Haven’t been able to post for a few days, combination of being busy and not having internet access. Will post photos and fill in all the gaps when I get back to Adelaide (after a few days on the NSW central coast). Right now I’m at Auckland airport waiting for my flight to Sydney.
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Dec
16
2008
The Worst of New Zealand
I’m not the only recent visitor to NZ, The Lazy Aussie was here not long ago so he has a Worst of New Zealand section on the Worst of Perth site. Sadly I did not go as far south as Timaru so I didn’t get to see Santa’s mounted head in person, but on the good side the highly disturbing Pure Merino ad campaign seems to be over.
Dec
14
2008
Punakaiki
My efforts at travel blogging are being slightly hampered by troubles with getting photos onto this blog. Since I’d forgotten to charge my camera battery I don’t have any photos from Punakaiki so I may as well just write about it then anyway. I’d link to some pictures someone else took but a strange feature of this computer is that it won’t allow multiple windows open (and I’m stuck using silly Internet Explorer rather than Firefox) so I’d have to log out of WordPress to find a link and then log back in …. so I’ll leave it to you to type Punakaiki (or you could try “pancake rocks”) into your favourite search engine.
Punakaiki is up the West Coast of the South Island, about 50km north of Greymouth. It is famous for the rather strange geological structure known as the pancake rocks. Along the coastal cliffs the eroded rocks reveal a layering structure that does indeed look like pancakes. There is also a blowhole, and all of the usual spectacular sights you get on limestone coasts, though for me the effect was enhanced by the unfamiliar plant life as well.
I stopped off there on the Intercity bus between Greymouth & Nelson. This is a regular bus rather than a tour, but it stops long enough for a 30min walk to see the pancake rocks, which was a pleasant surprise, I had no idea about it beforehand. I’d expected that the scenic part of the journey would be the train to Greymouth, but Punakaiki, plus the coastal road from Greymouth and Westport, and the mountains and gorges from Wesport to Murchison rivalled the sights on the train journey.
Dec
13
2008
Arthur’s Pass and the West Coast
Very quick post (have to get back on bus shortly) – went across the mountains from Christchurch to Greymouth via Arthur’s Pass on the Tranz-Scenic train. Fantastic views, highly recommended to anyone who visits Christchurch. After that I’ve been heading along the west coast on the way to Nelson, I didn’t know what to expect from this and it has been a great surprise. The winding road hugging the coastline and then up a river gorge has been spectacular.
Dec
12
2008
The Bats’ Release
That is to say there is a new release from New Zealand band The Bats which they launched last night at Al’s bar in Christchurch. More importantly, I was there. Yes, I’m in New Zealand and just attended my first ever gig outside Australia. It was fantastic to come over here and see one of the classic Flying Nun bands. I’d been pretty busy and, believe it or not, had not been thinking that much about music until early yesterday evening when I was at a conference dinner and the President of the New Zealand Maths Society got up to present some prizes and mentioned that he’d seen The Clean in the same room 26 years ago. At this I started to get pretty excited at the prospect of seeing The Bats (whose main songwriter was also a member of The Clean at times), and they didn’t dissapoint. Lots of classic guitar pop, including North By North, the intro of which was heard frequently on the ABC this year in promos for The Hollowmen. The new stuff sounded great as well, though I won’t be able to listen to the cd until I get access to a cd player.
Today is my last day in Christchurch, tomorrow I’ll be heading over the mountains on the Tranzalpine train, should be pretty spectacular (especially if the weather clears up a bit), and then on to (supposedly) sunny Nelson in a long day of travel (though not so long compared with the Adelaide-Toowoomba leg!). In Christchurch I’ve mostly been on the campus of the University of Canterbury, which is very nice. I have done a bit of sightseeing around town, in particular this afternoon I visited the Museum which was excellent. I also went up north to the Waipara Valley for some wine tasting.
Missing from my blogging is Brisbane, not that I didn’t enjoy it there, it’s just that I didn’t have email access (there must be an internet cafe somewhere but I didn’t find it). I’ll save writing about Brisbane now until I can get my photos up. Short version – more bats and lizards (or water dragons to be a bit more precise).
Dec
01
2008
Release the Bats!
On arrival at the Japanese garden at the USQ campus in Toowoomba there were a huge number of bats flying overhead (I suspect the schoolkids nearby might have had something to do with it.) The photos below don’t really capture it properly, I’ve never seen so many bats at night, and this was in broad daylight.
Dec
01
2008
Dalby
In Toowoomba I’m staying with my friends Taka & Megan. Next year Taka will start a job in Dalby so we went over there today to check it out and saw some of the local wildlife along the banks of Myall Creek (I’ve noticed that most of the things they call “creek” around here are bigger than what we call a river in SA, but then again, they did have a lot of rain recently).
Thanks to Taka for the photos.
Nov
30
2008
Toowoomba
I’m on the road, first stop Toowoomba (unless you count brief stops at Blanchetown, Renmark, Mildura, Balranald, Neranderra, Parkes, Narrabri and Goondiwindi along the way). My second visit to Queensland, but given that the first was about 25 years ago I don’t remember it so well. Plenty more travelling to go in the next few weeks, I’ll post about it when I can.
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