What's Up NZ? I've missed you

I love New Zealand. I had really enjoyed my time spent in the North Island and the South Island is supposed to be even more picturesque. When we planned our trip, I knew the week in New Zealand was going to have some of the highlights. Our flight was delayed a little and instead of getting in around 2, we got in at 5 pm. It was a bummer because we only had one day in Christchurch, the biggest city in the south island, and it really cut into the time we had to spend there. After picking up our super sketchy rental car, a used corola from 1998 with 150k miles on it, we got to driving on the wrong side of the road.


We checked into our super cute bed and breakfast, Anselm House, which was only 5 minutes away from downtown. Jan, one of the two owners in the husband/wife team, gave us a bunch of suggestions for things to do, where to park, and places to eat. Armed with this info we headed into town. One of the super cool things about Christchurch is the small river running right through the downtown area. It is only about a foot deep and they will give you a boat ride (called a punt) along the river. More on that later.


There is a beautiful botanical garden in town as well. It is enormous and we spent an hour and a half waking around before dinner. Megan made sure to stop and smell as many roses as possible. We wandered around the city some more before our dinner reservation. While walking around we realized that we wanted to take the scenic tram tour, go punting and see the main cathedral. Unfortunately all of those are closed after 5 so we had to do them the next day.

We ate dinner at Cookin with Gas. I was skeptical at first due to their dumb name, but once we got there we were really happy with everything. The only issue we had was there was a super drunk guy sitting at the table next to us and he proceeded TO TALK REALLY LOUD THE WHOLE TIME. It was so bad sometimes it stopped our conversation. At one point his wife told him to be quieter and he stormed out of the building. That was the best. Both of our dinners were awesome; Megan had steak and I had salmon.

Since we had a late dinner, we decided to head over to the bar areas. On one of the inter Australia flights I had read the JetStar magazine which said that Sol Square was the new hot spot for bars. It took about 15 minutes to walk over there but even though it was a little out of the way, it was really awesome. It is basically an alleyway with 15 or so bars all packed in. There is also a sort of piazza area in the middle. It was a really sweet atmosphere. We went to fat eddie's which was one of the places suggested in the magazine. They had a live band and it looked really packed. When we were ordering, I asked the bartender to suggest something for me. He said he had just the thing and described it as LIQUID AWESOME. Of course I was intrigued and ordered it. Turns out it was a rum and coke with Matusalem Classico rum and a bunch of lime squeezed in. He was right it was pretty awesome. When I got a 2nd, I had a different bartender and didn't know how to get the same thing so I told her that the other guy had recommended a drink to me as LIQUID AWESOME and I wanted the same thing. She knew exactly which bartender it was and went and asked him how to make the drink. This whole area was neat because people would come for a live band and then leave once their set was done to go to a different place for more live music. It seemed like everyone was hopping through bars pretty quickly.

The next morning, we woke up early to a delicious breakfast that Jan had prepared for us. They had a delicious fruit salad, homemade jam and toast and eggs benedict. We liked the jam so much that she bottled us up a jar to take with us! They were super nice and we loved staying there. Plus they had free wifi! I <3 the internet. Afterwards, we jumped on the tram and rode it around the city. It tells you some about the area and also is an easy way to get around.

They sell combo tickets for tram tour and a punt in the Avon (the river running through Christchurch. We had purchased one and as soon as we finished the tram tour, we got off at the punting location so we could get that done before the crowds. It turned out not to be an issue because it started raining, but we got the first half of the ride done before the rain. They give you umbrellas and warm blankets so it was still comfortable. Afterwards we took a look at the beautiful cathedral downtown before heading over to the market.


Megan LOVES street vendors so she enjoyed shopping around. We bought some kiwi candy from a monk who hand makes all of it. We are still snacking on it. Even though we had already eaten lunch, I found my weakness again: german style sausages. We ordered one to split and it was the most delicious sausage I have ever eaten. We jumped in the car and starting driving to our time share in Wanaka.


We had scheduled a scenic flight around Mt Cook, but that was cancelled due to weather. This would be a recurring theme as well. Unfortunately we took the scenic highway to Wanaka but the weather didn't cooperate and it was foggy and rainy the whole way so we didn't get much of a view. We got into Wanaka, checked into our room and then ran downtown to get groceries for the week. They had gas grills as well as a weird microwave/oven combination where you could bake stuff as well as microwave things so we got a bunch of dinner food as well as meat for lunch. Prices were funny. It was about 4 dollars for a pound of steak or lamb and 12 dollars for a pound of chicken. All stocked up, we went to sleep early in preparation for an early day.

Cruising it up

Our last stop in Australia was Airlie Beach by way of Hamilton Island. We had booked a 3 day cruise with the Pacific Sunrise, a big wooden sailboat that sleeps about 30. The cruise boarded at 4 pm and we had gotten in the night before so we did laundry and picked up some lunch around town. We went to a chemist (Australian for pharmacy) for sunscreen and Megan got SUPER worried when we were there because we heard the people next to us talking about how they got bed bugs on their wooden boat. They advised us to pick up insect repellent and to sleep with it just in case. Luckily it turned out to not be an issue.

There were 6 other couples on the cruise with us and they pulled us all together and gave us a tour of the boat before showing us our cabin. They had some light food and champagne out for us and we generally bummed around the boat and ate dinner before they got everyone up top to see the sunset. You couldn't BYO alcohol but they let you buy a bottle of wine from them for the whole cruise and keep it behind the bar for you so you can have a glass at a time.

The next day, what would be our alarm clock the rest of the cruise, the anchor, woke us up at 5:30. We went back to sleep easily and woke up a few hours later to an awesome breakfast before we dropped anchor again at our first dive spot. We had only one dive instructor and 12 people who wanted to go, so we split into 3 groups. Megan and I were in the 2nd group and we spent the first hour snorkeling in the area. We got to see tons of awesome fish, but we called it quits after 30 minutes so that we'd have some time to rest before our dive. We hopped in the tender (small boat) and hung out until the dive group got back. No one in the first group had their certification so they didn't go very low and as soon as they swapped out tanks, it was our turn.

We were down for a few minutes before I realized that something was up with my pressure gauge. When I would take a breath, it would read 0 and then flare back up. I showed it to Megan and then surfaced. The dive instructor then took a look and noticed that my tank wasn't fully turned on. We fixed it and then went back under the water. On this dive we swam past an ENORMOUS fish which they get to see from time to time and have named Elvis. It was about 5-6 feet long and weighed more than I did when I was obese. Even though it terrorizes the fish in the area, it doesn't seem to mind divers and didn't bother us at all. The rest of the dive was awesome and when our tanks went low we headed up and were back at the boat. We warmed up and snacked some while the 3rd group was in the water and then the boat took off for the next dive spot.






This time we got in the water with no issues and my tank was all on and good to go. Unfortunately it had rained a little and that stirred up the bottom a bunch which meant we didn't have great visibility. We still got to see a sea cucumber and the nemo fish as well as a lot of other fish and really cool coral. Once we surfaced we took the tender back to the boat over really rough seas. I really started to feel seasick at this point and for the next couple hours I wasn't in great shape. Finally I went to the back of the boat and went to sleep hoping I would feel better when I woke up. Luckily for me, a combination of sleeping and the boat moving to a more protected area fixed my stomach issues and I was ready for dinner. Since we knew we weren't diving early the next morning, we finished up the last 2 glasses of wine and Megan discovered her new favorite drink, a midori spice (midori + malibu coconut rum + coconut cream + pineapple juice)



The next day the weather was finally cooperating and we headed over to the beautiful Whitehaven Beach. Apparently it was voted the best beach in some magazine for whatever thats worth. I didn't hold my breath, but when we got there it was pretty awesome. There were a bunch of small sharks and a ton of sting rays in the marshes and shallow water near the beach. After spending a few hours at the beach, we climbed up to the lookout for some photos before heading back to the boat.

Luckily, with the good weather we decided to hit another dive spot. In this one there was some really good coral. We were having a really good dive along a cliff wall. The dive master had been taking us through a bunch of rock outcroppings that we had to swim under which was exciting. Unfortunately, we turned a corner under water and got right into the current. As soon as we did that, we noticed the visibility had gone to shit and the next 10 minutes of the dive weren't very good. One of the other guys sucked through his air so we ended up surfacing even though Megan and I both had a fair amount of air remaining.


After our 3rd dive, we had all built up quite an appetite and we were treated to the best dinner by far of the cruise. Ross, the chef, had outdone himself every night and the last night he cooked an amazing salmon dish and a bread putting dessert that everyone onboard finished even though we were all stuffed silly from the salmon. Since we were just sailing back in the morning, we had a bunch of midori splices and hung out on the top deck. Finally, we passed out and woke up the next day to another delicious breakfast before getting all our gear off the boat and heading back into town.

We were really happy with all of the crew and all of the people with which we shared the boat.

Bungy!

Sydney Opera

Our last organized tour was a half day tour of Sydney. We got picked up in a big tour coach (this was our most touristy day). After a short stop to drop off some people to a different tour, we got moving. We drove along the harbor to Mrs Macquaries Chair, a big stone statue on the water opposite sydney proper. It has a great view of the skyline and Opera house.


We jumped back in the van and headed around Sydney. It was very interesting to see how spread out Sydney is. Of all the cites in Australia we've seen, this is msot similar to New York with urban sprawl stretching miles (or kilometers as it were) in all directions. Our last stop on the tour was Bondi Beach. It is a pretty popular beach area due to its promixity to downtown Sydney. It is pretty, but The water is cold and the beach itself has a very short break.

The tour overall was the worst that we have taken. It didn't really talk much about the history of Sydney and just jumped around and would give us a little chatter en route. It also was the most touristy. Luckily we only did the half day tour and got off the bus and wandered around Sydney shopping some. We decided to head to the Opera House in order to get our tour/dinner/show package tickets we had prepurchased
. It was fortuitous that we did this because the tour we had prebooked for no longer existed. Luckily they were able to convcert our reservation to a new tour. We went home and changed for dinner and took a cab back due to the sweltering heat. It had been super humid the whole time we were in Sydney. It a good reminder that California is the land of milk and honey whenever you are somewhere with worse weather (which is just about everywhere). Otherwise you definitely take it for granted.

The tour was awesome! Our guide was very knowledgeable but had a kind of obnoxious manner. She was like a high school thespian; overally demonstrative and excited about meaningless facts and figures. Her other problem was that every sentence LOUD AND then she slowly faded out until you couldn't hear her anym... I guess I should rephrase: the opera house is awesome and the tour was okay.

After the tour, we walked over to Cafe Sydney, which was one of the possible options for the prix menu we had bought a dinner/show package with the opera house. Once again we had a great dinner, we started with our new favorite food, more bugs in a salad. Then Megan had an amazing steak and I had a really good pork belly that I would have thought was amazing if I hadn't first tried Megan's filet. We had something chocolate and delicious for dessert as well as splitting a few sparkling wine drinks. We finished up and started walking back to the Opera house when I realized I had left my nikon slr at the table. I literally sprinted 3 blocks in a worry induced haze. Luckily they had set the camera aside for me and had someone waiting with the camera for me.

Megan caught back up and we walked back to the Opera house. Sprinting around had built my appetite back up and I got a sausage from a street vendor. It wasn't as delicious as I hoped, but I was full again for our George Benson show. We had heard his name before but hadn't ever listended to his music. The show turned out to be awesome. He was doing a tribute to Nat King Cole and sang a bunch of his songs before moving on to his own repetoire. The acoustics are amazing. To say that doesn't do justice to how awesome they are. Everyone says that but you have to be there to experience it. Most of the time at concerts they just blast the speakers so everyone could hear. Not the case at the Opera house - you could hear people on the other side of the concert hall like they were talking to you.



Benson was funny at times and moved easily through everything. At first everyone was a little subdued until his bassist urged everyone to get up. Soon there were people rocking out and standing all over the arena. He finished his set and walked off. One lady who had been rocking out hard in front of us starting screaming ENCORE ENCORE then realized perhaps this wasn't the venue for that. She turned around to Megan, kind of asking approval to yell more. Megan gave her a thumbs up and she went back to screaming encore! Benson came back for a few more songs before calling it a night. We walked back to our hotel and called it a night

I'm on a boat!

Just a short update. day 2/4 on our cruise. We went scuba diving and avoided being this enormous fish's dinner. more to come later

Hunter Valley Wine Tasting

In day 2 of organized tours, we had booked a wine tasting tour in the Hunter Valley region near Sydney. We were picked up at 6:45 from our hotel. Since we were running a little late, we didn't get a chance to have breakfast and had to wait until they stopped around 8 and we ran over to Oliver's and got coffee and a smoothie and a light breakfast before heading out again.

Our first winery stop (at 10 am - it was after noon in california though) was at Ernest Hill Winery, a small family owned affair. They sat us down around barrels and we had a very friendly and knowledgeable server pour us 6 or so wines and let us know about them.

Since there was tons of drinking to do, we piled back into the van and headed to Oakdale. Again we were at a big table and they talked us through the various wines. Hunter Valley is in love with the Semillon grape, which makes some nice wines. We also like that they make a bunch of light sparkling desert wines that are not too sweet. While they describe food pairing for every other wine, they always tell us for the sparkling ones "this one goes best with a 2nd bottle".

They herded us back into the van and we headed to our lunch stop, Blue Tongue Brewery. The driver had told us in advance that you could get a paddle of beer tasting and we were intrigued. Turns out when you get the paddle, you also get a full glass of your favorite. We ordered lunch and a paddle and freaked out the driver when he saw us only drinking beer and asked about our lunches. We let him know that we were only consuming alcohol today and food just got in the way. I wish I had taken a picture of his reaction. It turned out that the beer we liked the best was not one of the brewery's but an Italian Peroni brand beer. Australian beer is on the lighter side than most American beers. And as a bonus, Megan finally found some beers she likes.

Our next stop was Tintilla winery. Most of the vineyards in Hunter valley only sell at the tasting room, or cellar door as they call it in Australia. This winery was no exception as they don't make a lot of cases. The winemaker recently got married and made a wine for his bride to be. It was another sparkling desert wine and it was excellent. They actually only sold a few cases extra of the first vintage and once they realized everyone loved it, they started producing it in future years for general consumption. Megan lamented that I should have made a wine for her for our wedding. A quick reminder of our current wine making escapade brought her back down to earth.

Our last winery stop was at Mistetoe. Sadly they have no mistletoe up around the vineyard which seems like false advertising. They do have a ton of paintings up and have the picture nazi running around telling you not to take any photos. We did anyway. We were glad this was the last vineyard cause we were a little tasted out. Luckily there was still more to do though!

Our last stop before heading back was a combination cheese shop / gelato shop. Two of my favorite things rolled up into one building. Thanks Australia! All of the cheeses were amazing but we knew we were travelling so much that we weren't going to be able to keep them cold so we didn't buy any. We did buy gelato using Paul's volume method : every gelato places sells pints. It is often (in this case it was) cheaper to buy a pint then to buy two small cups. We sadly threw away half the print when we realized the fridge in the back of the van didn't have any freezing capabilities.

We both passed out for the 2 hour ride back to our hotel and headed in to the concierge to see how he had screwed up our dinner reservations. In Australia they are all about confirming the crap out of stuff. They always want you to call 24/48 hrs ahead of time to confirm reservations for trips, dinner etc. We had asked the concierge to make a reservation at a dinner place he suggested tonight and confirm our reservation the next day. Instead he failed at both. Luckily the concierge we talked to today suggested Nicks seafood on Darling Harbor which was a short ten minute walk away.


I was really indecisive about what to order and the waiter didn't help much when he told us that their special was "bugs". We talked to him for a few minutes trying to understand what they were (some kind of shellfish we thought) but it didn't help much. We asked if they were like crawfish and he said "they are like bugs because that is what they are". We were intrigued so we got them as an appetizer. They are my new favorite thing. They are sweeter than lobster and less chewy.

We also had gotten a coupon to this place from our hotel for free glasses of wine which we picked up. At this point after wine tasting we weren't as in to wine as normally but they were a nice touch. Dinner was awesome and then we headed back to our hotel after strolling around Darling Harbor for a while.

Blue Mountains

Due to the whirlwind nature of our trip through Australia, we signed up for a couple organized tours in the Sydney area. The first was a tour of the Blue Mountains, about a 2 hour drive from downtown Sydney. We grabbed a quick croissant while waiting for our absurdly early tour bus. We tried to get on the wrong bus twice but luckily the operators checked our names first since there are multiple tour companies doing similar trips.


Our first stop was a nature park that advertised a "free koala". Megan was really excited to get two new koala pets. It turns out that they only give out small koala stuffed animals which aren't nearly as exciting. On the plus side they let us pet whatever we wanted. Megan got to meet her new favorite animal, the wombat. She also saw more of the echidnas which she also liked. We had the good fortune to see one on the great ocean road but only briefly so it was cool to get a photo of one.

Later on, we got to feed kangaroos. Megan liked it at first but she was being stingy with the food and the one kangaroo decided to take matters into its own hands (feet?) and punched the crap out of her to get the food cup she was holding. Luckily it didn't hurt her, but she did lose most of the food she had. Moral of the story : don't get between a kangaroo and its dinner.

Our next stop was the little town of Leura for lunch. We stopped at the Red Door Cafe where Megan got a pumpkin turkish sandwich and I got a delicious steak sandwich. We have had really good luck with our food choices so far this trip. After getting lunch out of the way, we wandered around town shopping. They have a delicious fudge and candy shop that I was most excited about.

After lunch we went to see the "Three Sisters" which are 3 pillars standing near a cliff face. We walked around the scenic outlook there some before heading to a gondola ride across the valley. After a brief stop on the other side, we took another gondola ride down to the valley floor to check out an old mining town. I think I developed the black lung in that time.

We then took the gondola back up and wandered around the gift shop for a while. Megan REALLY liked a wombat stuffed animal there. I promptly asserted dominance on it and that was that.

Afterwards they took us to the Olympic park which was the site of the 2000 olympics. I think it would have been much cooler had it not been pouring rain. We still got out and looked at the fountain where the olympic flame used to be but didn't explore as much as we might have with better weather. Finally we went to the ferry to take us back to Sydney. We pulled in to the harbor which gave us our first view of the iconic Opera House.

After getting off the ferry we opted to walk back to our hotel so we could see more of Sydney. Along the way we discovered a cupcakery. Looks like the fad is sweeping the world! We of course purchased a set of six for later.

We got back to our hotel and asked the concierge to confirm some of our reservations and also suggest a place for dinner. We ended up with an italian restaurant which we thought was called Burpees. Turns out it was Beppi's. We had asked the concierge what atire to wear there and he told us casual. We unfortunately neglected to realize that casual in Sydney does not equal San Francisco casual. Megan walked in and stopped midway with the door open because there was no one wearing jeans, much less with no collared shirt. Luckily they were still willing to seat us and the food was delicious. Megan had lobster ravioli and I had a mixed seafood over angel hair pasta that both were great. Their bruchetta is also amazing. If you want a fun experience you can request a seat in their wine cellar which is quite extensive.

We knew we had another early tour the next day so we headed back home around 11 and passed out.

Great Coast Highway

We finally got to sleep in after waking up (it seemed) early the past few days. We checked out of the hotel around 9 and drove to a small cafe in Port Cambell overlooking the water where Megan got egg benedict and I got an enormous egg sausage and toast sandwich.


We then backtracked down the highway to see a few of the notable sandstone structures before turning around and heading back up towards Melbourne. We were on a fairly tight schedule so we would stop at each scenic area, jump out and walk to the cliffs to take a few pictures and then jump back in the car and drive off.


Since we were stopping at a bunch of touristy areas, the Australia government luckily kept us in mind and has a few signs up just for us.




We had asked at the hotel for some suggestions on the great highway for the trip back and the one we took up was checking out an elevated walk through the rainforest. The elevated section was about a half mile long or so and up as high as 150 feet. There was a 2 mile walking loop we followed which included the elevated section. On the way to the elevated section there was a dinosaur setup where I wasted no time asserting dominance on some velocirapters.

Megan had an unfortunate encounter with a T-rex however.

The elevated section turned out to be way more awesome than I expected. It was really long and much higher off the ground than I envisioned. What was also awesome was that the walkways are all mesh metal so you can see the ground beneath you. Especially when we got high up it was enough to cause us both some vertigo. There was a tower halfway through that took us up another 50 feet. Once we were at the top, it was high enough so that it swayed with the wind some and that freaked Megan out some but she was a trooper and boosted it still.

We finished our walk and drove back the remaining 4 hours or so to Melbourne. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight, which turned out to be delayed for a half hour. We grabbed a quick dinner in the airport and landed in Sydney around 10 pm. We spent a good 20/30 minutes trying to figure out if our Marriot hotel had a hotel shuttle (it didn't) and then avoided the shady shuttle driver to take a taxi into the city. By the time we got to our hotel we were pretty exhausted but made time to do laundry in the hotel's bathroom and use every single free space to hang clothes. We shot a quick email to our tour guide the next day confirming our pickup time (7:30 am ugh) and then went to sleep.

Sydney Preview

Yes, we are staying at a 5 star hotel (thanks priceline). Yes, we are doing laundry in the bathroom.

Phillip Island Round 2

From the previous day, we were so exhausted that we both crashed immediately. We had to wake up at 7 am to move our car because parking was either free if we found a spot overnight or 37 a night through the hotel. It was a hard choice to take 5 minutes finding a spot and walking back the previous day. The sad part was waking up early, which we did and then got back to the hotel and got ready. Megan showered first so she could get her makeup and everything done and got a nasty surprise when the glass covering the light on the ceiling in the bathroom came crashing to the floor and shattered all over. Luckily she wasn't hurt somehow even though she felt it fly past her face.

We got the front desk to send someone to clean it up, finished packing our bags and loaded up the car. We then drove downtown to run a few errands because we needed a 3 prong us to australia converter (which is powering this laptop now) and we needed to activate our vodafone modem that Kitt lent us so we can have internet while we are in australia. We grabbed a delicious breakfast baguette sandwich and then started the 2 hour drive to Phillip Island which had 3 different nature parks we wanted to see. Luckily you can get a combo admission deal which we did. The first park we headed out to was the working farm. Built in the early 1800s, it has been restored to its original glory and is fully working now. We got a sweet lunch, took a horse carriage ride and got to pet some baby animals. We watched a blacksmith make horse shoes and they had a demo of border collies rounding up sheep and turkeys.


Next on the way was a koala sanctuary. Koalas had been declining in numbers so they put together this sanctuary and set up a few different habitats to breed the koalas. We walked along an elevated boardwalk that has us a few feet away from two sets of mothers and babies. Megan loves baby animals.

The last park is a penguin conservatory and we had paid for the ULTIMATe experience of watching the little penguins (max 1 foot tall) walk in from hunting to their dens. Only problem was it started at dusk so we had some time to kill and drove to the peninsula of the island and took in the beautiful coastline before heading back to the penguin conservatory. Megan had wisely upgraded us to a private tour with a ranger and night vision goggles at a private beach. There were 1500 "riff raff" at the normal beach that we didn't have to deal with.

The ranger gave us headsets so we could hear him through his microphone and the night vision monocle. We got waterproof pants and jackets to keep us warm and then headed out to the beach. We set up shop near the paths they took to their dens (you can tell by their foot prints) and waited. Soon a few "rafts", a collaboration of the penguins to all wash a shore together began climbing up the sand. It was exciting to watch them in some cases pass a few feet from us as they ran to their dens. After 30 minutes or so, we started the kilometer walk back to the main conservancy building. Since the area is closed to cars after night, we saw tons of penguins along the way and had to stop multiple times to let them cross the path in front of us. We also got to see some babies waiting for food from their parents.

By the time this wrapped up, it was 10:30 pm. We started the ridiculously painful drive to the great ocean drive which is basically australia's route 1. It was a 5 hour drive through dark windy roads. I took the first 2 hours before tagging Megan in and passing out for 2 hours. Then I took the last hour. We were both tired and stopped a few times to get red bull and other caffeine. I finally had to sub out for the last 15 minutes for Megan to be a rock star and get us to the hotel. Along the way, she pulled a Steffi and hunted the crap out of a bunny that jumped in front of the car. We finally got in at 3 am and found our room with the key prepped for us. It was the most amazing best western I have ever been to. Sadly we were only in it for 6 hours while we slept. Once again we were both so exhausted we were out in seconds.

Phillip Island

I don't haver a ton of time, and i'll expand on this later, but this is for you kyle:
clydesdales are a lot bigger than we thought.

Day of a million meals

After spending the past months eagerly looking forward to our honeymoon, it is finally upon us! We got to the airport without incident via caltrain and bart and arrived in plenty of time to eat our first dinner of pizza and a caprese sandwich at a small cafe at the airport. We got on the flight and watched Despicable Me (Megan's new favorite movie) and then were served 2nd dinner of lasagna for me and chicken and mushrooms for Megan. 4 tylenol pms and 7 hours later we were awake and getting served our 1st breakfast of the day which was an egg omelet with hash browns. I love air new zealand service and their food. It is totally the best.
We got into Auckland around 5 am and Megan napped while I was reading up on my kindle. I inadvertently noticed that the kindle gets 3g service in new zealand and I checked email and browsed the web some. Megan woke up an hour later and we ate our 2nd breakfast of a sausage roll and a quiche and got a croissant to go and we got on the flight.

Turns out this flight also included a breakfast of another quiche, this time with bacon, which we ate and then realized we had to finish all our food before landing so we ate the croissant and touched down in Melbourne. We lucked out in all of our customs/security lines in the Melbourne airport and powered through the short ones and picked up our rental car. I am super excited to drive on th wrong side of the road again. Wipers and turn signal are flipped as well as volume and tuning on the radio. Just about everything is wacky. Especially awesome is in Melbourne you take right turns from the left lane. I need to find a picture to show the insanity.


Today is our easy day so we got some info from the concierge and headed down to the waterfront to eat our only lunch meal and get some amazing ice cream. There is no tipping in australia which is convenient for the wallet but lends itself to lazy servers. It took us a while to get refills which only came once we got the check.

After lunch, we drove up to Queen Victoria's market, an enormous 4 square block open air market. It was huge and they were selling just about anything you could want from fruits/veggies to toys to clothes to rugs to broken us to australia power converters. I sadly bought the latter.


We had reservations for dinner at this amazing tram car restaurant. There is a tram that runs on the regular lines but is a replica of a 1900s train complete with white linens, chandeliers and everything. It takes us on a 3 hour dinner tour of Melbourne which was awesome. We met a kangaroo (our first course) and had steak and chicken before getting to the most important course, a chocolate mousse. We had great neighbours at the next table and spent the last hour talking before getting dropped off and cabbing back to the hotel.

I have pictures from my phone i will upload for this later