps
Walkers Crisps
Galaxy Chocolate
Cadbury's Chocolate
Fiorentinis Ice cream
Guinness

The list goes on!

We can't wait to see you most of all!

That's it!

Over and Out

See you soon

Back in Auckland

After an amazing time in Rotorua we headed back to Auckland (still stinking of sulphur) to see Bradley and Ver again. Bradley took us to the museum and we had a mess around on the North Shore.

The next day we went skiing! We headed to an indoor ski centre (minus 4 degrees inside) and had loads of fun learning to snow board. The photos are pretty shit because of the lighting but you can just about make out Dave doing a big jump.

From absolute beginner to awesome air grabbing snowboarding prodigy in 4 hours ain't 'alf bad.

We are both still battered and bruised, Dave especially as he fell over about 100 times to Chris' once, but we are keen to go again.... somewhere, like the Pyrenees. That evening we just messed about in Devonport and had a few drinks in the fancy local.

Thanks so much to Bradley and Verity for putting up with us (us up?) for the last few days. We are so glad we came over to New Zealand to see you. Miss you already!



http://picasaweb.google.com.au

Rotorua

We went up to Rotorua for a few days, which is around 3 and a half hours from Auckland. We passed the 'Shire' from the Lord of the Rings on the way with its nice green and bumpy countryside. Our hostel was really lovely and it had radiators! This was the first time we have seen radiators since we left Ireland!


Rotorua is a geothermal tourist site and has loads of fun things to do. (It also stinks of rotten eggs due to the Hydrogen Sulphide being released) First off we went on the luge where you fly down a hill on a cart.

We laughed most of the way down and Dave crashed at the first turn and nearly went off the edge of the cliff! (I thought the slow down signs were just advisory - Dave) (Thanks to DAVID'S DAD for his YouTube link on the previous blog post). We think you guys would have a ball on the luge so we may open one in Sherrif's Mountain in Derry.


After the Luge we went to Hell's Gate which is a geothermal park with mud paths and spas. It's called Hell's Gate, in English, due to George Bernard Shaw visiting and remarking that it looks like where his theologian friends keep promising he'll end up. So droll. He impressed the local Maoris so much on his 1 week visit that they okayed the naming. The mud paths where lovely but we stank of sulphur from the sulphur spa. We were so relaxed after our baths that we dozed off as soon as we got home. That night we went to see the Mitai Maori tribe's concert and ate some delicious hangi and went a walk in the dark forest to see glow worms. The Mitai put on a great show for us and were really friendly. They taught us some dances and phrases their performance of their Hakka which was class. The hangi was delicious, the food had an earthy taste (unsurprising with being cooked in the ground) that you don't with gas BBQ's the Aussies favour.


On Tuesday we headed up to Wai-O-Tapu which is a thermal 'wonderland' where we saw loads of different coloured pools, lakes and craters from the various chemicals lying around. It also had loads of boiling mud pools. The champagne pool was particularly cool with its reddish edge (iron oxide)and the Devil's Bath was florescent green (colloidal sulphur/ferrous salts). Amazing! We also saw Lady Knox Geyser which erupts daily and can reach heights of up to 20 metres.


In the afternoon we had planned to do another park called Waimangu volcanic valley. We were worried that it would be the same as Wai-O-Tapu and Hell's Gate and we were going to cancel and do more luging or look for hobbits but we were so glad that we didn't! Waimangu was more of a hiking park and the scenery was spectacular! We have never seen anything like it. It is the newest geothermal system in the world and was created as a direct result of a huge volcanic eruption in 1886. The Frying Pan Lake is the largest hot water lake in the world and the Inferno Crater was an incredible colour of blue from sulphuric acid in the rocks with a pH of 2.1. It was one of the best parks that we have been to and is up there with Yosemite Valley in California.

To DAVID'S DAD: You were too quick to leave comments before we had even wrote the blog. We need to act faster!

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/dougalbaa

Meeting up with Brads!

We have now left Australia! We got upgraded to buisness class because we were on stand by for a later flight to New Zealand.

It was amazing! We got so much food and drink and our seats were so cool. We were treated like royalty! We never want to fly economy again.


We have been so excited to see Bradley! We were introduced to his lovely girlfriend Verity and we all had a great night out in Auckland. The next day they took us to Piha Beach and Mount Eden and then we went to get Korean food and saw Batman on Imax.

It was just as good the second time around for us two even though the screen was so big that we had to constantly look around to see what was going on.

The weather has been raining non stop and sounds so loud and cool at night. But it is not that cold which we are really happy about. Brads has the biggest tv EVER and a cool bike and surf board. Verity has a massive jump suit that keeps her warm. Also a cat called Miso comes around to visit them all the time. Class.


http://picasaweb.google.com/dougalbaa

Brisbane

We are now back in Queensland and the sun is shinning! The mornings here in Brisbane have been chilly (a record low of 3.5 degrees this morning) but the temperatures are still around 22 to 25 degrees during the day. Brisbane is surprisingly nice as noone we've met has had a good word to say about it. We walked all around the city on Wednesday and saw some nice buildings and architecture. South Bank has a beach and nice places to swim but there are too many Ibis birds shitting on food tables! Minging!



Today we eventually got to go whale watching (4th time lucky!!) The tour was twice as much as the one in Byron Bay and had loads of old people. They played Elvis and Frank Sinatra music throughout most of the journey on the boat to entice the whales from the water. We sailed out around Moreton Island, which like Fraser Island, is one of the largest sand islands in the world and is only accessible with 4WD. It took us ages to see a whale and we were beginning to think we had wasted all our money. But then we eventually saw a humpback.

It didn't seem to be going anywhere in a hurry and just kept swimming close by the boat. It was really lovey and so big and because we didn't really know where it would surface it was hard for us to takes its photo. Unfortunately we didn't see any more and the glamorous Captain Kerry (the only female Captain in the South Pacific Rim) said that it was unusual for whales to travel alone which may be beacuse there are Killer Whales and Great White sharks in the area and therefore the others may have been ate. How nice.


But closer to Moreton Island the water was incredibly clear and we got to see others sea animals like funny looking jellyfish, jumping tuna, dolphins playing on the surf, stingrays swimming in big packs, hammerhead sharks and amazing great sea turtles which were so beautiful. We also got to watch episodes of Mr Bean on the return trip. So all in all it was a grand day and our faces are completely burnt beetroot!

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/dougalbaa

Byron Bay

We are now back in good old NSW. Nearly everyone that we have met along the coast all say Byron Bay is the best place but when we arrived it was pouring down. Apparently the storm was part of a cyclone that had passed from New Zealand.

So for 2 full days we had to stay indoors and watch bert films in the freezing TV room. On Saturday the sun was shinning again so we went to Nimbin which is a small town (200m street) which is full of hippies, freaks and backpackers, famous for selling marijuana. There's no relaxation of the drug laws it's just tolerated by a certain degree by the police.

They do make a few arrests every now and then but normally it's just let be. There were old ladies trying to sell you 'cookies' and all the people look weird and spaced out. A bad advertisement for the lifestyle. We went to the weirdest museum (or rubbish shack) with loads of old stuff obviously dumped there from the local's attics!

Saying that the Rainbow Cafe makes the nicest coffee and chips we've had in ages. The chips are all freshly prepared and the coffee is grown locally.


We were supposed to go whale watching but just like in Surfers Paradise the weather played havoc with our plans. On two successive days we were cancelled at the last minute because the boat couldn't get into the water.

Nightmare! We made the best of a little sunshine and headed to the famous lighthouse which happened to be right beside the most easterly point on mainland Australia. We had a little picnic on the way back. Classic stuff. Flat sandwiches, crisps with dips and a cheap bottle of plonk. Great fun.

Photos are at the usual place:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/dougalbaa