Auckland - the "mmm, ice cream" edition

So. Let's do this thing!! With the exception of having to get up at 5am to get to the airport on time, getting to Auckland was surprisingly painless. I rock starred my way through immigration, threw my socks all over the place in customs (because I had to show them my hiking boots and I'd cleverly shoved all my socks in there), and met Kat and Ness in the terminal.

A short drive later, we were back at Kat's place just in time for a very belated lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches and Haribo Tangfastics. After much catching up and generally admiring Kat's new house, we went for a little walk along the foreshore and came back via a trip to the dairy (otherwise known to Australia as the milk bar). Which was, I think, about the time that I discovered that my entire life was a lie and that Hairy McLary is not, in fact, from a dairy as in the place where they milk cows, but from a dairy as in a MILK BAR. It's been several weeks now and I still feel betrayed for inexplicable reasons.

Anyway, we picked up a Kapiti stick each - mine was raspberry and white chocolate and it was amaaaaaazing - and headed back to the house for a few drinks on the balcony, a spot of dinner, and Hocus Pocus on DVD. Because, obviously.

The next day, after endlessly mocking the Shopping Channel while having breakfast, we piled into Kat's ute and headed north. We stopped in Wellsford for an early lunch, then continued on to the Kauri Museum at Matakohe where, despite being allowed to take photos, I completely neglected to because I was so busy being all "Holy crap, these dudes were hardcore" over the early kauri foresters. We ended up spending several hours there because there was so much stuff to see. We made it back to Auckland just in time for Cider O'Clock and sunset on the deck:

And then we watched Heavenly Creatures, which is an INCREDIBLY weird film.

The following day, we got back in the ute and headed out to Puhoi for some cheese tasting and ice cream nomming. Award winning ice cream, nonetheless! If you go, I heartily recommend the Dutch chocolate/mixed berry combination:

NOM.

From there, we headed out to the west coast and Bethells Beach. I was particularly intrigued by this particular sign which we came across about two seconds after walking onto the sand:

Luckily, we didn't come across any. Bethells Beach has black sand thanks to the surrounding volcanic rock, and we quickly discovered that black sand gets rather warm in the sun. Thankfully(?), it clouded over not long after we got there so it was actually bearable to walk on the sand. It was almost deserted and amazingly gorgeous:

Aaaaaand this is already long enough, so I'll leave what we did on the way back from the beach until next time!

K xx

101 in 1001 #35

Yesterday, I managed to cross something off my Day Zero project list. Which, considering I spent the entire day sitting on a plane, is rather impressive.

Okay, so what I crossed off was "Watch sunrise and sunset in the same day", but I still did it! 

Confusingly for me, 3rd January had TWO sunrises and TWO sunsets. But considering both of these took place on the same continent, I'm still counting it.

Sunrise took place about two hours outside LA:

And sunset took place somewhere over Kansas. Or Texas. Or Oklahoma. Or Arkansas. I have no idea, to be perfectly honest. It was pretty though!  

Plus side to flying half way around the world? FOUND. 

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XIII

If you missed the last installment of the story, it featured hot springs, Andean condors, altitude sickness, and head-eagles. And a good dose of drunken singing by the numerous Australians in our group.

The following morning saw us getting up at stupid o'clock to catch a bus from Arequipa to Puno. A number of people (including our tour leader!) were still drunk, so the bus ride was...interesting. It was also filled with truly terrible movies, including The Game Plan, in which The Rock discovers he has a kid. Really quality stuff.

Our first afternoon in Puno mostly consisted of food, if I remember correctly. And an awful lot of television. The following morning, we piled into pedal trikes and headed for the docks. I'm fairly certain our trike driver nearly died of a heart attack through overexertion getting us there.

Super flattering photo. Except not.

From there, we boarded a boat and headed out the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. The floating islands are really nifty. For starters, they FLOAT. And the Uros people live on them! Just bobbing around with a shit ton of water underneath you. Kind of like a boat, only it's a giant boat that's made of stuff that decomposes pretty quickly... The islands are made out of the local reeds with peat underneath, and they're anchored to the floor of the lake. The local people showed us around, and gave us some of the local barley bread to try. Along with the reeds they use to build the islands. They taste like celery (aka DISGUSTING)...

Demonstration of how they build the islands.

We then had a trip on a reed boat to another island, which caused me to panic that the entire thing (the boat, not the island) was going to fall apart under my body weight and I would drown in Lake Titicaca. Logic: sometimes, my brain lacks it.

The boat in question

Unsurprisingly, the boat was completely sturdy and made the trip without any problems at all. On the second island, we got back on a boat that had a motor and allowed us to be more than 2 feet from the water, and had a trip of several hours to Amantani Island, where we were to have an overnight homestay. Upon arrival at Amantani, we were divided into groups. Ness, Sydney Sider, and I met our host mum, and attempted to make small talk via the A5 sheet of paper we'd been given listing various Quechua phrases. It did not go particularly well...

She took us back to the house and showed us to our room. Soon, her 11 year old daughter came home from school, and attempted to make conversation with us in Spanish. We'd done some basic phrasebook type Spanish before leaving Australia, but being able to order beer or ask for the bill really doesn't help that much in a homestay situation... Especially when Spanish is a second language for both sides of the conversation. #AWKWARDTURTLE

After a lunch of quinoa soup, potatoes and grilled cheese (YUM!), we were taken up to the local soccer pitch. Playing soccer at altitude is not an enjoyable task. Or so I hear - I was having trouble breathing just from walking up the hill to the soccer pitch, so I sat on the sidelines and laughed at the misfortune of others made encouraging comments.

Following the soccer playing (or lack thereof), it was time for a 'little' walk. Trying to climb a mountain at altitude is not fun at the best of times. But when you're being followed by a small child playing Frere Jacques (badly) on the panpipes? That kid was lucky he didn't get punched in the face... From the top of Pachatata, you could see clear across the lake to Bolivia, and we got to see a pretty spectacular sunset/moonrise:

Back at the house, we had dinner and met the rest of the family. This included a toddler, whose name we never learnt but who we nicknamed Squealie due to her...exuberant nature. After dinner, our host mum came into our room and assisted us in putting local costumes on over our clothes. There were many many layers involved, and I ended up with a super attractive boob shelf.

I conveniently don't have a photo of myself in this attire.
So here's one of Ness instead. Sorry Nessa...

Then it was a walk up another giant hill (in the dark!) to a dance with every tourist on the island. Turns out? Running around a room in some kind of conga line for fifteen minutes at a time AT ALTITUDE? Not real fun. Well. It WAS fun. It was just hard to breathe by the time we finished. After a few hours of "Oh God, I can't breathe", it was back to the house, where we passed a freezing cold night under about a hundred layers of bedclothes.

The following morning, the three of us bade a fond farewell to our host mum and Squealie (the others already being at school/work), and the entire group boarded a boat back to Puno. We had the afternoon to ourselves and, as someone had a copy of the Lonely Planet, a few of us decided to check out their recommended sights in Puno.

One was a total waste of time, but the other? That featured a statue of the first Inca, and a pretty spectacular view:

Next up, travelling from Puno to Cusco, a whole bunch of historic stuff, and our group gets some exciting new additions. (And when I say 'exciting', I mean 'batshit crazy'...)

K xx

30 Days of Photography - Day 15

Happy Australia Day, kids! I've celebrated by going for a bush walk, complete with a mob of kangaroos, and will shortly be having barbequed lamb for dinner! #giantstereotype #onlynotquitesoboganasmostofthestereotypes #stupidlylonghashtags

Ahem. The theme for Day 15 of the challenge was 'silhouette'. I've been trying for about a week now to take some silhouette photos, and have failed miserably every single time. So I'm abandoning ship and delving into the archives again, otherwise I'll never get this bloody challenge finished!

So, in honour of Australia Day, have a silhouette photo of Uluru and Kata Tjuta that I took in 2010.

K xx

30 Days of Photography - Day 12

Contrary to what it might seem, I haven't actually forgotten about the 30 Day Photography Challenge. The theme for day 12 is 'sunset'. So for the past ten days, I've been trying to remind myself to head out with the camera just before sunset. And every single day, I've either forgotten or it's been raining/cloudy/miserable. And tonight we're going out for dinner because it's my dad's birthday.

So just this once, I'm going to cheat and delve into the archives instead.

Taken with my crappy point and shoot in Flores, Guatemala in June 2008. If I remember correctly, I was with my BFF Sara - who I'd known for about 24 hours at that point - and we were on our way to get ice cream. Aww. Good times...

K xx

Chicago, the "this is the last one, I promise" edition

So after I left Sweeney, Lor and Penny at Navy Pier on Monday afternoon, I realised that I had about 36 hours left in Chicago, and way too much still on my list of things to do. I had high hopes for going up to the zoo seeing as how it's free and all, but sadly there was insufficient time :(

On Monday night, I headed up to the John Hancock Observatory to watch the sun set over the city. That was pretty awesome. The audio tour was narrated by David Schwimmer, which was a little disconcerting because I kept expecting the information about Chicago's landmarks to include the line "We were on a BREAK!!" at regular intervals...

Anyway, the view from the top is incredible. And being up there for sunset was pretty cool. I think I may have elbowed a small child out of the way to get a decent spot at the window to take photos. #whoops

The something-or-other building. I have no idea. Anyone know?

Sunset over the Chicago River. And, you know, Chicago...

I then went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the base of the John Hancock Building, and ordered a weight management salad (cos I'm ALL about the dieting. What?) and a side of macaroni and cheese in an attempt to get over the trauma of the mac and bonfire that we'd had at lunchtime. The waiter may have laughed at me when I ordered. Clearly, he's never needed to get the taste of mac and bonfire out of his mouth... *jealous*

The next day, I got up to find it tipping with rain. After unsuccessfully trying to wait it out at my hotel, I was forced to make a mad dash across the street to 7-11 to buy an umbrella. By the time I'd done that, it was thundering. It made walking a mile down Michigan Avenue rather interesting, that's for sure!

I finally made it to the Art Institute in one (slightly squelchy) piece. And I had an awesome time there. Do you guys ever play a game at museums and art galleries where you pretend that you're insanely rich and can take home one thing from each room?

I have no idea when I started playing it. I have half a suspicion that it's something my mum the teacher would have invented to make sure that we were paying attention to the objects and reading the text labels and generally learning stuff rather than aimlessly wandering around. If it *was* my mum (HI MUM!!!), at least it paid off - she got a museum curator out of it!

Anyway, I played said game at the Art Institute the other week. And thank God I'm *not* filthy rich, or my house would need to be much bigger than it is, because i would now be the proud owner of the following:

• a Mayan stelae,
• several Monet paintings,
• a couple of grandfather clocks,
• Grant Wood's American Gothic,
• a medieval necklace in the shape of a dragon,
• a half suit of armour from sixteenth century Italy,
• a Van Gogh self portrait, 
• a frieze of donkeys from the wall of an ancient Egyptian tomb,
• some Chinese bronze water vessels,
• a painting of an orange grove in Spain,
• a truly awesome library ladder (though sadly not of the slide-y variety), and
• this painting, solely because of the completely ridiculous hat that (male) baby is wearing:

Awesome... I hope he gave his parents hell for this painting when he grew up. 

Of course, it stopped raining during the four hours I spent in the Art Institute, and started again the minute I left... And the rain was even harder than it had been on the way down there. When the rain started coming THROUGH my umbrella, I decided it was time to take shelter under the portico of a nearby office building. Still, by the time I got back to the hotel, my shoes made squelchy noises and my socks were so wet that I had to wring them out in the bath #funtimes #ew

But despite the thunderstorms, my last few days in Chicago were awesome. Well...except for the part where I dragged my suitcase three blocks in the wrong direction on my way to the airport because I threw out my map of Chicago at the hotel. And the part where I asked someone where the train station was and he gave me a weird look and then pointed about two metres to his left #FAIL But, ya know, other than that, it was great!! ;)

Seriously though, does anyone else play that game? Or am I a crazy person?? :S

K xx

Central Australia Part 2 - Uluru

So like I said at the end of my epic Kings Canyon post, we got to stop on the side of the road, run up a massive sand dune, and see the sun set over Uluru and Kata Tjuta. That's Kata Tjuta on the right, incidentally!

It was pretty damned impressive, I have to say.

Sara managed to get a couple of silhouette shots. I wasn't brave enough to mess around with my shutter speed without having a tripod to rely on!

From there, it was another 45 minutes in the bus to the campsite (permanent tents with actual beds in them - my kind of camping!). After a dinner of steak, roo steak, and camel sausages and a quick shower (nothing like showering with a massive grasshopper to make you rush...), it was off to bed after what seemed like the longest day ever. To be honest, the next day wasn't a whole lot shorter. We were woken up at 3.45, and breakfast was on the table until 4.30. Nothing like a nice bowl of Coco Pops in the middle of the night! :S

I will say one thing for getting up at stupid o'clock: the stars were TOTALLY worth it. I've not seen stars like that since the Inca Trail! Aaaanyway, we left camp at 4.45. It was a 45-odd minute drive from camp to the other side of Uluru where you can see the sun rise hitting the rock. On the plus side, it wasn't raining, which made a nice improvement on the previous day!

Anyway, sunrise was at around 5.45. We staked out a good spot, tried not to freeze to death, and stood around waiting...

Gradually, the sun began to come up, and the rock started to change colour from a grey colour to brown:

To red:

And then finally, FINALLY, the sun crested the hill:

And once that happened, the rock turned orange:

Once sunrise was over, we piled back into the bus, and headed around to the start of the base walk. I was slightly horrified when I realised that it was only 6.30 in the morning, that we'd been up for nearly 3 hours, and that we were about to walk 9.4km in two hours... :S

The walk around the base is incredibly worth the effort. At 6.30 in the morning, it was still relatively cool - you'd be nuts to try and do it in the middle of the day! - which meant it was fairly easy going for the most part. It's only when walking around the base that you can see Uluru for what it really is - enormous and ridiculously varied.

Does this look like an alien skull to anyone else???

The edges of the rock are so defined against the sky that a lot of the time, it looks like it's been photoshopped into the landscape.

The lines on the rock are actually stratigraphic layers - Uluru is actually a slab of sandstone bedrock that was pushed up during a mountain building period in the Palaeozoic era millions of years ago. That's pretty freaking cool, especially when you realise that there's another 2km of Uluru below the surface...

The black lines on the rock are a type of algae, and indicate where water's flowed during rain. Apparently Uluru is pretty bloody incredible in the rain, but frankly, I'm glad we didn't have to experience it!

It really is the most amazingly changeable scenery...

This bit, for instance, looked like a whale:

While this bit was just bizarre and amazing:

This is one of my favourite photos from the walk:

This is the waterhole inside Uluru - it's sheltered from the outside, and we got to see it when the water level was really high from all the rain in recent months!

Just around the corner from the waterhole was this rock art. It's amazing how different Central Australian rock art is from the rock art further north in Kakadu... Although apparently it serves a completely different purpose, so I suppose it's not all *that* surprising.

This bit was just cool. I really wanted to know if there was a little waterhole up over that lip:

And this ridge? This is where the climb is. God knows why the hell you'd think climbing it was a good idea...

Especially when you see this. This is the chain. Or, more accurately, the first THIRD of the chain, which is all you can see from the ground.

You still have to get up several more ridges to reach the top. Not only is it incredibly disrespectful to the local Aboriginal people to climb, but something like half of all people who climb the rock use the top as a bathroom. That's just wrong. Not to mention the fact that the strong winds at the top can actually knock you right off the side of the rock! Thank God the climb looks like it's going to be closed permanently sometime in the next twelve months...

We finished the walk at around 8.30 (which, frighteningly, was deemed morning tea time!), and drove to a lookout to get some photos of the whole of Uluru:

From there, it was a 45 minute drive out to Kata Tjuta. But that's a story for another time. A painful, painful story, filled with the cheesiest, worst Australian music imaginable... Isn't that something to look forward to?? ;)

K xx