Tim's Birthday (May 3)!

May 3, 2010 (Tims Birthday!!!)
Gym, showered, hair done (for the first time in FOREVER) All had coffee, and we were out the door, in the car, and on the way to the Blue Mountains. Mom in the front seat today, for the first timte since we got here, its funny that its so weird for her. Amusing at least. Time has gone super quick, its 11. The roads are very regular. Two lane, towns every once in awhile, trees lining the road so you don’t really see much.

We got to Echo Point, aka the Three Sisters. The Three Sisters is a rock formation that has three stacks up. But the kicker is the area right next to it. It’s a MASSIVE open space for miles and miles. You can see forever, and you are super high up, you look down and its like you are on a high rise, but the ground is just the tops of trees. Katoomba was next. It was cute, it had a block of cafes anad stores and bakeshops. We lapped it a few times, and we ended up at a place called Mountain Ridges. It was very much a locals type place. Like Cup of Joe with food. We all had a huge pile of the best scrambled eggs I have ever had. Everyone agreed that they were amazing. Fluffy, perfectly salted, not overcooked. Just amazing. It was a fantastic lunch. Best decision we could have made. At the bakery we got some dessert, Mom asked what a Lamington was (we have seen bunches of those in NZ) and it’s a sponge cake soaked in a chocolate sauce and then covered in coconut. That’s what she got, and my trial bite of it was yummy.

There wasn’t much else in the blue mountains that Mom wanted to do. And we hadn’t hit up the Victoria Building or the Strand Arcade yet, so we headed back to Sydney to do those. We went straight back to the Victoria building, and ended up paying $30 in parking, which is crazy, but got even crazier when we got inside and Mom admitted that she had only wanted to see the inside architecture and didn’t actually care about doing any shopping inside. I mean, I don’t think she could have shopped there upon further looking, since it was all super high end shopping, but that’s pretty hefty parking to look at a Royal Clock inside the mall and looking at the building structure.From there, we walked to the Strand, another mall that Mom wanted to see the inside of. This one was more Gothic/iron bar-y, so it was more arty and cool looking to see at least. After perusing the inside, we went to the Billabong store across the street. They had super cute stuff, and again I got super frustrated that they got to have such super cute clothes and yet they are so pricey that I can’t get any of them. Tim did get an awesome shirt for his birthday though.

We got back to the car, paid the ridiculous pricing, and talked about how high tech the parking garage was. There was a light over every stall that glowed red if it was filled and green if it was open, so you could look down the whole aisle of cars and see if there was an open one instead of having to drive down the whole thing before moving up a level.

The next few hours involved stealing internet from McDs in the lobby, attempting to work out (whole story there) and then an argument about the dinner for the night. Tim and I were completely happy eating the tons of leftovers that we had, or going to the grocery store, but Mom was super determined to go out for dinner. Halfway to Coles to supplement what we already had, I remembered that there was an Irish pub in the area, so we wanted to look for that, and hoped to find it. And there you go, on the next block, we found Scruffy Murphy. We went upstairs to the restaurant and went through the menu, figuring out what we wanted before ordering at the bar. Mom had the fish and chips, Tim had beef burger, and I got a side salad. The fish was fantastic, the burger had an egg on it, but was super tasty, and my salad was perfect. It had huge chunks of veggies and had a vinegar dressing. We relaxed a bit longer as they each got a second beer/wine before walking back. Tim opened up his birthday cards. The best one from my parents, “The dingo ate my birthday cake!.” We drank the honeywine, and I put apple pieces in my glass, which tasted delcious after soaking a bit.

April 19th.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Alarm went off at 5:17, as planned. And as much as I didn’t want to get out from the warm covers, it was nowhere near the torture as the morning before. It’s almost easier getting up that early over around 7/8. We both were wide awake almost instantly. And it was still pitch black. The darkness is all the time. From 6pm to almost 7am. Its depressing. Like WAY depressing.
The darkness started lifting and we could see the beginning of the mountains around us as we drove to the Milford Sound. It was really cool. We went into the Homer Tunnel. Which looked regular at first, but it was about a lane and a half wide, so you didn’t know what to do if you came across a car (little did we know that it turns into a one lane at 7am (but it was early than that) and that eventually the lights turn on via solar power, but while we were in it, it was pitch black and curvy. Super creepy and nerve wracking. We came out on the other side and the mountains that surrounded us were completely undescribably. They were huge. They looked huge, and then you saw a tree or something only a tiny way up and realized they were about 10 times the size you actually thought they were. It was insane. And they were gorgeous. Clouds and fog hung low. Streams trickled down from places you couldn’t even see the beginning of, we saw places that we knew we would want to stop at, but kept driving so we were sure to make the boat on time. The mountains were covered by clouds, it was so weird and eerie, like full sized clouds had come down and were chilling in the valleys of the Mountains, it wasn’t mist, they were actual clouds. Strange.

We boarded the RV Sinbad. Breakfast was served free with the morning trip (love the free food). We ate pretty quickly, and made our way to the front of the ferry, where we stood the whole way out to the ocean. We passed a large rock with three seals, two adults and one baby, which was super cute since the baby kept squirming like it couldn’t get comfortable on the hard rock. Our captain was quite amusing, making fun of the Aussies, and making comments like, “Lets turn this girl around…and the boat as well…” We passed a waterfall that looked dinky and small, but were told that it was THREE TIMES the size of Niagra Falls.
It was just ridiculous, the size and majesticness of the mountains were unbelievable. We would be out, and you would see a tiny tiny fleck of white in the background, looking like a duck almost, and then you would realize as it got closer very slowly, that it was a full size passenger ferry. Just immense. There were waterfalls that started so high up, that they never hit the water below, they had turned into mist and blown away before it even hit the water. There were ledges, not tops of mountains, but just ledges that were 800m above us. I took a million pictures, and every single one of them looked like a photograph.

Fjord Facts: The Milford Sound isn’t really a sound, it’s a Fjord, some moron just named it a Sound before realizing it was really a fjord.
And.
There are numerous earthquakes in the Sound a year (oh, and). And that every 150 years, there are catastrophic earthquakes, and that they are about 150 years overdue for another one.
We slowly worked our way back to the Homer Tunnel, stopping at the Chasm along the way, and then back to Te Anau.
Got gas outside of Queenstown, drove through, just to see what its like. Very Vail like, at the base of the mountains, but 85% of all the stores and businesses were either nature/outdoor or crazy sports related. It was clear what the town made its money on, but it was a very cute town, looked decently cheap, and like the town would be very easy to live and work in. The trees were more fall-like than anywhere else. All leaves were gorgeous yellows and reds.

After Arrowtown, we then had a massive debate about how far to try and make it. We had been in the car for 10+ hours already, and Fox/Franz Glaciers were another whole 5 hours away, and I just did not want to be in the car anymore. But really, it was still super early (4ish) and there is no reason to get closer to the glaciers while we have nothing else to do. Tim wanted to make it there, but I just ugh. I had totally hit the wall. Decide to drive just to get it done since we wouldn’t be doing anything at the campsite anyway. Start the drive, by the time we enter Wanaka an hour later, we had lost our minds which including singing songs about how much it sucked to the tune of Christmas carols.

Wanaka Bella Vista to the rescue! Topped off with a preroasted chicken and salad from New World, all rolled up in an orange chocolate muffin to share. That right there made the night a total success, but it got even more productive when we spent the next several hours going through every single brochure, and planning the entire rest of the time in the South Island and the rest of our time with the stupid Spaceship.