Alright, now on to the main event: my trip! A week ago, I returned from my 17 day adventure in Australia and the Cook Islands and I thought I would tell you a little about it. Here it goes…
But first, pictures to get you in the mindset:
Saying goodbye to Chloe under the Christmas tree, besides our favorite spot in the Auckland Airport, the endless blue line that takes you from the international terminal to the domestic one. I miss her like crazy and better see her next spring in Philadelphia!
The sunset you've dreamed about.
One of the picturesque beaches at Raro.
I just had to throw in another photo of the opera house.
Fresh of the plane, showcasing my lei in Raro.
The best dumplings ever.
What it's like to be lounging at Bondi Beach.
The remains of my Kangaroo burger!
On the ferry to Manly Beach!
The Sydney Opera House (as if you didn't know already)!
What it's Christmas time and I am in shorts? This picture goes out to all the people who were rubbing it in my face that they were wearing shorts in July while I was bundled up in a winter jacket.
Touring the Great Barrier Reef
Hanging out with the Kangaroos at Dreamworld!
Baxter the koala, simply adorable, no? I am in love! For all of you who wrote me and told me to hug a koala, notice that I obliged your requests but I had to go to Australia to do so!
Walking across a bridge in Brisbane.
Brisbane (November 10th-12th)
Arriving not so fashionably late, we made our flight to Brisbane just in time on Tuesday afternoon. Chloe and I have decided that arriving late for a flight is actually quite advantageous as it virtually cuts out all line waiting in check in and baggage claim. Having spent almost an entire semester in winter-like conditions, we were delighted to be welcomed by Brisbane’s warm evening air. A shuttle dropped us off at our funky, yet slightly run down hostel that looked as if it belonged in a pre-Katrina New Orleans. We dropped off our stuff and proceeded to explore what seemed like the sketchy part of town. Jet lag then set in and we quickly returned back to the hostel. Still suffering from jet lag, we woke at some ridiculously early hour and completed what felt like an entire day all before 11AM. While waiting for a bank/money exchange counter to open up, Chloe and I walked around Brisbane, trying to get our bearings. Once we exchanged money, we crossed one of the city’s many bridges in search of markets and other sites. One think that really appealed to me about Brisbane was the amount of effort and money the city has put into it’s public spaces. Since Brisbane lacked a beach, they imported sand and built this lovely massive public pool. After checking out the city’s botanic gardens, we chanced upon a market that is only held on Tuesdays. What luck! After grabbing lunch and a few other snacks there, we headed back to the hostel and watched TV before once again falling asleep early by Australia’s standards. We departed Brisbane early the next morning via train for the Gold Coast.
Surfer’s Paradise (November 12th-15th)
We made it to our quaint apartment style hotel by midday on November 12th and spent time walking around Pacific Fare mall, food shopping, and walking along the lovely beach. Still suffering from jet lag, we retired early and fell asleep while watching TV. It was around this point in the trip where we concluded that we love Australian News. It’s actually pretty entertaining and humorous, albeit repetitive and definitely beats American News as well as that of New Zealand. The next morning we headed off to Dreamworld, one of Surfer’s much talked about amusement parks. While the actual amusement park was fun enough, Dreamworld didn’t quite measure up to all the hype all my New Zealand friends attributed to it. Then I realized that New Zealand doesn’t really have theme parks, so for them, this is as close to Disney World as they can get. For me, it was sort of like Dorney Park or some other more local amusement park. However, this park did have something that amusement parks back home lack: a wildlife area complete with kangaroos and koalas. One of the highlights of my whole trip was hanging out with the kangaroos and holding Baxter, the koala for 20 seconds while they snapped my picture (see above for the cuteness). Honestly, I think holding koalas is my new anti-drug, it’s pure bliss. We also got to check out other Australian animals such as the dingo, the wombat, and pelicans. All in all, it was an awesome day. After spending an excessive amount of time trying to find a replacement activity Australian zorbing that was $100 (! It was only $90NZD in Rotorua for 3 runs—I guess I’ll just have to do it again when I’m back there again), we gave up and decided to go to Harbor Town which was home to an outdoor outlet mall. We walked around a while in search of Chloe’s desired floppy sun hat and big sunglasses. I came out with a discounted Canterbury shirt, something I had been meaning to purchase while in New Zealand. We then traveled over to Surfer’s Paradise, another outdoor mall, stocked up on Boost Juice (our favorite Australian chain) and resumed our shopping search. Admitting shopping defeat for the day, we returned home and tried to stay awake for a TV movie. The next day, we walked around and grabbed lunch in town before frantically running half way across town, gelato in hand, to catch our bus to the airport. As I was going through Security here, I was “stopped” and subjected to a random check which took all of one minute. Hey, if you’re going to get stopped and checked in an airport, it mine as well be one in Australia!
Cairns (November 15th-18th)
Seeing as we arrived in Cairns late Sunday night, we assumed that there wouldn’t be that much to do. Boy were we wrong. Cairns certainly has a nightlife aspect. We strolled around the esplanade, purchased some gelato and sat by the lagoon, licking our dessert while spotting pelicans and bats. We awoke bright and early the next morning and headed to the reef dock, where we boarded our full day reef tour boat. Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef was fantastic! I instantly understood why this is one of the worlds biggest attractions! We stopped at two spots, and in my opinion, the second one was a better snorkeling stop. Everywhere I looked, there were millions of colorful and unique fish! It was truly a spectacular day and definitely one of the trip’s highlights. Afterwards, we walked around central Cairns and I tried to get in contact with my fake cousin who had been studying in Cairns for the semester. As I was telling Chloe about Max, my fake cousin, I suddenly stopped in my tracks and stared at a person outside the Mcdonalds. That person was Max! It was one of those crazy coincidences that rarely happens in my life. We conversed for a while before we departed in search for more gelato. If you haven’t caught on, gelato sort of became a food group for our trip and was it’s own meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and gelato). Luckily for us, Cairns was abundant in gelato shops! I also finally tried Natural New Zealand ice cream (even though I was in Australia). After purchasing Chloe’s birthday gelato, we traveled around in search for an activity for the next day. We managed to find a fabulous full-day activity at Fitzroy for the ideal price however, as our travel agent friend soon informed us, the package was of course not offered the day we wanted to go. Fitzroy Island is still a sore subject for Chloe and I. Instead, we spent the next day walking around Cairns, hanging out with Nat (our travel agent friend from the night before), and going to the movies. Luckily for us, it was cheap as Tuesday so we got discounted movie tickets to see Mao’s Last Dancer. At one point, we again unexpectedly ran into Max, who grabbed my attention by pelting a tennis ball at my back. Gotta love Cairns! I should also note that this day was thankfully the only day we saw the rowdy schoolies, as they passed by on a double decker bus. Schoolie week (Australia’s senior week on crack) was forecasted for the entire time we were in Australia, however we fortunately managed to avoid the bulk of it. The next morning we caught a taxi to the airport and were off.
Sydney (November 18th-22nd)
Let me just preface this section by saying that I am completely in love with Sydney and determined to make it back because 4 days is just not enough. We arrived in Sydney just in time to go snag some expensive, yet delicious, dinner in Sydney’s Chinatown. Once we realized that our map was deceiving and most locations were within walking distance from our chic hotel, we decided to explore the city of Sydney at night. After a few hours of walking, we briefly chilled by our hotel’s rooftop pool and then hit the sauna before bed. The next day we made our way to The Rocks, the funky area next to the Opera House and Harbor Bridge, for the morning Harbor Bridge Climb. I really feel like the bridge climb is iconic and something you should do while in Sydney. Afterwards, we made our way towards the opera house and harbor bridge! It was sort of surreal for me to see the opera house in front of me. Although I have always wanted to go to New Zealand, Australia was the first country I remember actually yearning to visit and for me (and probably the rest of the world), the Sydney Opera House is just so emblematic of Australia. Being there, seeing the opera house before me really made me realize that I have technically lived out one of my childhood dreams. The Sydney Opera House is definitely my new favorite building (not that I really had an original favorite building). Consequently, I have enough pictures of the opera house to plaster the walls of a mansion. Once I manage to tear myself from the steps of the opera house, Chloe and I took the ferry to Manly Beach. Manly was nice but, I think we got there at the wrong time. As we arrived in the late afternoon, it was too chilly to hang out on the beach so we just walked around. While in Manly, we also satisfied our kangaroo craving by grabbing kangaroo burgers. Don’t tell the kangaroos this, but they are really delicious! For dessert, we went for Ben and Jerry’s which I think was what initially attracted Chloe to Manly in the first place. The next day we headed over to Bondi Beach exemplified the key points I have always imagined to be associated with the Australian beach. The orange-white sand beach was strewn with surfers and other beach goers and the water was this gorgeous blue color. It was at brunch when Chloe checked her itouch calendar and we both realized that somehow, we had managed to add an extra day to our Sydney trip and in all of this blunder, we missed our lunch reservation. I actually had to verbally ask the waiter what day it was as I was in complete disbelief. Taking the actual date in consideration, we rushed back to the city in order to check out Paddy’s Market. We then lined up early in order to get a table at what the New York Times considers one of the top 10 restaurants in the world. Their dumplings actually came with instructions and let me say that they are by far the best dumplings I’ve ever eaten. I was so in love with their dumplings that I grabbed take out from there the next night. We began our final day in Sydney by going to the Sydney Fish Market where I snacked on lobster. Afterwards, we walked around and eventually found ourselves in The Rocks at an awesome outdoor market. Once we picked up a few things, we walked across the Harbor Bridge and briefly checked out Luna Park and the North Olympic Pool. While we were walking around, we noticed at least six wedding processions. Apparently Saturdays in Sydney are extremely popular wedding days. The next morning, we left to catch our flight to Auckland.
Rarotonga (November 22nd-27th)
Unfortunately, our plane from Auckland to Raro was delayed from 5:30PM to 11:30PM. Since we arrived from Sydney at 2:30PM, we spent quite a while in the international transfer area of the airport (not the most entertaining place in the world). However, we did manage to get some sightseeing done while there as we visited the Auckland Airport Chapel (score!) and we got $30 from the airport which we spent on a million croissants and sandwiches (the money was designated specifically for food and we didn’t want to waste free money). Finally we took off in airNewZealand style, with personal entertainment systems and a nice warm meal (Chloe and I get very excited over airplane food, you should have seen us on our Quantas flight to and from Sydney when we got a warm meal AND a popsicle). Even though it was 4 in the morning, we were greeted at the tiny airport by a man singing while strumming his ukulele and by women placing real leis over our heads. As soon as we made it to the hotel, we crashed until we had to pull ourselves out of bed for the hotel’s continental breakfast. We then decided to walk around the island to a snorkeling beach (we tried to hire scooters but as it turns out, you need to be 21). The beaches were synonymous with what you imagine a tropical beach to look like: white sand laden with palm trees, and crystal clear blue water spotted with islands and filled with tropical fish. Although the walk there only felt like it took no more than 45 minutes, it turned out that we had been walking a great deal longer than that. I believe the beach was actually an hour and a half away from our hotel. As I was walking back by myself, locals whizzing by on scooters kept giving me strange looks and I started to wonder if walking was taboo on the island. A car full of young guys stopped to ask me if I wanted a ride and taking into consideration the age old lesson “don’t get in cars with strangers,” especially young boys, I turned them down. About an hour later, after I had begun wondering if I was lost, an old man on a motorcycle pulled up beside me and told me he had seen me twice so far as he was driving that night and insisted that I hop on. Once I realized he wasn’t going to leave until I appeased him, I said what the hell and hopped on. I had never ridden on the back of a motorcycle before so it was pretty thrilling. It turned out the hotel was still a 15 minute motorcycle ride from where I was. That man’s generosity and motorcycle really made my night. Chloe and I concluded our first day by splurging on poolside drinks. We pretty much spent the rest of our time in Raro crashing other resorts, lounging on the beach, reading, and snorkeling. It took as a while to get used to this laid back vacation centered upon doing nothing but relaxing, however I think we came around. Another highlight of our Raro stay was the Miss South Pacific Contest (like Miss America only so much better). We made sure we were home in time every evening to watch this contest along with the other five local commercials which repeated themselves to the point that we could painfully recite them word for word. In the end, our favorite contestant, Miss Fiji, thankfully won.
You may be wondering how my Thanksgiving went. Well, to be honest, it didn’t. As we were crossing the international dateline, our Thanksgiving only lasted for 3 hours in the early morning. While everyone else was celebrating Thanksgiving at home, Chloe and I were both stuck in the Auckland Airport for 12 hours. No worries though, we managed to have an enjoyable time in the airport before we had to say our goodbyes, and we had a lovely pre-Thanksgiving beach side dinner the night before.
Then I took a short plane ride back to Dunedin where it was 9 degrees Celsius outside and traveled back to my almost vacant flat. And that ends my fantastic trip!
As I finish up writing about one of my many vacations abroad this year, I hope everyone back home is readying themselves for their own winter vacation!
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