April 16, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 0 Comments
We should have done this earlier, but with the unpacking, washing and backpacker blues, time has slipped away from us, we’ve been back for a week or so now, started settling back into work and catch up with friends.
Lots of people have asked us our favourite places so here’s a few:
Romance and Worry Free Relaxing: Maya island in Fiji
Shopping and Culture: Singapore
Scuba Diving and Idyllic Beaches: Rarotonga in the Cook Islands
Cheap Living (and most probable place to get food poisoning): KL in Malaysia
Most expensive: Tahiti
Extreme Sports, Kayaking, Climbing, Fantastic Scenery, collecting injuries: Quite Obviously, New Zealand
Place we’d like to explore further: Sydney and Australia (and eat those Manly fish and chips!)
If I really had to pick one place from the whole trip to call my favourite? Abel Tasman National Park, sitting in my Kayak with Bex and Zoe singing ‘Tom Cruise Scares Me’ to the seals.
We hope to keep in touch with new friends and you’re welcome to come and visit!
Well back to the chilly uk weather that is summer.
March 30, 2007 - Posted by Becky Edlin - 0 Comments
Wow! What a few very busy days! We have been trying to pack as much in as we can. Our first day was a long sightseeing trip, going via Raffles and the Theatres (they look like giant sparkly bug eyes next to the river) and Parliament house. We have gone in most of the shopping malls - Andys face lit up when he saw the vast Electronics Mall!!
We found the City Mall too, where some citys might have a tunnel under the road Singapore has the City Mall is a 60,000 square feet under the city shopping mall
We ate a traditional ‘Malay’ meal of chicken satay, fried rice and noodles on a street cafe near the very impressive Sultan Mosque. Chanting can be heard during dusk when it is the call to prayer, makes a rather cultural backdrop for dinner! Then, a speedy trip to Orchard Street- the main shopping street before the shops closed at 9.30 (midnight tonight!). Luminous signs and cleverly lit up shops guided us down this long road (think Oxford or Regent Street in London then double it), once the shops were closed we popped back onto the Underground and headed to the river and the Merlion glowing under the nightlights. It is interesting to note here that Rough Guide to Singapore says this is the ugliest statue they have ever seen, well it’s not that bad…
Today was started by us heading off to the beach, Singapore doesn’t have ay natural beaches, so, as Singapore does, they designed, reclaimed and crafted their own on an island to the south, complete with two choices of getting to it, 1. use the monorail located at yet another huge shopping mall on the harbour, over a bridge conviniently dropping you off at the beach or 2. go to the local sky scraper, head to the top and get on the cable car that carrys you over the water to the island, crazy (If you zoom in on the map here, you can see the little cars). Its a lovely beach if a little odd as its facing a harbour so there are huge tankers sailing past.
After leaving our urban beach we headed off to the URA building, rather unexcitingly Singapores Urban Redevelopment Authority but Andy wanted to go since we got here. It was a city designers dream, lots of tiny models, plans, more even smaller models etc. Fascinating… But I did learn something, according to the Singapore designers the Northern Lights in Alaska are man made… hmmmmm (Andy writes: The URA is a really great place to visit! They have 3 models of the Island in various scales on display showing Singapore now and the future, they have displays explaining what they want to do with demos of lighting to be used, mock ups of buildings and areas, its more of a gallery than a planning department. Oh if Somerset County Council had one. If you come to Singapore I think this place should be first on the list! You’ll have more of an understanding of the city and the transportation system they have! Becky however, may not agree)
Finally headed back to the hostel past a food court for noodles, chicken and rice, I think its safe to say we’re going to miss a hearty dinner and drinks for two for 3 pounds.
If you’re wondering about the title they are the three things Singaporians love to do.
March 29, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 3 Comments
We’ve left Kuala Lumpur with the worlds tallest twin towers and the worlds highest communication tower, the highest flagpole, the world best Airport with the worlds highest control tower, next to the worlds longest unsupported aircraft hanger to head for Singapore, oddly flying into the the worlds best Airport. Malaysians love boasting but some of it maybe self proclaimed. Maybe, Worlds Best Airport (in Malaysia).
One thing we sadly missed in KL due to a lack of interest on Becky’s part was the International Telephone Museum, I’m told I can come back with Sim one day to take a trip around.
Link: Photos in Malaysia
Singapore is a lovely contrast to KL, three times the price (about 10 instead of 4 quid a day), but cleaner, easier and safer. We’re staying next to Sultan Mosque in a little hostel called Sleepy Sam’s. Fantastic showers and a surprisingly quiet dorm…
Link: Photos in Singapore
The city feels much like its been designed by an art gallery curator and is lovely to walk about, even in a thunderstorm. Since it is raining heavily. We’ve come inside out of the rain, in to the coolness of an internet cafe, to stick some photos up and listen to a bit of Apple AM, Musgrove Parks very own radio station. We’d also like to say hi to everyone in Fielding, thanks for showing an interest in our trip, while we’re thanking people, as there aren’t many more entries coming thanks everyone, just under 100 people subscribed to hear about our adventures and more visited the site, we hope we didn’t bore you and hopefully enjoyed it. We’ll find a few more things to write about.
March 24, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 0 Comments
To rip off Doug Adams “Space,is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space”. Now if you just replace Space with Malaysian Shopping Malls you might get the idea of how big they are, they make Cribbs Causeway look like your local corner shop!
We went to a couple today to get out the rain and/or stifling heat, one was 12 floors high with the top few spanned by rollercoaster to keep the kids amused (and us). Malaysians certainly know how to shop till they drop! Unfortunately with no space in our bags and already a couple 2kgs over our limits we can only window shop at all the pretty things. We found one mall devoted to all things electronic!
We have been here a few days and each day we have been beaten by the weather! It is so sticky and hot that as soon as you walk 100m you are a sticky sweaty mess! Nice! We have attempted to do some sightseeing, the Petronas towers, the National Museum, the Merdeka Square. Tomorrow we are going to the Batu Caves (needs to be seen to be believed) and wander the markets of Chinatown.
Everywhere in Malaysia is so difficult to get to, KL hates pedrestrians (the pavements are next to 8 lane congested roads, broken or non existant- crossing the roads is like playing “Froggit” - you are very likely to get squashed. Malaysians don’t seem to believe in sign posting anything- it took us 3 attempts to find the Tourist office! Having said that, Pubic transport is aplenty, with 3 different monorails/undergrounds, a taxi at every turn but the buses have a secret timetable only they know, the bus station is…. well… could be anywhere.
At the end though, Malaysia has a charm of its own and we’ll be back (with more money that time and an empty bag!) people are friendly, food is cheap and healthy, there are some beautiful places in Malaysia that we’d like to go to - the Rainforest, the Islands and Georgetown. But it’s bloody hot! We’ll be planting more trees to offset the carbon footprint for our excessive use of air conditioning 
March 20, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 1 Comment
It’s 5:30 in the morning, its dark, we’ve been up for hours and we’re sitting in the airport waiting for the gates to open for Singapore Airlines flight SQ220.
Too much to see, too little time hasn’t really mean’t much before this trip, a week anywhere isn’t enough.
We wanted to see something at Opera House but with nothing on we went to see ‘Hot Fuzz’ at the cinema, making us a little homesick for Somerset and Somerfield. Yesteday we went to the Olympic Park for lunch and to wandered about but couldn’t help feel it was a little lifeless with on sporting events on, just us tourists. The day before, for one of the first times on our trip, we split up to get the most out of the day. Becky went off to see the Koalas at the Zoo, and I went around the Gallerys and Museums.
Sydneys an amazing place everyone should visit.
I’m going off for a nap.
March 18, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 0 Comments
A simple waterproof sack that we’ve used to put our important items in, keeping it dry while kayak touring and hiking. What can we say, very durable and has been submerged too many times. Invaluble.
March 18, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 0 Comments
After lots of searching, we found this MP3 player on amazon for about 150 quid, which has turned out to be invaluble and rather robust!
We left the UK with 80 gig of music, video, photos of friends and family, digital copies of our passports, tickets and important documents all cleverly encrypted away from prying eyes. It comes with a ‘USB Host lead’ which means, when our digital cameras full, we can dump the photos on the device and start taking more, all without the need of searching for a computer.
Due to the nature of how we’ve been travelling, it’s had a hard life, even getting soaked through (invest in a waterproof case) and although I’m sure the warranties now void, the metal case scratched and dented, it’s still going strong (touch wood)
Its been great, entertaining us on wet evenings and listening to music in the car when radio stations can’t be found.
March 18, 2007 - Posted by Becky Edlin - 0 Comments
We’ve been in Sydney and about now for 4 days, having left the city for the sea side town of Narrabeen, we came back in today to help celebrate the bridges birthday!
Sydney is a vibrant city, full of people! We estimated that there are more people in Sydney than we saw in the entire of New Zealand! It has been quite an effort getting used to full streets, busy shops and full cafes. We escaped to the seaside for fewer people and to get used to Australian way of life from a distance.
Our first day and a half was spent sightseeing, lovely Christina from the hostel gave us a map and route, first port of call was the botanical gardens which overlook Sydney Opera House, where we took endless photos of it and the Harbour Bridge (both iconic landmarks are much bigger than photos make them look), walked round The Rocks- the first part of Australia to be colonised by 700 odd criminals and very quaint- old cobbled streets and European style old houses. Then the Aquaruim- hopefully the only time in Australia that we will come face to face with very big, scary and evil looking sharks! The Aquaruim was awesome, underwater tunnels in the seal and “ocean” areas, an enormous crocodile and vast containers of brightly coloured fish.We also visited the Australian Museum and the Museum of Comtempary Art. After the aquaruim and Museum, we (well Becky mostly) have been checking the lawns for spiders and snakes, any piece of water for jellyfish and crocodiles and we haven’t even dare go in the open sea yet! Damn Aquaruim and Museums!! Today we went on a boat from Manly (Sydneys premiere seaside town) to Circular Quay. Manly, if you can imagine it, looks very much like Torquay! Wasn’t quite what we were expecting!
We were staying in Kings Cross- very swanky during the day, THE place to have a street address, by night it turns into restaurants, strip clubs, “adult entertainment” etc. It is fair to say that this place does not sleep and is full to brimming with quirky characters. We stayed at the Blue Parrot, a bright yellow house situated on the “quieter end” (yeah right!) of Kings Cross. You could compare Kings Cross easily with Soho!
We have been trying some “Australian food”- e.g. kangeroo! We made it into spaghetti bolognase- Andy remarked it tasted very much like horse!! Think that is another story altogether…
See some photos here!
March 12, 2007 - Posted by Becky Edlin - 1 Comment
It was a wet, foggy, miserable day in National Park, so what better than watching all three Lord of the Rings in the comfort of the National Park Hostels Lounge? If we could see outside the window we would have seen the towering presence of Mt Ngauruhoe aka Mount Doom across the fields. As we watched Lord of the Rings (LOTR) we prided ourselves that we had seen a lot of this landscape in the film, from snowy topped mountains to waterfalls in forests; a lot of the scenery is classic New Zealand scenery. All I needed for our epic journey on Friday is a good looking blonde haired elf, a short ginger dwarf, an old grey haired man and a couple of very small people. Oh and not to forgot a Ranger who mysteriously is the real leader of men on earth. Excellent.
We set off first thing in the morning (7am!) to a brighter day. We started quite high up; above the low cloud level anyway! We first skirted round the infamous Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom!) looking angry and forbidding, red dust and jet black scree in a perfect cone. We trudged over marsh (fortunately with no dead things with glowing eys to lead us to our doom) then up a very very steep rock climb (Frodo and Sam surely had blisters by the end?) and to a stunning lookout over the mountain. As we looked into the West (no not elf ships!) we saw Mt Taranaki on the horizon peeping out through the clouds.
We carried on, our mission to catch the 3pm bus at the other end; through craters, volcanic rock, scree sloped mountains. We had beautiful views of “Orc country” no wonder than Peter Jackson chose this landscape for Mordor. Our highest point was “Red Crater” a stunning view of a massive red rock crater, before the journey down. This wasn’t as easy as expected, over a kilometre of rough, slippery grey scree or gravel. No wonder Boromir was so adamant that he wasn’t going anywhere near the place. After pretty much sliding down, praying that we weren’t going to break anything we got to a look out point over the Emerald Lakes.
The Emerald lakes, are, exactly how they sound, 3 bright turquiose lakes at the bottom of the mountain. They were pretty impressive at the top, looking like little puddles but closer inspection found them eeriley still….as if some monster with tentacles was biding its time before snatching small hobbit sized creatures…..hmmmm. We braved it and sat down near the edge for a well earned scroggin snack.
Off again, across a vast crater guided by white poles the Tongariro Crossing continues over Central Crater to Blue Lake. Blue Lake (an old volcanic vent) is also known as Te Wai-whakaata-o-te-Rangihiroa (Rangihiroa’s Mirror). Quite a mouthful. We were on the way down now towards Ketetahi Hut. The walk to the hut had magnificent views across to Lake Taupo (at least 100km away) and what felt like half of Middle Earth…sorry New Zealand. It might well could have been, there was no houses, settlements or any sign of human interference for as far as the eye could see, and it was a long way.
After refreshing ourselves at the Hut (but no lambas bread for us) we carried on down, through alpine scrub and further to dense rainforest with waterfalls and bubbling streams. We arrived for the bus 1 minute too late, the bus had gone, our mission seemingly failed. However there was a glipse of good fortune (Elvish magic me thinks) there was also a bus a 4.15. Phew! What an adventure!
See the epic journeyin Photos
March 6, 2007 - Posted by Andy Bateman - 0 Comments
We’re here in the capital of New Zealand, which incidentally shares its name with my home town. It’s true what they say of Wellington, it’s very very windy.
We came across the Strait from the south island yesterday which left us feeling like New Zealand was almost over for us (which of course it is, we just don’t want to admit it).
We had left Queenstown a week earlier to continue south through Te Anau and Milford Sound, with its breath taking views and vast mountains, through Invercargill, famously labeled ‘Arsehole of the world’ by Mick Jagger, we’ll leave it at that… skipping Bluff, the self proclaimed furthest southern point to go to Slope point, the real southern point of the south island. From the bottom the only way was back up, journeying through The Caitlins National Park and up to Dunedin, failing to find any sign of a bra or shoe fence that hear-say had led us to believe existed. So Dunedin, home of one of the 19 Cadburys Factorys worldwide (and well worth a tour), New Zealands oldest university and the worlds steepest street. Its also worth mentioning, just incase any of you go there with a car, that the innercity carparks close at 6:15, which could leave you, like us, stranded the other side of a large shutter from your car, tent, food, clothes… Then back to Christchurch via Mt Cook (see a life in the day of) for our rare luxury accommodation with our OWN shower! Finally whizzing up through Kaikoura, Blenheim and Picton to catch our ferry.
And here we are, in the city centre, waiting for dinner time after spending a full and hectic day in museums (Te Papa is possibly the best museum we’ve ever been in!), art galleries, on the cable car, window shopping and a cinema visit.
We’re staying in a sizable hostel in the middle of town that an elderly couple checked out of this morning due to it being a ‘Party Hostel’, it’s certainly not the loudest we’ve been in. The Kitchen’s a little grubby so we’ve been using ‘health reasons’ as an excuse to eat out every mealtime.
And the future, plenty of things we want to do but little time, definates however are walking the Tongariro crossing, snowboarding, sailing and climbing in Taupo then off to Sydney!
Maybe another post before we leave ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’ otherwise, see you in Oz!