Our trip to Belgium!

A couple of weekends ago I went to Belgium with my fabulous pals Becca and Daisy to visit Christina.  Christina has been working out in Brussels for a few months and invited us to visit.  Of course, we took this opportunity for a city break and headed on the Eurostar.

We did everything typically touristy you could do in Belgium... Eat chocolates, sight see beautiful Medieval buildings, go up the tower in Bruges (Colin Farrell style), eat mussels and chips and drink plentiful amounts of fruit beer.

Generally, a fabulous weekend!  We need to do this more often!

Surfer's Paradise

I am currently writing to you from Brisbane but I should fill you guys in on our mini trip to Surfer's Paradise. We only stayed there for one night but we got a fair bit of surfing done. (It is only appropriate to surf in Surfer's Paradise, right?)

We got there on a beautiful sunny day at about ten am. Myself and Claire booked ourselves into a surf lesson straight away for the afternoon. The hostel we were staying in was pretty tasty. We had a four bed room with an en suite, that is luxury right there.

We hit the beach which had sand that was so soft it actually squeaked. Beautiful. We tanned ourselves before heading to our surf lesson. It turned out that it was just me and Claire so it was pretty much one on one. We also got a free beef pie and Coke. It's strange, there are so many pie shops in Australia. Didn't know the Australians liked pie so much.

Anyway, we went on our surf lesson and learnt a new way to stand on our board which was slightly more advanced. It was meant to mean that we could stand quicker but in my case it definately felt like a quicker way to stand and then promptly fall off. Still was fun though and I got there in the end. I did end up with some lovely scraps on my legs though. Fit.

We managed to get an extra half an hour for free because our surf instructor wanted to have a surf so myself and Claire practiced for a while. It was lovely except for my knee injuries. Surf boards and my knees don't mix well together.

Good times anyway. xxxxxxxxxx

My Tour So Far... Bay of Islands

Wow!  I have so much to tell you all!

So my tour started last Saturday (it's been seriously hard to find internet since I am moving from place to place daily).  I was waiting outside my hostel at 7am (thankfully in my dashing, lovely and warm ski jacket - also looking a bit of a twit in my walking boots) and came across to ace Danish girls (Maria and Christina) who are on my tour!  We also met Sarah, an amazing Frenchie who is trying her hardest to teach me French (apparently, I've forgotten it all...).  The bus was actually arriving at 8am, but no one  had thought to tell us, so we were all huddling together waiting for the bus...

Once we get on, we travelled up to the Bay of Islands (tonnes of little islands in the north of NZ) and got on a boat.  We were on a wildlife cruise and were looking for dolphins - annoyingly the trip wasn't a success since we didn't actually see any.  The cruise company thought it would be a great idea to give us free coupons to go for a free trip - little did they know that we actually used it the next day!

Anyway, we ended up at a beautiful island with little cabins to sleep in.  There was nothing there except beautiful scenery!  It was sooooo quiet there too.

The next day we went for a little sea kayak (this time no near death experiences!) and then got back on the boat.  We used our free ticket and actually saw some dolphins - yay!

We ended up having amazingly cheap pizza and playing wii in the bar.  Best evening ever!

NZ Tour: Part Two

Before heading back to Auckland we went to a bird sanctuary where we actually got the chance to see a kiwi!  It was the cutest thing ever.  The old guy in charge told us about the kiwi he fixed up who had only one leg because it's other leg had got stuck in a trap.  They even gave it an artificial leg so it could wander around!  It was a pretty cool place to see some native birds getting looked after before being released.

We then headed back to Auckland and picked up the rest of our tour!  There are some fabulous people who joined us and it's so interesting that everyone comes from different cultures and backgrounds.  Since the weather was so bad, where we were going had been flooded and the bridges weren't useable, we ended up staying in an old Maori's house.  It was a pretty bizarre situation since we just rolled up, greeted by "Uncle" and welcomed into a massive hall (with toilets and kitchen attached) with mattresses and duvets.  Basically, it was a massive sleepover!

The next day we headed to a Maori village.  It was a crazy place full of geothermal activity (Graham, you would have loved it) and they lived over steaming pools.  They used the pools for everyday activities such as bathing, cooking their food and heating their houses.  It smelt like sulphur too... not a good thing, admittedly.

They even performed a Maori show to us, and even did the Haka!  I was actually pretty scared at the faces they were able to pull!  I attempted my Haka face and failed miserably haha!

Annoyingly, we were meant to go whitewater rafting, but it got rained off.  The river had risen too high for us to go safely, so we wandered around town before another amazingly cheap meal - ker ching!

NZ Tour: Part 3

Today we were taken to some hot springs.  It was so bizarre because we swam in a hot river, but in the middle of winter, in the middle of a forest!  It was not so fun getting out of the river and running for my clothes...  plus smelling like sulphur certainly isn't attractive either but at least it was the whole bus!

We were then taken to a farm in the middle of nowhere except NZ bush!  We were in cute little cabins and were told to wear muddy clothes.  We had no idea what we were dressing for and were even more surprised when two massive quad bikes rolled up with a load of dogs in the back.  It turned out that we were going on a crazy safari around the farms.  We went in a cave full of spiders (I went in and came straight back out, thanks very much) and even kayaking down a river.  It was beautiful!

I got very attached to the dogs (there was about 6 of them roaming around) and we saw them at work.  We were given a demonstration of the dogs herding the sheep.  It was pretty amazing since each dog had it's own whistle call to respond to.  Pretty cool.  (Dad, I reckon you would have loved it!)

We then had a camp fire and goat for dinner (as you do).  Fabulous day, I could quite happily live there, haha!

Samwise The Brave!

I climbed a mountain.  Yup.  A whoooooooole mountain.

We had decided to climb a mountain (one next to Mt Mordor and Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings) so I am offically named Samwise the Brave from now on.  It did actually start to catch on on the trip, haha!

We got up at 5am (didn't quite realise that time exisited!) and headed to our hostel before our trek.  It's a pretty lush hostel - pretty much a ski lodge.

There was only 6 from our group trekking today (we are obviously the mental ones - everyone else stayed in the hostel, apparently spending 3 hours in the spa...).

We set off with our ice axes and crampons (spikey things for our feet) and trekked up the 'Devil's Staircase'.  It's safe to say that I completely understand the name.  It took us about 5 hours to trek up to the summit of the moutain.  There were certainly some amazing views up there!  We then made it up the gruelling trek to the summit.  I sat on a rock and it actually burnt my bum because it was heated (we were on a volcano - so it's to be expected, I suppose) but pretty bizarre anyway!

We then were so happy that we had made it to the top that we had forgottten about the 4 hour trek back to the bus.  After what seemed like forever, we made it!

I am sooo happy that I achieved this.  I can safely say that I have trekked up a mountain!  Tick!

Home Sweet Home

It feels good to home.

My mama and papa picked me up from the airport which was very exciting since it seemed like forever since I had seen them.

I have spent the last couple of days enjoying home and catching up on sleep.  I am working tomorrow back at school for Sports Day which is usually a bit of fun anyway.  I decided this was a good way to get myself back into the swing of things before starting in the madness on Monday.

There are already concerts a-brewing so a lot of preparation will be needed for that!  I am almost looking forward to heading back into a stable routine although, as soon as I have some cash I am adventuring off as soon as I can!  I have definately caught the travel bug!

I will keep you all posted on further travel developments if anything comes up.

In the meantime, I am going to return to blogging about my fashion fantasies and general thoughts.  Please feel free to stay tuned to my random ramblings! xxxxxxxxxx

United States of America.... Final Stop: San Fransisco

Our last and final stop on the tour was San Fransisco.

We arrived mid afternoon in more beautiful weather.  Yum.

We were taken straight to the Golden Gate Bridge to be massive tourists.  Had to be done!

We then separated into our separate hostels.  Luckily enough, I was in the same hostel as Jed and Kayla from the tour which was ace, especially as the hostel was possibly the worst hostel we had stayed in our whole trip!

We spent July 4th in San Fransisco.  We saw lots of fireworks and felt very American, haha!

So, we went sightseeing around China Town and Fisherman's Wharf.

San Fransisco is a beautiful place that I am keen to return to.

United States of America.... Yosemite National Park

So after our near death experience in Death Valley, we headed to Yosemite National Park.  It felt great for the first time not be horribly gross and sweaty (sorry, had to be said.  You have no idea how disgusting it felt being in Death Valley)!

Yosemite is a massive national park with fabulously HUGE trees!  It felt lovely in the shade walking amongst these monster trees with the faint scene of pine.  Yum.

We went for a stroll to see the tallest tree (named Grizzly, no less).  It was crazy.  I couldn't even get Grizzly fully in my viewpoint when taking a photo.

There are trees in Yosemite that have had holes carved into so you can drive through them.  We didn't see this sadly, but we stood in one!

United States of America.... Death Valley

So we had a near death experience in Death Valley.

For those of you who are uncertain about what Death Valley is, the name says it all.  It's one of the hottest places on the planet.  It's a desert that gets up to 50 degrees C in the shade.  I have never felt so hot in my life.  Luckily I drank a lot of water so felt relatively ok.  The only way to describe the heat is the fact that your sweat dries instantly and you can't feel cool.  The heat also makes it difficult to breathe and people ended up having nose bleeds because the air is so hot and dry.

The near death experience happened when we were walking (clambering is more of an accurate description actually) over salt rocks in our flipflops (bad idea) and Janine (a German girl from my tour) slipped and sliced the bottom of her foot completely open.  I have never seen that much blood in my life.

We get her back to the van with me acting as a crutch and spend about an hour in the blistering heat bandaging her up.  We head to A&E (which turns out to be 3 hours away) and get her seen too.  Luckily she was such a pro and didn't even panic.

The rest of us go on a hunt for food and we end up serving our own chinese take away buffet on a bench in the hospital car park.  There's a RLE we aren't going to forget any time soon!  Kudos to Jason (our tourguide) for being a pro and sorting us out even though he must have been knackered!

Exciting times!

The United States of America.... Route 66 and Las Vegas!

Las Vegas was perhaps one of my favourite places in the whole world.

Before we arrived at Vegas for two nights, we headed up Route 66.  For those of you who don't know what Route 66 is - it's the main road in America and features awesome tiny American towns that seem lost in time.

We then headed to Las Vegas!  We arrived ready to party hard!  Our tour guide had booked a surprise party bus for us.  This was basically a massive limo with a pole for pole dancing antics!  It took us around showing us the sights.  The electric light show (Downtown), the Bellagio fountain and light display and then dropped us at a bar!  We saw Vegas at night just like you're meant to!

The next morning myself and Yvette (featured above with show girls) decided to see the sights in the day (the blistering heat and sun, more like!)

We walked all day up and down the strip to see the amazing different hotels and we must have gone in about 20 casinos and shopping malls!  Good times.  I heart Vegas!

The United States of America.... Joshua Tree and the Grand Canyon

My tour begin in LA and our first stop was Joshua Tree National Park.

Luckily, the people on my tour were fabulous fun and we all kicked it off straight away.  Ace times!

Joshua Tree National Park is a massive desert full of Joshua "Trees" (basically cactai) and rocks.  It's still pretty impressive and the heat was scorching.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon!

Our tour guide decided that we needed to have RLEs (Real Life Experiences) whilst on the tour so he made us put paper bags on our head (as you do, right?) so we could all experience the fantastic views of the Grand Canyon together.  This was a fabulous idea except when I took my bag off, there was a massive tree in the way of the canyon!  It was still an amazing view (once I had moved from behind the tree) and didn't look real.  It's almost like my brain couldn't comprehend what my eyes were seeing.

We went for walks and sat on the top ready for an amazing sunset.  To make our evening better Jason (our tour guide) appeared with takeaway pizza for our dinner!  What a RLE right there!

The accommodation for this tour has been impressive.  We have been in rooms with double beds and lovely bathrooms.  It made me feel a bit like a queen - especially since I've been staying in some rough hostels lately!  Plus I was sharing with Yvette, a fabulous new pal from sunny Bristol.


We then headed onwards to Las Vegas!

The United States of America... Los Angeles

So I arrived in Los Angeles on 24th June after time travelling.  Yup, I time travelled.  I left New Zealand at 13:30 on the 24th June to land at 6:30 am.  It boggled my mind.

I get safely to my "hotel"  (complete understatement.  More like a crappy hostel if you ask me) in downtown LA.  Apparently downtown LA isn't the safest of places and there are lot of crazy people going around shouting and swearing at anyone who will listen.  As you can imagine, I felt disgustingly jetlagged and sweaty so I didn't appreciate being verbally abused.  Bad times.

Anyway, after I dumped my stuff (in a cleaning cupboard no less) I head to Hollywood.  Funnily enough, the metro (the underground) was the area that I felt most at home.  It felt similar to London and I think I needed this.

I arrive at Hollywood and am instantly starstruck with the stars on the walkway.  I end up looking like a proper tourist - taking photos of the stars (typically Walt Disney was the first star photographed!) and the Chinese and Kodak theatres.  I end up going on a bus tour around Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard.  This is all very exciting and the weather was perfection.

The rest of my time in LA was spent at the beach and pier in Santa Monica.  I even went to check out muscle beach which was all very exciting.