New Zealand 1 Auckland

Cynthia here.....I love Auckland! it is a great city, really clean. We spent the day looking around town and basically just getting our bearings. the viaduct harbor area is very nice, lots of trendy restaurants and bars. 

I took lots of pictures of the city and will get them up as soon as I can. we have already found lots to do here but are limiting ourselves to about 3 more days in auckland. matt is looking into all of the "backpacker bus tour" options which take you around both the north and south island. you just pay for the areas you want to visit and get on and off the bus as you please. I think it will be perfect for us. 

today we visited the auckland art gallery and it was very nice but with limited works. we also went to the SkyTower and Casino which supposedly offers the best vantage point of the city but we did not pay the $18 per person to go to the top. we were told that there is a summit walk on a volcano that offers views that are comparable (and free) so we will check that out tommorow. for lunch today we had authentic (hong kong style) chinese food and it was delicious, fantastic really. and all for $8! I think we have found where we will eat for the next few days :-)

Matt and Cynthia (to be continued) 

Australia 3 Visiting Oz’s Red Center & the Wildly Popular East Coast

Having seen only very brief sunshine in the outback, which is rare, I needed the coast so I jumped a flight to Cairns.

Over the summer in LA, I went to Catalina Island just so that I could obtain my driver’s certification and be ready to spend several days on the Great Barrier Reef and the UNESCO World Heritage listed Daintree Rainforest. 

I booked the Greyhound down the east coast of Oz and stopped to sail the Whitsunday Islands for Christmas and to drive across Fraser Island for my 25th birthday. Both were gorgeous and good fun since I was on tours filled with other backpackers. I joined up with two German women for New Years in Noosa and surf lessons in Byron Bay. Which, for the record, I was terrible at doing — I need to either invest in lessons or never hit the surf again. 

Shannon O’Donnell Shannon O’Donnell (to be continued) 

Australia 2 Couchsurfing

 Instead of taking the more common route from Sydney to Cairns, I meandered down the coast of New South Wales (because, kangaroos!). 

I eventually landed in Melbourne, where I couchsurfed for a week with my buddy Row, who had actually couchsurfed with me in LA earlier that year. 

Not one to miss the highlights of any new place, I hit up the stunningly pretty Great Ocean Road, and visited the parade of tiny fairy penguins on Phillip Island. 

Instead of taking the backpacker bus, I splurged on a quick flight to Alice Springs, which was my launching point to the Australian outback and the iconic Uluru (Ayers Rock) (where it rained and rained!). 

Shannon O’Donnell (to be continued)  

Australia - Backpackers Are A Friendly Lot

My decision to start in Australia mostly stemmed from the fact that I was living in Los Angeles at the time. I booked a one-way ticket from LA to Sydney, and then spent the next five months planning the trip and downsizing my life.

As a newbie to round the world travel, I landed in Sydney without a single friend and feeling a tad lonely. Luckily, backpackers are a friendly lot. I got my travel legs under me by exploring the Opera House, the Taronga Zoo, and the Botanical Gardens. Deciding to stay in the Blue Mountains was a real highlight, and my penchant for getting incredibly lost at the least convenient moments started here. This would become a recurring theme of the trip because, yeah, I get lost a lot.

Shannon O’Donnell (to be continued) 

My trip around the World 13 I Got Way Too Hot

The hotel driver offered to take me on a bit of a drive down around the Atoll, and we drove around for about 90 minutes before heading back. Unfortunately my phone was dead at this point, so didn’t manage to get any pictures. It was interesting to see how even in the most populous part of Kiribati life was still so rural and quiet. Many of the locals had pigs tied up in their yard, and the pigs were eating/drinking out of what appeared to be old coconut shells. There just wasn’t much going on, but that appears to be the pace of life in Kiribati.

After resting, I decided to go for a bit of a walk. I walked about an hour down the atoll towards the airport just seeing sites until I got way too hot. The “administrative centre” of the entire country. Not a very busy place.

My trip around the World 11 Overnight on Tarawa, Kiribati

 My driver from Mary’s Motel showed up, and the car had ice cold air conditioning, which was nice giving the blazing mid-day sun in Kiribati. There is basically one road on Tarawa Atoll, and it runs the length of the atoll.  It’s dozens of miles long, but the Atoll is maybe 500 meters wide at its widest point:

Kiribati is also, according to some sources I read online before the trip, the least visited country in the world. I wasn’t expecting anything to see/do, more just to walk around and take in how life goes on here.

My hotel was in Bairiki which is the country’s administrative centre, and you can see it’s a bit of a drive from the airport. 

Traveldiariesapp (to be continued) 

My trip around the World 12 Kiribati

It took almost an hour, and during the drive I got a lot of insight into the country from my driver. One cool fact is that the road is under construction (it was badly potholed, etc) and that should significantly improve travel options on the atoll. Was also cool to see several large signs from my employer as one of the key financiers of the new road. Hopefully it helps things!

At Mary’s, I played the usual (by now) South Pacific game of musical rooms until I found one that had reasonably functional air conditioning.

It was clean, cool, and reasonably comfortable, and came with a few bonus creepy crawlies here and there, and a few lizards that I occasionally saw crawling on the walls. The towel origami made up for it though.

Traveldiariesapp (to be continued)