So traveling to Australia & New Zealand is quite different from other places I have been. I’ve traveled to many places in Europe and Central America, and nothing quite compares to the change that Australia/New Zealand is. First of all, you have to have a visa to travel to Australia but not for New Zealand. […]
Renting a car in Australia and New Zealand is different from the States. They offer ‘excess.’ For example, if you only do the base rate for renting a car, your excess might be $3500, which means if you wreck or damage a car, you pay a $3500 deductible. You can pay different percentages to lower […]
Friday morning, we had a big breakfast at the buffet in the hotel and taxied to the airport where we got on our 14.5 hour flight to Dallas. The food on this flight wasn’t quite as good as on the way to Sydney, but the service was still amazing. With all the movies and snacks, […]
We landed in Sydney right around 5pm and caught a taxi (stuck in traffic, yay!). Once we got to our hotel – Four Points by Sheraton – we put our luggage in our room and took off walking to Circular Quay for the Vivid Festival. This is an annual festival in Sydney that we happened […]
This is where we tried our second Airbnb, which was much better than the first. The initial night was a little chilly because the heating system was through the fireplace and heated baseboards, which weren’t on when we arrived. By the final night, I finally found that my window was cracked so that fixed many […]
Having only seen earthquake stricken Christchurch in the dark, we took out at 4:30 am to head south. Just to be clear, this really does describe Christchurch. A large earthquake struck around 5 km from the surface in February 2011, which destroyed a large portion of the city. From what we could see, the damage […]
Let me first say, this place is everything you have dreamed of and more. You could spend 2 weeks here alone. Since we were trying to taste it all, we took off for Blenheim. On the way, we stopped at a bakery in Picton to grab a very average lunch and then made it to […]
An early wake up call followed a short night of sleep, and we boarded the ferry for the South Island. We took the Bluebridge Ferry across The Cook Straight to Picton. This was a short 3.5 hour ferry, but we accidentally paid for 4 overweight bags when we didn’t need to, so we got a […]
After a 4.5 flight to Auckland, we finally arrived IN NEW ZEALAND!!! Excitement and all, we got our car and headed for ice cream, what else, right? In our opinion, Giapo Ice Cream in Auckland is a MUST!! When we arrived 20 minutes prior to closing, they had one flavor left – Chocolate. None of […]
We landed in Cairns on Thursday just after noon, went to Apex offsite for our second rental through them and were off to downtown. In downtown, we ate at The Raw Prawn on the Esplanade. We found it on TripAdvisor and the worker at Apex also recommended it. To be honest, it was nothing special. […]
