Time flies when you're in Sydney!

I love Sydney! Yes I do! And I think it loves me too!

Its amazing what a little retail therapy and a big city can do. :) Although I've been here three times before, it's never dull and there's always more to do. Also helps that you know exactly where everything is and how to get there...




The weather's been a bit up and down, but even when its cloudy Sydney is great. I spent the first 3 days chilling and being a total tourist again - sightseeing hop-on-hop-off buses around the city, went to Bondi for the day - just saying that "Bondi for the day"... cewl! I strolled around Darling Harbour, George Street, and QVB. I did 4 loops on the monorail (because the Dutch person in me had to make the most of the day pass which is the same price as two singles...)

On the 29th I met up with a friend I'd met on my third day in New Zealand - Gillian - she happened to be coming back from Melbourne to Sydney for 2 weeks. I went to the Blue Mountains, which are neither Blue nor Mountains (won't bore you with the rest of the guided tour talk).


I did a few bushwalks while there to earn my lunch, waterfalls and cliffs aplenty! We saw the famous "3 Sisters" Rock formation near Katoomba in the heart of the Blue Mountains. Then we walked down into the valley following the Furber Stairs, basically 1020 steps down into the gorge, before capping the day off with a trip on the World's Steepest Railway (52 degree incline). Always better than doing the trip in reverse... railway down and stairs up!!!

My mind told me it wasn't vertical, after all, there's 28 more degrees to go!) but... certainly felt like it! When they put you in the train at the bottom, you're almost lying horizontal in your seat. Then the train drives up the mountain and you're basically looking out at the drop below with the mountain at your back. Truth be told, might not have been nearly as terrifying if I hadn't had my hands full with my coat, little rucksack, water bottle and camera... and been wearing linen pants that pretty much made the seat slippery as ice... I guess it's a much more relaxed ride if you can hold on and don't keep sliding off your seat. :) In any case - The Adrenaline Rush continues in Oz!


I've also been really lucky with roomies so far - series of very nice people that all knew how to use a toilet and weren't into extreme PDA's. I must admit, my standards for acceptable roomies have been lowered somewhat! However, I am starting to think I attract verbal diarrhoea - even when trying to sleep or obviously reading a book, they'll keep talking at me! ... but, I'm not complaining, no sir!

Farewell NZ, I win because I'm still in one piece!

I've done many activities in the land of action, some tame, some completely suicidal. I have to give due credit to Pak - she wrote on my leaving card that I HAD to do one new thing each day. I struggled some days (doing laundry in a hostel... does that count?!), some days I didn't need to try (e.g. courtesy of PinkelBoy) but without that incentive egging me on, I might not have tried quite so many different things.

Just to recap for those that haven't bothered to read my (almost) daily sagas, I've done:
Mountainbiking
Surfing
Hiking
Skydiving
Float plane flying
Sledging in grade V rapids
Horseriding
Bone carving
Sea Kayakking
Quadbiking
Scootering
Heli flight
Sauna
Bin Bag seamstress
Luging
River kayakking in grade II rapids
Segway (twice, but for the FIRST time in each city :P)
Red Bull Action Flite
Fudge Making Tour & Tasting
Historical Tram Ride
Punting on the Avon
Attended a PLAY in an-honest-to-G** THEATER
Hot Air Balloon Flite (thank you BELKINITES!!!!)
DROVE 3 DIFFERENT TANKS yesterday!

...and of course, who could forget:
Got pissed on in my bunk
Had people have sex in the bunk accross from me
Had people have sex in the bunk underneath me
... All definitely firsts as well.

I haven't completed the "have a cocktail on a beach" for Sally yet, but I'm saving that for Bali!

Some important life lessons I have learned along the way:
1) Never take the bottom bunk - self-preservation dictates that you cannot rely on (grown) people to have bladder-control, opt for the climb just in case
2) Some days I'm athletic, some days I'm a Klutz, the two don't seem to be evenly distributed or predictable, best just to go with the flow and laugh WITH the audience...
3) Despite numerous attempts, I will never be able to breathe under water or be comfortable in a wetsuit, so better just get all relevant activities crossed off the list sooner rather than later!


Next stop: Sydney!!!

Drive Defensively... Buy A Tank!

So... I either have unresolved issues centering on some sort of repressed rage, which makes itself known through an uncommon fondness for large lethal mnotorised weaponry...

..or I just really like driving tanks!

Possibly a bit of both. Disturbing though it may be. :P Maybe I missed my calling? Maybe I should have been in the army, churning up mud and remote landscapes (and small trees) with armored vehicles? Maybe I should change my name to "Rambette"?!

Today will go into the Annals of Marisa History, as today I drove 3 tanks. Not just a few metres, I drove them through rugged terrain on an assault course, with dips and bends and dust and mud... most of which found its way into my mouth by the last lap!

Meet "Sarah", the 10 tonne Saracen.
She can transport up to 8 people in the back, all of whom would be totally dependent on the driver's capabilities if they want to have a hope in hell of not being brained in their seats as the monster races over mounds and hills. It doesn't have very forgiving suspension...
It comes complete with power steering and a "pre-emptive" type of gearbox, which means you change the gear, but keep driving in the existing one until you choose to "engage" the change. All sounded quite confusing, but I found it very easy to drive actually! The power steering really isn't much help when careening around u-bends in a 10 tonne monster, but I'm sure its better than it would have been without. It literally drove over everything and I'm thinking it would be an ideal mode of transport to use in the urban warzone they call London. Might be a bit difficult to parallel park though...

Next was "R2D2", otherwise known as the FV432.

The F stands for something I can't remember, V is for vehicle and 432 is much as they would name a BMW 318 :) It doesn't have power steering, after all, it only weighs 16 tonnes and has a top speed of 50km/h. I pretty much hit that speed going around the tracks and over bumps! Last and most prominently used in the conflict in Northern Ireland by the British Army, it is steered by using two levers on either side of your body as you sit hunched forward in the very front right of the tank. Pull the left one and it stops the left track from spinning at the same speed as the right, thus making a left turn. Pull the left one REALLY HARD and you effectively stop the track and cause the 16 tonne metal 'vehicle' to spin 90 degrees to the left on its axis. Cewl... very cewl! Luckily it was an automatic, so one less thing to concentrate on! I had some fun with this one - it has a metal track with rubber pads (so it can traverse roads without totally mangling the asphalt) and is partially (?) armoured. It can also transport up to 8 people in the back, but is used mostly for reconnaisance rather than complete obliteration of everything in its path... that's what the next one is for!

Last, but by no means least, was "MAXIMUS", the 52 tonne actual battle tank used in Bosnia (amongst others).



Completely armored, with a turret/gun mounted on the top, it carries only 3 people - the driver, the commander and the guy/girl shoving shells into the gun! It had two tiny levers to try and turn the tank, though they did not actually slow the track as much as speed up the opposite track a little.... it has a totally crap turning circle, but apparently speed is your friend when trying to get it to change its course. So off I went! Some of the bends I had to pull with all my might with two hands on one lever to try and make it round. :) Obviously I need more Rambette training! It is also the only tank that has a clutch and could thus stall in mid maneuver - its actually know for its finicky gear changes and tendency to stall. Begs the question why you would make the one tank that is likely to encounter enemy gunfire the most likely to splutter and die in the midst of its charge?!?!?!

Anyway, I managed not to stall it, and in fact had a really good run in it. Didn't knock over any trees I wasn't supposed to and made it round the track in good speed.


And before anyone thinks I'm actually sad enough to have nicknamed the tanks myself, it wasn't me! Honest. The people who run the place nickname all their tanks and Hagglund / Jeep vehicles...

According to the instructor I was a natural on all three! Though I imagine they say that to anyone who just paid a small country's national debt for a 2 hour drive. :) He did appear to be suitably impressed - probably more so because I arrived being a) a girl, b) with long blonde hair c) wearing... pink?! He actually told me I could come back and get a job as an instructor! Har har har... that's if my future career in flying Red Bull Actionflites doesn't pan out...OBVIOUSLY!

Hot Air Ballooning! Thanks Belkinites!

The day has finally dawned (well, not quite, urgh, black and cold) that I finally use my wonderful leaving gift. What better use of the "RedBalloon" gift voucher than a Hot Air Balloon ride over Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains?

04:30am, Marisa wakes up bleary-eyed to the tinny sound of her mobile's alarm clock.

04:31am, Marisa still can't find her mobile in the pitch-black dark to kill the alarm clock.

04:35am, Having successfully navigated the ladder down from her top bunk (remember: Top Bunk Forever), Marisa now stands outside the room and rings the weather check number...

"Thank you for calling" blah blah blah "the flight is ON, repeat the flight is ON."

Huh? Oh, sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, get dressed, brush teeth, brush hair (different brushes) and get downstairs for 05:00am pick-up! Yippeeeeee! Never been so happy to get up so early!

05:15am, A minivan pulls up at last and Marisa sprints to the van when she reads the writing on the side of the van and realises this is her ride, completely MISSING the would-be-tell-tale sign that it is towing a trailer with a giant BASKET on it. Doh!

06:00am, having picked up the pilot in a mall carpark (how glamorous) and a lot of other tourists along the way, we have arrived in a damp field in the middle of nowhere to begin unpacking and inflating.

On a side note - after unpacking the balloon - all the women head towards the building at the far end of the field when told this is where the restrooms are. I guess you had to be there, but it was hilarious so see about 12 women racing for 1 toilet, so competition was fierce...2 Japanese women were in the lead, followed closely by a middle-aged British lady and then myself. The Japanese women walk past the Men's toilets and are confused, they continue hesitantly on to the next building... I spy the small "Female" sign on the side of the Men's toilets and shout "it's here!" and make a run for it, successfully overtaking everyone to arrive first. This sparked a race in my wake with the pack suddenly changing directions after following the Japanese women. Of course, being the proper and politely raised person that I am - I let the Japanese women in first. My mummy would be so proud!

Then followed about 45 minutes of waiting for the balloon to be inflated - actually quite funny to see the photos at different stages...

Oddly enough, fog was rolling in and it suddenly looked very cloudy and eery. As the balloon air was heated up enough for it to right itself and the basket, we all suddenly had to scramble to get into the basket - I just managed to hand my camera to the guy left on the ground to take a picture and hand it back before we floated off.

We floated over the field, and then the treetops surrounding the field, and then... couldn't tell you because the fog was so thick I only saw grey - below, around, above, just grey, grey, grey. They almost aborted, but I campaigned to go on since it was my last opportunity! So we flew higher and broke through the fog. It was eery and magical all at once. A carpet of fluffy (admittedly grey) cloud, rolling up to the foot of the Southern Alps. The sun was shining brightly above the fog, so I actually took some very weird pictures of the SHADOW the balloon created on the fog! (See the first picture below,all the way on the left there's a 'blob'). The only reason I knew we weren't very high (that and the pilot telling us we were about 500ft high) was because I could hear cows moo-ing below in the grey carpet. All below was just grey cloud, with an occassional "MOO" coming out of nowhere! It was awesome!!!

We floated for a while and then came back in for landing. Unfortunately, because of the fog, we couldn't see anything until we were about tree-high... we narrowly floated over a farm with its buildings, scared the beejeezus out of the cows as we started dropping down in their field, and took the top off a tree in the process! The landing was super smooth and I jumped out to help pull the balloon down.

Then came the deflating and packing and quite possibly the BEST bit of the entire experience! As we had to pack the balloon back into its huge bag, there was residual air trapped in the material. I (facetiously) offered to "stage dive" off the trailer onto the heap of material. The pilot thought it was a good idea and I ended up launching myself into the air onto the balloon pile twice (ending with everyone trying to pack me into the bag on the second jump). I think they were joking... :P One of the nice Japanese women came up to me when she was leaving to tell me she enjoyed being on the flight and thought I was funny and very pretty...

Did I mention this was AFTER everyone had a glass of champagne??? Brilliant experience, DEFINITELY would do it again!

Christchurch - my fave so far!

I made it to the last stop - sad because its nearly the end of my New Zealand adventure, but also YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! because... No more Kiwi Experience, no more Pinkelboy, no more sex in the bunk under me (I'm in a female only dorm - hang on, HOPEFULLY no sex in the bunk under me!)

Christchurch is like a Disney version of a city, quaint, pretty, dinky enough to walk around and let's face it... more people than 80% of the places I've been in for the last 2 months! Lakes and mountains are a great combo, but they do say Variety is the spice of life!

Christchurch has a cute old-timer tram (that I got suckered into riding before I realised it covers about 8 blocks and I could walk it faster!), funky architecture, great Botanical Gardens with amazing trees (pity I took the amazing pic underneath and AMERICAN Sequoia tree instead of some native Kiwi breed - Oopsy :P), a beautiful fountain, lots of beautiful flowers and...punting on the Avon river ?!?! Hang on! Maybe I like it because it reminds me of Home *sigh*.

Or maybe it's much simpler than that and I just love the Fudge Cottage at the back of the Arts Center (yes, I went there to see art and stumbled on the Fudge by accident). Completely unplanned, it was like Divine Intervention!

I walked past the shop and had a peek inside (har har har), the lady sprang up and said "are you here for the tour?" I wasn't, but I figured, what the heck, I've got a few hours ahead of me before I go see a show at YES - THE THEATER (trying to mend my uncultured ways with a vengeance! I went to see a one-woman play one evening and the comedy night the next...) Apparently the Fudge Making Tour with its free-tasting-of-our-goodies-until-you-hurl is a well-known tourist attraction in Christchurch! It's only held once a day and it was clearly fate that I should amble by... The flavour of the day (being poured into the molds below) was "Baileys Fudge"... and yes, it tasted GOOOOOOOOD warm, cold, sliced, gooey, rolled, packaged, covered in chocolate... to be honest, no matter what they did to it!

Being the selfless soul that I am , I did try to bring some back for everyone to try, but UNfortunately you're apparently not allowed to bring it into Australia so I had to eat it on the plane :P I had to get rid of the evidence so to speak...

STOP PRESS <<< Kiwi Breaks Down Again >>>

Not exactly breaking news, forgive the pun...

En route from Queenstown to Christchurch, we had just picked up a few passengers in Twizel (mini town near Mt Cook, nada in the vicinity), and we get a flat tire. Luckily for us, the driver made calls to Kiwi-approved mechanics straight away this time, but they were too far away. So he got a local mechanic to take a look, and only 1.5 hours later, we were on the road once more.

Loooong day in the bus, should have been about 8 hours in total, turned into just under 12! Bleh. Passed some nice scenery though - Lake Pukaki with the weird aqua coloured waters, Lake Tekapo with the yellow and green hills in the background, and the church on the edge of lake Tekapo looking like something from a Scottish Highland! A pity - but we had just 15 minutes to jump off, go to the loo, take a pic and get back on at each of the lakes as people had planes to catch.

OK - control-freak I may be, but what SANE person gets on a bus that takes notoriously long, is supposed to get into Christchurch at 5:30pm when your FLIGHT leaves at 6:15pm???? Funnily enough, we had 2 of those on the bus. They were only young ones... they'll learn :)

Red Bull Action Fliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite !

I flew a stuntplane today! Well, flew IN a stuntplane today as a passenger while this absolutely HOT pilot showed me what a little JHBCSRF 12483 (forgot the name and model of the plane, whatev) can do. Absolutely awesome!

I nearly had a heart-attack when in the midst of all the loop-de-loops and twirls, snap-rolls, knife-edge flying, and -2 to +4 G forces (actually, zero G is the worst feeling, especially flying upside down floating in a mini plane)... lots of tricks that rivalled any rollercoaster I've ever been on...the pilot accidentally-on-purpose stalled the thing in mid air as we were shooting vertically upwards! So we started falling back to earth backwards, until the plane tilted and nose-dived with me in the front seat. I was apparently saying a litany of "ooooh fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck" (excuse my language, but had to keep it in the account for authenticity)that the pilot thought was hilarious. I do vaguely recall swearing slightly. :P

He followed that by a maneuver called the Lomcevak (basically translates as "headache") - where the plane just bounces end over end in the sky...feels like it is completely out of control, but apparently it's not. Riiight. Hey, they didn't give me a parachute when I got in, so I was relying on this just being normal procedure! Besides, let's face it, with one tandem jump under my belt I'd hardly be qualified to somehow extricate myself from a plane in mid-air and deploy a parachute...even if I then knew how to use the thing to get safely back down to the ground as opposed to eating grass as I did the last/first time!

But, all's well, that ends well! I landed safely back down on the ground. Apparently, because its a stuntplane they don't have flaps to slow it down, so you essentially dive-bomb at the runway and then apply brakes if and when the wheels skid onto tramac. Quite possibly the second scariest maneuver of the whole experience!

I didn't have to use the sick bag, didn't feel dizzy all day of black out as I'd been warned to expect... just really really addicted to flying now. I need, I want, I MUST LEARN HOW TO FLY. Just straight for now though - kinda think knowing which way is up is a prerequisite for doing aerobatics!


(http://www.fightercombat.com/vid_03Sep04.htm
"What's Happening? The Lomcevak - (pronounced LOHM-sheh-vock). A Czechoslovakian word translated as "Berserk Headache", it is actually a colloquialism meaning "Drunken Bum." The Lomcevak, also called the lump-lump, appears to be a totally out-of-control maneuver in which the plane tumbles nose over tail, wingtip over wingtip, across the sky."
http://rafaero.free.fr/voltige4-eng.html (for video of Lomcevak at the bottom)

Another threesome in Queenstown! What a great place...

It's getting to be a habit... this threesome business. And this time I was on top!

OK, let me explain. I'm in the top bunk (hey, learned my lesson thanks to PinkelBoy)... girl on bottom bunk (or was it the guy's bed? don't know, does it matter?) brings back guy. Lots of sucking sounds and then my bed starts to... rock. Lovely. Just what I need at 04:30am when I need to be up at 09:00am for a stuntplane flight.

So - for all those people out there that didn't come up with something fitting to say in such a situation, it seems my lines from last night did the trick!

Picture rocking bunkbed in a room of 4 double bunks (6 other people were spectators to the show, but not quite as interactively as me). The room is pitchblack and lots of sucking noises are heard growing ever louder...

*switch on bright bright light, lean over, loudly announce to stunned semi-dressed couple below*
Hey Guys
I don't want to cramp your style
but I'm trying to sleep
and I'm starting to get seasick up here
please go find some privacy
thanks
*switch off light*

They were quiet pretty much instantaneously! Result!
But then the guy started to snore really loudly so I still had to resort to the iPod strategy. I've switched dorms - as if that will help... - for tonight and then I've got my own room with bathroom for the last night in Queenstown.

So, the current score is:
Couples-without-self-respect 2 vs Marisa 0.5
I think this one qualified as a partial victory, so I'm giving myself half a point!

Doubtful Sound....spooky & magical

For the last 2 days I went on a cruise on Doutbful Sound. Even the rain and fog could not take away from the magic of the scenery - it leant it an almost eerily ethereal quality.

I was on a large motor/sailing yaght with about 80 people - only 3 of us not part of a couple, and under 50 years old (including me!). I met some very nice people on the trip and it was good to be away from the 18-year-old-party-crowd for a change.

Doubtful Sound was similar to Milford Sound only because it has sheer cliffs rising out off the blackest water. Other than that, with the fog hanging low and no other boats or tourists in sight - it was very quiet and magical.

We saw a seal colony, and the fog mixed with occasional rays of sunshine to create a rainbow accross a fiord - one of the few times we actually saw other humans. In the evening, we stopped in a quiet bay and took out single-seater kayaks to explore the fiord more closely (I went away from the group to explore a small river that was pouring into the fiord - I cunningly tried to go around some rocks and ended up getting stuck on a rock I hadn't seen... so I had to "scootch" off it and nearly tipped over... thankfully my kayak-in-the-rapids experience paid off! What's life without a little excitement?!)

It was one of the best experiences so far, beautiful (with a tiny frisson of excitement) and some of the most amazing photos showing the reflecting waters in the early morning.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. I'm definitely a fan of the majestic mountains + tranquil water combo! :) Now if only they could make the experience a bit warmer... Did I mention I love, Love, LOVE my great wind-water-fog-spray-everything-proof coat?! Best purchase so far!

Milford Sound - the postcard pictures are real!

Wow, wooooooooow, wooowowowowowowowowowowow!

OK, deep breath, let's start again.

Got on the bus early (after not sleeping much...), fell asleep, stopped in TeAnau for a sandwich, got back on the bus, went back to sleep, stopped in the Fiordland National Park... and then we were told the road was closed due to freak heavy snowfall that night (20cm in one night, in essentially their late summer/early autumn). So we waited for 2 hours to see if the road could be cleared. Other buses were turning back, but we stuck it out! And hey presto, patience paid off!

The road into Milford sound is awesome, 56km of road that is on 24hr avalanche and rockfall watch, apparently the most dangerous stretch of road in New Zealand! The road goes straight through the middle of sheer cliff faces, not so comforting when you know these mountains are right on a fault line where two tectonic plates meet each other and they regularly have earthquakes... It was still snowing, foggy and dreary as we neared the Homer Tunnel (a one-way tunnel under the mountains), but when we came out on the other side, the sun was coming out!

I went on a 2-hour cruise on the sound, it was spectacular, just as they show it on the postcards. Anyway, I'll let the pictures do the talking!