Mount Cook

So leaving Lake Tekapo on another cloud-free day we stopped off at a nearby salmon farm. The farm is actually setup in a canal created to take the water exiting the Lake Tekapo hydro-power station to another hydro-power station further down the line of stations at the next lake, Lake Pukaki (New Zealand generates a huge proportion of it's electricity from hydro-power, which fits nicely into it's national 'green' image). Apparently this constant fresh water flow prevents many common fish-farming diseases, and so after a short tour from the friendly owner, a bit of fish feeding, and a free sashimi taster, we bought some fresh salmon for that evening's dinner.

So after a fabulous drive along the lake shore with fleeing glimpses of the snow capped mountains in the distance we arrived that afternoon at Mount Cook village, and after checking it out (including popping into the exclusive and famous Hermitage Hotel - and using the free Internet that I stumbled across as I was exploring the views from the top floor!), we setup camp in the nearby Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite.

I think maybe our 4 days at Mount Cook capture most succinctly some of my most lasting impressions of New Zealand in general. Basically here we were with free entry to one of the most important National Parks in the country, in amazingly cheap accommodation (all the DOC sites around New Zealand are only a few dollars each per night, although the facilities are very basic), with a large number of completely free hikes that are all brilliantly maintained and signposted, and with truly majestic snow capped mountains greeting you each morning. For me at least, it just seemed to capture an important aspect of life in general - being able to emerse yourself in the splendor and majesty of the natural world, without it being 'enhanced' by interpretative centres or surrounded by 'safety' fences, or protected by security guards. And of course, access should ideally be free - and in all those regards the kiwis seem to have it spot-on.

Certainly in Australia we had to pay just to enter most of the National Parks (in one of Tasmania's parks I asked if we could just walk through the gate to have our lunch and then leave, i.e. not actually walk or hike through the park, but I was told no, I'd have to pay the full entry fee - needless to say, we just drove on). I remember getting quite annoyed at having to pay to enter Dun Aengus on Inish Mor years ago, something we never had to do when I as a kid, but such is progress I suppose (and obviously I know that these monuments have to be protected from vandals, and general idiot tourists - it's all just such a pity though).

Anyway, we spent 3 nights at the DOC campsite, and all very cosy it was too nestled at the base of a large hill, just around the side of which was a great view up the valley to Mount Cook itself. Over those 4 days I hiked all the marked one day trails in the area (various lengths, but about 8 in all I think). My favorite hike was the Hooker Valley, which basically just follows the valley that approaches Mount Cook, giving a clear view of the mountain for practically the whole length of the walk.

Later that same day I did the Meuller Hut hike, which was far more challenging, as it involves climbing a steep mountain. I actually met Sarah who was coming back down (she wasn't feeling the best that morning, so didn't fancy the Hooker Valley, but felt better later and decided to do the Mueller Hut trek). At the top of the climb there was a ferociously strong wind, probably the strongest wind I've ever encountered. I knew the Mueller Hut (used by hikers trekking for multiple days), wasn't that much further on, but I was thinking it was getting a bit late in the day, and I thought things might get dodgy going down the mountain if the wind got much stronger. So I turned back after a couple of photos and some mad leaning-into-the-wind antics.

On one of the hikes I saw a big chunk of ice break off an iceberg and crash into the Tasman glacier lake - pretty cool to see (although I didn't actually hear any crash or anything, but still another one of those things I've always wanted to see, so another one ticked off the list).

On our last evening, after checking out the impressive Edmund Hillary centre (which had a couple of good planetarium shows, and a great documentary on Hillary himself of course), we splashed out on dinner at the famous Hermitage hotel's restaurant. We had no trouble getting a table, and arrived at the perfect time to watch the last of the daylight disappear while gazing at Mount Cook through the huge restaurant windows. It was a fantastic meal too, one of the best of the trip, and not too expensive either.

But when we came back from the restaurant, we discovered to our surprise that our picnic table had been stolen! It was awkward having the table and chairs in the van while we slept, so we'd generally keep them under the van at night, and we hadn't bothered to put them back in the van before we left for the village that afternoon. Although it was very annoying (and Sarah got up early the next morning to scour the town looking for the culprits (our neighbours at the campsite saw the guys using it for their dinner, and then drive off with it)), it was really a bit of a blessing in the end. We had very rarely used the table, and never missed it thereafter, so in the end it saved us from having to cart it around (and the rental people just dismissed it without any charge to us, which was nice of them really).

Anyway, after no sign of the thieves, I did a big 5 hour hike up the Tasman Valley, hoping to see the terminal face of the Tasman glacier. It was actually quite a boring hike this time, and you don't get close to the glacial face at all really (just the rocky moraine top surface level, which is still kinda impressive I suppose when there are big holes in the ice). After a quick stop at the hut for my lunch, where the road just runs out (the glacier is still eroding it's way down the valley, and the hut has been moved a couple of times in the past), I came back, and we made our way South to the town of Twizel.

Lake Tekapo

Next morning we were off to Lake Tekapo, en route to Mount Cook. Along the way we had great views of the mad blue lake itself, the surrounding hills and distant mountains, with a great vantage point at one point of the mighty Mount Cook itself. The lake is fed from glacial streams, which give the water this strange, but beautiful pale blue colour. The paleness comes from suspended rock particles (called rock flour), eroded by the glaciers as they make their way down from the nearby high mountains. It became a common feature of many of the lakes and rivers we saw throughout New Zealand.

After a stroll around the very picturesque Church of the Good Shepherd, we spent the first day just relaxed in the tiny Lake Tekapo village (only one lake-front street really), and booked a night tour of the neighbouring observatory for that night. Accordingly to our Lonely Planet the observatory wasn't running tours as this time of year, and so I was initially quite disappointed. But then Sarah just happened to pass by their booking office and noticed that they looked open for business, which they were. Naturally I booked our tour right there and then, as this was the realisation of yet another dream for me - the chance to view the heavens through a seriously big telescope.

The tour was totally brilliant, even better than I could have expected. The night we choose to arrive just happened to be the clearest night they'd had in many days. We drove up the hill to the observatory in total darkness, as even the headlights of our mini-bus would have been enough to disturb the working telescopes. Our guide was a very enthusiastic and passionate amateur astronomer (Eva from Finland), and she kitted us out in big puffy jackets and hot coffee to ward off the seriously chilly hilltop evening.

Then we had a quick orientation of the night sky's constellations with a very handy and effective laser pen. By far the most impressive were simply the Magellanic Clouds. Although I'd been to the Southern Hemisphere twice before, and seen wonderfully clear night skies, I had never realised that the two hazy, cloudy-looking things alongside the Milky Way were actually our two nearest galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. To think that you can simply look into the night sky on a clear day and with the naked eye see two huge galaxies (even if they do appear to be just hazy clouds), is just awesome to me.

Then Eva brought all of us into the 40cm telescope enclosure. Apparently that's about the state-of-the-art size for amateur telescopes these days, but still costing close to a million US dollars.
Eva then controlled the telescope and we each took turns in viewing some of the big celebrities of the Southern Hemisphere's heavens.

First up, and easily the most impressive, was Saturn, with it's rings being as clear as day (so to speak!). It really was an amazing experience to be actually looking directly at Saturn and seeing the disk of it's rings so clearly - obviously I had to go around the group and have a second look, as did most people I think.

Next up was the Tarantula nebula that looks incredible too (although you don't see the colours seen in the photos - they are added artificially to represent different, non-visual wavelengths). The third object was a globular cluster. With just binoculars or a weak telescope it looks like a dim, faint star, but through our 40cm monster it appeared as a mass of clustered individual pinpoint stars - again a beautiful and wondrous sight.

After all that we were brought outside again to view the night sky and had some more laser pointing and informative discussion. All in all, I thought it was a fantastic tour, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone, so long as you get a clear night of course.

The next day we did a big 7 hour hike under clear blue skies, starting off by hiking back up the hill to the observatory to soak up the daytime views, and have a spot of light lunch. Once here we realised that the observatory also ran shorter, cheaper day tours of they're latest working telescope, the US$7M MOA. This telescope does it's serious work during the night, so is only viewable during the day. Eva was our guide again, and she took us in to see the observatory's latest and greatest toy, and a mightest impressive piece of kit it is too. Basically this telescope is searching for planets around distant stars, and has already found a few. It was also pretty cool to get to see the computer room where the astronomers work, with it's banks of number-crunching super processors.

After the tour and a leisurely lunch looking down onto the lake, town and surrounding countryside, we set off again. We bushwhacked our way down the hill and walked along the edge of Lake Alexandria and swung back to the town via some more adventurous off-trail experimentation. The weather had been perfect, and it was a long day of hiking, so we stopped off on the way back for a well deserved soak at the hot pools. These aren't natural thermal springs or anything, just outdoor heated pools, but the effect was much the same and was utterly relaxing, and it was a great spot to see the last of the daylight fade. We spent so long at the pools, in fact, that we had a spot of trouble getting dinner that night in the town.

The next morning it was off to the famous Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest, and most culturally revered mountain.

Geraldine (it's the name of a town)

So on the way to Geraldine we stopped off at Wood Shed Creek for more hiking (including visiting an old miner's pit - lots of the early Europeans came to New Zealand hoping to make their fortunes mining). But on getting back to the van I noticed that we had a puncture.

At first I thought of Namibia and of having to change the wheel in the middle of nowhere, but the tire didn't look completely flat, so we decided to try and drive on it, and in fact Sarah reckoned it felt fine. Obviously we took it easy to the next town, which luckily was only a few kilometres down the road. Also luckily, the very small town happened to have a garage, and a very well equipped garage at that, and the puncture was very professionally fixed up in about 20 minutes, and for only $20 (the culprit was a huge fencing nail which we no doubt had picked up on the unsealed road out to 'Edoras').

Whew - so much relieved we were back on the road in no time and stopped off to do a couple of fabulous hikes at Sharplin Falls and through the amazingly prehistoric Peel Forest to Acland Falls, having a lovely sausage sandwich lunch at the spectacular falls themselves (leftovers from our bangers and mash dinner the night before).

At this point I suppose I should mention that from now on just about every reference to a hike, or the scenery generally, in New Zealand will, by necessity, need to be prefixed with superlatives of the like of 'amazing', 'gorgeous', 'fantastic', 'stunning', etc. So I suppose that would just become tiresome for all involved, so I'll just leave try and leave them out completely, and see how it goes. But of course, needless to say, just about everywhere in New Zealand really is, genuinely, spectacularly, and majestically, beautiful - it really isn't all hype or the usual tourism propaganda.

For the record though - it's still not quite on a par with my memories of Nepal, but then the highest mountain in New Zealand (Mount Cook), is only 3,700 metres, whereas the Himalayas have a number of peaks over 8,000 metres. Nepal's scenic beauty is just on a completely different scale, but Nepal also has the other-worldly cultural experiences of being a Buddhist nation, and the cuisine is 'culture-shocky' too, but in a great way - dahl bhat, the national dish, is one of my all-time favorite dishes, incredibly basic and simple though it is (possibly because the main ingredient is potato, and of course I'm a die-hard paddy)!

Anyway, after our puncture, and subsequent (amazingly beautiful - whoops!), hikes, we arrived in the late afternoon at Geraldine, and I headed straight across the road from our camper park to the outdoor heated swimming pool. I thought it was a lovely wee town, and we ended up staying 3 nights. I cooked the first of many Thai green curries the first night, and the next day we hired bikes for a full day riding around the area (including stopping at a cool local church, riding through a nice small gorge, and the weather held up right until we came back, when the light rain started). We also saw the movie 'Black Book' in the cool, quirky local cinema (with really comfy couches for the punters and an intermission for snacks or beers).

In fact, the relaxing few days we spent here turned out to be very well timed, as it was here, while doing not very much, that we had the only serious rain of our entire three month stay in New Zealand.

So after our 3 days in Geraldine it was on towards one of New Zealand's major tourist attractions, Mount Cook - but first we stopped off at Lake Tekapo, for no other reason really than that we could!

Methven

So Methven is really a ski resort during the winter (or the closest town to the ski runs anyway - unlike Europe, the resorts aren't actually on the slopes, but quite a few kilometres away). For the rest of the year I think it's a pretty quite town, albeit a nice one I thought.

The following morning we did a jet boat ride on the nearby Rakaia river - we just pulled up alongside the river, and 10 minutes later we were screaming up the river and doing the obligatory 360 degree spins. It was all quite impressive, but not exactly the careening through incredibly narrow canyons that you see on TV (although it was a lovely gorge), so I'm still waiting for the scary super-narrow canyon experience.

After the jet boating we made our way towards our first 'Lord of the Rings' film location - Edoras. Even though Sarah is really the big 'Lord of the Rings' fan, as soon as we rounded the approaching corner I instantly recognised the location from the movie. The real name of the location is Mount Sunday, and it was amazingly quite traffic-wise. So, as it was getting a little bit late in the day we just decided to drive further into the valley itself and just park up for the night (right opposite the actual hill on which Edoras was built in the movie).

I could cook dinner (bangers and mash), very easily from the van and it was brilliant to have the freedom of having the whole wide open valley practically all to ourselves (I think we saw two other cars over that whole afternoon, evening and next morning). It was a tad worrying being out so far from anywhere (Sarah thinking up weirdo axe murders and the like), but of course everything was fine. It was mad windy throughout the night though (just like in the movie actually!), with the van shaking about a fair bit, but we were well cozy in the van - reminding me of times past, camping in storms and the like (which I'm sure Tony Dempsey remembers from Holland too).

The next morning after a lovely, leisurely, 'valley-all-to-ourselves' breakfast we heading off towards the town of Geraldine.

Akaroa

So our first port of call was the small port town of Lyttleton, only a short drive from Christchurch. It was a lovely wee village to stroll around and has a number of very quirky and characterful bars and cafes. We only stayed for lunch before moving on towards Akaroa, which is right smack in the middle of the Banks Peninsula.

The scenic drive here was quite simply stunning, helped in no small measure by perfectly clear, sunny weather. According to the LP, the landscape here has been shaped by two gigantic volcanic explosions, which have generated numerous bays radiating out from the peninsula's centre, giving it a distinctive cogwheel shape. It was amazing to think that in less than an hours drive from the biggest city on the South Island we were travelling through such spectacular countryside.

It really was a cyclist's paradise around here, and there were plenty of them taking full advantage of the hills and the weather. Needless to say I felt quite envious being stuck in a boring old van, but I'd love to come back some day and experience this country properly from a saddle (we've met quite a few cyclists now who were doing just that - including two inspirational middle-aged ladies from Canada). But at last there were plenty of stopping points to get out of the van and soak up the views.

When we stopped later at a lovely winery in the area, as you do, I just had to buy this brilliant postcard for my Mum. It was a fold out one that became three times the size of a standard postcard, but the photo captured the scenery we'd just driven through perfectly.

Even though New Zealand is world famous for just this kind of scenery, and I've travelled enough to see plenty of stunning vistas, I was still blown away by the setting here. It's been a feeling repeated many times for me over the following two months travelling around the South Island, and certainly solidifies New Zealand's place as my second favorite destination in the world. Nepal definitely has it's work cut out for it when I return there later in the trip, if it's to retain it's vaulted number one position.

We only stayed one night in Akaroa town itself, in the Top 10 holiday park. The town has a lovely setting along the edge of a long harbour, and after a nice leisurely walk through the town's pretty streets and seafront in the morning, we were off again. We stopped off at the excellent Tree Crop Farm Park. The place is a bit mad really, with wild vegetation everywhere and yet more fantastic views and very individualistic accommodation options (like a tree house). It has a beautiful verdana to just relax after exploring all the windy pathways, and where you can sit back with an amazingly fresh and tasty berry juice straight from the garden, while you read all the quirky quotes writing all over the walls.

After a short stop at a boutique cheese maker, the fantastic scenery then pretty much followed us all the way to Methven, which was our next stopping point.

Christchurch

I'll back peddle a tad here to describe our time in Christchurch that didn't involve getting a van sorted out.

We arrived in the city center from the airport hassle-free as usual. It was Sarah's turn to sort out accommodation while I waited in the main square (Cathedral Square), and minded our backpacks. Well over an hour later she got back after going to 4 different hostels, all of which were completely full. All she could manage to find was an 8-bed dorm for the first night, and then a relatively expensive, but very comfortable, ensuite private room for the following 2 nights, all in the BASE backpackers right on the main square.

The city wasn't hosting any big event of anything, so this was my first indication that we had arrived in New Zealand during high season. In fact, over the better part of the following two months 'No Vacancy' signs were extremely common, and the fact that we had our own van must surely have saved us no end of trouble finding accommodation (certainly cheap accommodation anyway). I suppose it might be just a reflection of New Zealands overwhelming success in recent years in terms of tourism, helped in no small part by the Lord of the Rings of course.

So over those three days we strolled around the city, which I thought was lovely. The river through the city and botanic gardens is lovely (although we never found time to hire kayaks, which was a pity). The city has a nice cafe and bar mix, including a very cool, but overpriced, Belgian bar (as the Lonely Planet observantly points out, Belgian bars seem like they might be the world's next 'Irish Bar' phenomenon). We splurged as usual in the restaurants, and I was very impressed with Cook'n'Gas, very disappointed with Dux de Lux (which basically seemed like a self-service canteen!), very impressed again at Indochine (the best wonton I've ever had), and when not splurging we had no trouble finding great lunch deals in lovely Indian restaurants.

Although it was high season, and the weather was brilliant, the whole town still seemed rather quite, especially in the evenings (although it might just be a case of needing to know exactly where the 'in' places are, as opposed to my strolling around and expecting to just see them). But I still can't help compare the night life of cities I visit to Dublin - nowhere on this trip has come anywhere close to the general buzz and excitement that Dublin produces every night of the week (so far, Wellington has come the closest).

Anyway, sorting out a van turned out to be more fustrating than I'd expected, and after 3 days we still had nothing. So we tried to extend our stay in BASE, but they were completely full up now. We had to pop across to the tourist information office, and after about 45 minutes of the very helpful girl ringing about 30 places we finally got a place to stay, which was a good walk outside the city center (and the first night I had to share a dorm room while Sarah got a single room).

So after another two days of van hunting and strolling around museums and cafes we finally agreed to rent a van (as opposed to buying one). The guy we dealt with seemed very genuine, and wasn't pushy in any way, and because we were taking the van for so long we got a great price (although we hired the van during high season, we would have it right through into the low season). It was a great relief to see the van only had 71,000Km on the clock (some of the vans in the 'van market' had 300-400,000km), and they had also just put on four brand new tires, which was a comfort after our puncture episode in Namibia. So with everything signed up we drove away with our new van - which was to become our home for the next 3 months.

So the next morning we checked out of our B&B place, used the Internet for a few hours, got a very cheap, and very lovely, Hare Krishna lunch, went to the supermarket to stock up on supplies and hit the road to find out what New Zealand is really all about.

Getting us some new wheels

So I guess you could say a big part of this trip for me is all about living my dreams. But of course it shouldn't take a huge year-plus long trip around the world to do that - we should all be living our dreams all the time, just ticking off the smaller of those dreams as we go along. What this trip has allowed me to do though, is given me an opportunity to amalgamate a number of those dreams and live them all in relatively quick succession.

There have been quite a few ticked off for me so far already (like going on a safari, seeing a chameleon, touching the terminal face of a glacier, watching a clump of an iceberg break off and crash into the water), but one of the longest held wee dreams I've had is travelling around in a motor home. I've had this idea since I was a teenager I think, and watching some American drama series about a doctor who actually lived in a motor home in the car park of the hospital (Trapper John MD, I think it was - actually, after a quick Google it seems a lot of people thought along exactly the same lines as I did).

Obviously the romantic appeal lies in the idea of having total freedom to go where you want, when you want without ever having to worry about finding accommodation, or even worrying about finding somewhere to eat. And it just happens to turn out that New Zealand is the single best place in the world to do just that. So once we arrived in Christchurch I started looking into the best way to get us some wheels that would give us maximum flexibility without completely breaking the bank.

It was all a bit daunting for me I have to say, as I've only ever driven motorbikes, so I know pretty much nothing about cars, let alone camper vans (and even though Sarah has been driving cars for 17 years or so, well, let's not go there...). All the backpacker places and the internet cafes have notice boards packed with notices, many of them from people selling cars and vans - since buying a car or van is a very popular way for travellers to get around New Zealand cheaply. But I have no background from which to evaluate all the various permutations thrown up by cost, mileage, age, make, model, condition, etc., etc., so what might initially look like a good deal one day would seem crazy expensive a couple of days later when a few new 'van for sale' notices would appear.

This buying and selling thing is so popular in New Zealand that they have this market-like place where people pay simply to park up their car/van and then sit around waiting for buyers to walk in and look around. The eager sellers (who are often just days away from having to fly back to Europe or the States or wherever), sheepishly approach you and try to pitch their vehicle to you. It was all terribly sad really, and I felt sorry for most of them. I had been in a similar situation on my last big trip when I bought a motorbike in Miami and then had terrible trouble trying to get a decent price for it when I needed to sell it in New York - naturally I got completely ripped off in the end.

Anyway, to cut a long and very stressful story short, after 5 days checking notice boards, walking around the van 'market', and checking out many of the huge number of rental options I finally arrived at a decision (although I very nearly bought a clamped out banger for $4200, but something felt wrong about the English dude selling it - it was much bigger than most vans we'd seen, but much more knackered looking, and older with more miles, etc, etc.).

But finally I decided to rent from a place Sarah had found on the internet by accident on the fourth day. The same place also had a much older van for sale (it was one of their old rentals that they were retiring), but in the end I just opted for the safety of their rental option, and thereby avoided the whole selling-it-on process, as well as not having t worry about it breaking down, or getting stolen or damaged.

It's actually a really nice van and it worked out really cheap (relative to all the other rental places). Compared to the big proper camper homes it's actually very small, although not nearly as small as the one I was thinking of renting in the first place (a Spaceship - http://www.spaceships.tv/). I paid just $3000 for up to 90 days (although our visas run out after only 85 days), with lots of extras thrown in (including zero excess insurance, which was an extra $280, chairs, table, linen, small eski etc.). That works out at an amazingly cheap 18Euro a day - mental!

It's been surprisingly comfortable to sleep in (in fact, far more comfortable than some of the backpacker beds that often slump in the middle), and we've cooked in it a few times without any trouble. But since the van has no toilet or shower we mostly stay at campsites or backpacker places to use their facilities. We still sleep in the van and generally only pay $10 a night each, whereas a bunk bed in a shared dorm would be $22 a night each. Not all the backpacker places let you use your van to sleep, but its brilliant when you find the ones that do - it means we have all the atmosphere of the backpackers (which always have funky, buzzy common rooms or TV rooms with lots of free videos), we can use their well-equipped kitchens, they've always had spotless toilets and showers, while we still get the privacy of our own very comfortable 'room' AND effectively getting a 50% price reduction - who could ask for a better way to travel?

We didn't realise all these benefits when we first set off from Christchurch, although they all became apparent pretty quickly. But by far the best thing, once we did set off, was knowing we had 3 months of basically total freedom in one of the most stunningly beautiful countries on the planet, and in my book, in terms of living one's dreams, it doesn't get much better than that...

Brisbane

This was my first time in Brisbane and I really liked it. Enda and Tracy had given us some top tips of places to see and things to do, and even though we only had a few days there I seemed to keep pretty busy. As usual this involved walking around the city a lot, but it's a very easy city to get around.

Brisbane is famous for it's temperate climate, and I certainly felt it when strolling around the lovely botanic gardens where we had a great free guided tour with two old biddies (yet again just happening to time our arrival with the start of the tour). I also loved the Roma Street parkland, with it's tropical gardens and profusion of massive spiders (one of the other things Brisbane is famous for is, of course, it's creepy crawlies).

I also got to explore the town hall with it's tower on one of my city strolls, and we both toured the various museums and galleries. I loved the man-made beach along by the river too, although both times there I forgot my swimming togs, so could only paddle about the place really, but it's really well done and a great spot I reckon.

So although it was a pity not to get to explore around Brisbane, especially the famous Gold Coast, we only had a few days in the area, and I enjoyed pottering about the city. Surfer Paradise etc. will have to wait for my next visit I reckon.

Next stop was Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand. Coming back to New Zealand to try and see it properly had always been a major motivation for this whole trip for me (along with India), so I suppose I'd been looking forward to hitting New Zealand since before I left. At the same time I didn't want to have too high an expectation (since that wouldn't be very Buddhist of me would it, living in the future instead of the present moment, and all that), but something told me I wouldn't be disappointed - and it turns out I was right.

Sydney

As has now become something of a tradition, Deccie picked us up at the airport. This was my third time in Sydney, and each time he's been waiting at the baggage carousel, this time with his kids, Cathal and Lily . It was straight back to the house (on my first visit to Sydney it was just a plot of bare land), to meet Catherine and play with the kids until dinner time (Cathal with his cool geometric lego sculptures and Lily in her 'Go Faster, Go Faster!' fire truck).

The next couple of days myself and Sarah explored the city, and I even cooked for Dec and Catherine (which was pretty brave of them). Then Dec very kindly lent us his car for a few days and we drove up to the Blue Mountains. I'd been there before of course, but this time having a car meant we could explore many new places, and I decided to stay outside Katoomba for a change, staying in cozy Blackheath instead. In fact, I reckon the views and walks around Wentworth Falls are far better than the more famous, tour-bus-crowded attraction of the Three Sisters, and the small village itself was a great spot for lunch.

So it was here in the Blue Mountains that, as promised to Sally, I engaged in some great Aussie adventuring, and we went abseiling and canyoning for a full day in Empress Canyon. This was Sarah's first time canyoning, and although not as long or as tough as the Claustral Canyon I did last time in Oz with Hanno, it was still an amazingly scenic day with a very impressive abseil down a powerful waterfall, and with a cool 'leap of faith' to finish off.

That night we went out with the gang of people we met canyoning, going for a drink and then dinner in Katoomba. I was actually quite struck by how a number of these mid-twenty year olds seemed to have very good ideas of what they wanted to do with their lives, and understood the things in their lives that they were passionate about (most 30-40 year olds I meet still can't answer the basic question of 'What are you really passionate about?' - jeez, get a life!). So I found it quite encouraging to meet intelligent, thoughtful young people, but maybe it was just a reflection of the kind of people that go canyoning, i.e. those that embrace life, as opposed to them being just 'young people' in general.

The next day we planned on heading back to Sydney but in the morning I rented a mountain bike and headed off to do the Narrowneck Trail. This is by far the best known bike trail in the area (although I couldn't find it the last time I was here with Hanno), and it was a truly brilliant ride. I had a time limit of 4 hours (half-day bike rental), which I initially thought would be plenty of time, so I took a couple of detours before starting the trail proper (like visiting the gondola they've built in recent times). But it turned out to be quite a testing ride, with some serious off-road climbs. The name of the trail comes from the very narrow ridge that runs out to a towering peninsula, and the view from the end of that peninsula was surely the best of any view I've seen in the Blue Mountains - truly panoramic. It was quite a rush though to get the bike back in time, and I'd foolishly forgotten to take enough food for the trip, so I got a good dose of the 'bonk' (a cycling term for hitting bad fatigue due to lack of food), as I got back to the town.

Anyway, coming back from the Blue Mountains, and after stopping at a couple more lookout points, we heading to Frank and Anita's place. We actually passed Frankie strolling home from work, so we picked him up and arrived back at the house nice and early. We had a fantastic night with Frank and Anita, chatting and catching up, playing on the trampoline with the three kids, and we got treated to yet another great home-cooked dinner. We stayed overnight and had breakfast with Anita and the kids before leaving Deccie's car at the train station, heading into the city for the day and then meeting Deccie after work.

We were supposed to baby-sit for Dec and Catherine, but they just ended up getting a take-away. The next day myself and Sarah headed back into the city to indulge in some high-brow Aussie culture, in the form of a full-blown production of Carmen in the Sydney Opera House (again, courtesy of Sally's generosity!).

This was my very first opera, so not a bad place to begin. The production was spectacular with a huge cast, and even a live horse on stage. But of course the Aussie's don't go in for any kind of silly dressing up, so the whole occasion was very down-to-earth and accessible - apart from the admission price though I suppose!

That evening I brought Dec, Catherine and Frankie (Anita couldn't organise a baby-sitter in time), out for dinner in the city to say 'Thanks!', and we got some great photos of all of us with the harbour bridge providing it's customary backdrop.

And then, all too soon as always, it was time to bounce on up to Brisbane.

Melbourne Part Two

So back in Melbourne we made our way to Mikey and Steph's place, who had very kindly agreed to let us crash there again. Basically the plan was to quickly see if there was anything I could do to help Steph's sister Sally with the sofware she'd tried to have developed to use in her dog daycare centre (basically a place for people who live in the city to drop their dogs in to be minded while they're at work, basically a dog-creche. Needless to say, many of her clients are gay!). If I couldn't get access to the system's source code, or if the software was missing too much functionality, then there would be nothing I could do, and we'd just catch the next bus up to Sydney to continue the travels.

So I pretty much went straight into DogZone itself to have a look at the software. It was hard not to just play with all the cute dogs, but after a couple of hours trying to decipher the various bits and pieces and versions of the software, downloading Java and development
kits (the machine was quite old and painfully slow!), and being distracted by barking dogs, I managed to get the software built from source and running against a database (that had absolutely minimal security, so simply opening the database and looking at the user table gave full, plain-text passwords - that in itself should have been an important clue for what was to come!).

So armed with all that, and a cursory look at the source code itself, I thought I'd have little problem fixing whatever problems Sally was having with the system. Another important piece of information in making that decision was that although the software had initially been developed by college students, Sally had subsequently paid a professional programmer a lot of money to polish it up and make it robust enough to use safely in the daily running of her business. Therefore I thought any problems should be minor and therefore easily and quickly fixed.

How wrong I was!

It turned out to be literally the worst code I have ever come across - and that's really saying something. It was a gradual realisation, dawning slowly as I started looking into the more complex problems Sally reported, and getting more familiar with the code. A lot of the code had a distinct 'studenty' feel to it, which wasn't surprising, but it was hard to detect any evidence of the professional programmer who was supposed to have fixed things up. Eventually I did come across distinctly different code, but it turned out this guy was every bit as clueless as the students! I truly believe this guy totally ripped Sally off, and that she'd have every right to go to the consumer protection agency or whatever and claim all her money back - if the guy had been in the same room as me as I was going through his code I swear I would have punched him.

Anyway, after about a week of fixing bugs and writing large swathes of functionality that had never even existed, the system was largely fixed up and Sally began testing it (I originally thought 2 or 3 days would be enough time - d'oh!). Around this time we moved across to Enda's gaff again, and ended up staying here for another week, kindly minding the house while Tracy was in Brisbane with Flyn and Enda travelled to Las Vegas for a business trip (nice work if you can get it).

But before Enda flew off he brought me down to his local boozer to meet the 'lads' on Saturday. To be honest I got a bit of a fright when I arrived to meet them all - they were all well-hard East -End Londoners with tattoos aplenty and really heavy, thick accents. Enda has collected this motley crew over the years, but they rarely meet up anymore due to wives and kiddies and the like (same the world over it seems). Myself and Enda were the only two paddies, but we still managed to win 2 of the 3 games of killer pool (but then sure, you'll never beat the Irish). They were alright lads really, just a bit rough and ready I suppose, but they were all really friendly, so it turned out to be a great day (we started at 2pm).

So the time spent relaxing in Enda's house just flew by again, and we were still meeting up for dinners with Mikey, Steph, Sally and Baz (and one very entertaining night of charades around the camp fire in Sally and Baz's backyard).

When I finally cycled back to DogZone to install the newly fixed up software Sally slipped me a thank-you card as I was leaving. When I opened it later I found she'd broken our original agreement - we had all agreed that I'd look at the software for nothing (although I'd relented on letting Sally pay for us to get up to Sydney). I had wanted to help out as both Sally and Baz had been really brilliant to myself and Sarah for weeks over Christmas. But here she was giving me a very generous few bob on top of all that, and to be honest I was a little embarrassed - and that bloody software had better hold up now!

But at Sally's request I vowed to use the money to really enjoy some great Aussie culture and adventure, and I reckon I certainly lived up to that promise when we arrived a couple of days later in Sydney.