From Moeraki we sped to Catlins, completely skipping Dunedin. Cities are not what we came to New Zealand after. We wanted to see Purakaunui Falls and Peter found 2 more nearby.
When Zuzka and me are searching for places to go we are looking at photos in Google Maps, Google Earth, books and similar. On the other hand Peter checks where geocaches are. They are usually at interesting places and it happened many times he navigated us (pun intended) to wonderful places we missed. This was our first encounter with rain forest and we liked it (it was not raining).
During planning of our trip in New Zealand I had hard time to persuade Zuzka to accept big side trip to Moeraki. I wanted to see those famous boulders and she preferred other places - there are so many of them in New Zealand. Peter sided with me so she finally accepted. But everything was resolved in favour of Moeraki after we failed to book Milford Track for beginning of our trip. The first available slot was at 6th, so that we needed to spend more time in south - the side trip sounded better now.
Next day we woke up full of hopes to do helicopter flight to Mt. Cook. It was partially cloudy, but nearly half of sky was clear. We called to Tekapo Helicopter at 9am and they did not know when they will fly. I tried again at 10am with the same result. That's it, we could not wait longer.
According to original plan we wanted to do about 3h long hike in Hooker Valley under Mt. Cook. But due to bad weather we decided to skip it too. We had about 200km to go for today plus some stops and we lost some time by waiting for helicopter friendly weather.
We woke up to see terrible storm on 3rd of January. Great, it was wonderful weather yesterday and it is terrible today. We got completely soaked just after running to the other side of road and packing our luggage into car. That did not help with our mood.
And we had two attractions asking for fair weather planned today! We planned to go into Lake Tekapo and to have helicopter trip to Mt Cook. We can move that to next day or to next week when we get to Wanaka or Franz Josef. But we will not be able to move visit of St John observatory to any other day, so let's hope sun starts to shine.
We left Australia on 2nd of January. It was cloudy morning, we could not see panorama of city well. Thick layer of clouds was beneath us nearly during whole flight over Tasman Sea. But shortly before reaching New Zealand clouds scattered and we could see land. Wonderful mountains with some snow and big lakes. Our landing in Queenstown reminded me our landing in Lhasa last year. Sunny, blue sky, mountains at both sides.
While being in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park we could not miss the 2nd attraction about 30km from Uluru - Kata Tjuta. From photos we found on Internet we decided to spend more time at Kata Tjuta than Uluru and I think we made a good decision.
We made two hikes at/around Kata Tjuta and we watched sunrise there too.
I am going to take you on short travel in time, because I am going to skip whole 3 weeks in New Zealand and return there after adding 2 posts from Yulara. I just want to have whole Australia together.
So, we visited Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park at 27th - 29th January. It was middle of summer and we got what we asked for: 40-42°C. We arrived to Yulara shortly after noon and the 2nd thing we noticed after realizing it is really hot were midgets. Or I should say they noticed us. Yulara is a resort serving National Park and its visitors. All hotels there are owned by one company, but they provide accommodation for all budgets. An advantage is that there is free shuttle from/to airport as well as regular bus service around the resort. We learned this in shuttle from airport. Its driver provided us complete information, where are shops, what to do when you arrive at the entrance to National Park (while sitting in bus of tour operator) - wave your ticket to guards. We had been accommodated at Outback Pioneer Lodge (the cheapest option with a solid roof). It was rather nice. Several of small buildings with rooms, nice smelling eucalyptus trees providing shade, red sand everywhere, nice pool, barbecue area. We went to local "travel agency" where we paid for our 2 days ticket pre-booked at Uluru Express. They provide very good service. They are able to take you to Uluru or Kata Tjuta for sunrise or sunset, then you can decide on your program for next morning. For example they will drop you off near Uluru, after walking around they will pick you up at defined place at given time. So you are not tied to other 30 people and predefined program. Do what you want and are able to do. In the beginning we were not sure we will want more than 2 hikes. It was too hot. But at the end we managed:- the 1st evening - evening walk at Walpa Gorge (Kata Tjuta), sunset at Uluru.
- morning of the 2nd day - sunrise at Kata Tjuta and 3 hours walk Valley of the Winds (Kata Tjuta)
- evening of the 2nd day - visit of Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre and sunset at Uluru
- the 3rd morning - sunrise at Uluru. This was bit of surprise, because we thought 2 days ticket is valid only 2 days, but actually it seems to work for 2 mornings and 2 evenings. Simply during every trip the Uluru Express driver asked us what we want to do next and explained all possibilities. That's how I imagine good service!
We arrived to Sydney on 31st of December 2009 in the morning. Apart from visiting The Opera House we wanted to see New Years Eve fireworks. But it will not be so easy, because we skipped sleep during night.
It was impossible to find cheap accommodation in centre of Sydney. Don't get me wrong. We were looking for it in August! But all YHA hostels had 7 days of minimal stay so we settled on Formule 1 in Olympic Park. It was not bad, but it was too far (even with very good Australian trains) and mostly the room was tiny. We were 3 in the room for 4 people and we had not enough place to put our luggage!
We are leaving Bangkok afternoon on 30/12/2009. But we want to see more in the morning. After breakfast we are going to buy tickets for airport bus. It is closed, so it will need to wait until we return from Summer Palace.
Driver of tuk-tuk does not know how to get there. Our map is not sufficient for him so he stops twice to ask other tuk-tuk drivers. After some time I stop to believe we will get there, but tuk-tuk eventually manages.
Our first stop on our small Round the World trip has been Bangkok in Thailand. It was only stop over on flight to Sydney. Originally I was not impressed when Zuzka selected Bangkok from all possible stop overs, my opinion of Thailand was not very good, I guess it was thanks to mini-series Bangkok Hilton. Well, I was wrong. It is beautiful country that we need to explore more in future. (We did not have enough time to see much, you cannot see whole Bangkok if you have only 1.5 days for it, but we have seen photos of Zuzka's friend Dida who goes there every year). From things we have seen I have liked the most intricate details of decoration of buildings. I am going to show some of them here.
We arrived at afternoon of 27th of December, obtained Visa on Arrival and hit the rush hour with our bus. When we arrived to our guest house New Siam II it was already dark so we went straight to restaurant for dinner and some drinks. After that we shortly walked around the area and went to bed "as soon as possible".
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