Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Leaving New Zealand... And Reaching Melbourne!
Francesca:
After spending some time with the fishes, Henk and I took the bus back to Christchurch and returned to Base for the night. Upon arriving, we asked reception where a great pizza place was in the area. And we got an amazing suggestion!
Just a short walk away was a gourmet pizza bar called Winnie Bagoes. We ordered a special pizza deal, which gave us a large (and they were pretty big!) pizza which we had topped with 1/2 Sweet Satay Chicken (with peanut satay sauce, marinated chicken, sweet chilli sauce and pineapple pieces) and 1/2 Honey Beef (with honey BBQ beef, bacon, pepperoni & chorizo topped with a horseradish aïoli -- but we got garlic aioli instead) AND a large chilli pesto bread as a free side. Everything was reeeeeally tasty -- definitely a must-try if you visit Christchurch!
We relaxed the next day, I called my cousin Kyle (and Auntie Azeema and Uncle Randy!) and Mom through Skype, while Henk ran our heavy laptop bag to the post office to get it shipped to my Mom's house. We brought WAY too much with us, and we were really glad to get rid of a bunch of it, along with some of the things we collected here in New Zealand. Even though it cost us $140 USD! Yuck! But we needed to do it. We had a great lunch at the India Tandoori Palace (the same place we went for dinner when we were last in Christchurch) that was really affordable, and just walked around for a while.
Henk:
The next morning we took a flight from Christchurch back to Auckland, where we have been staying currently for the past three nights in ACB (Base). Our stay in Auckland was very peaceful indeed. Since we had had explored the city during our previous stay in town, we didn't feel the need to do too much. Besides, we knew our next flight was coming up.
Our first day, after arriving from Christchurch floated by without too much happening. Francesca had had a craving for Wendy's square burgers, so we went there for dinner. We didn't want to buy any more groceries, since we knew we couldn't take them with us to Australia. That's why we decided to just eat out for the few meals we had left. Francesca got her burger and I ordered the chicken salad, which proved to be a good choice.
Francesca:
Oh! Henk forgot to mention that we went to the bar next door that night to watch a Tri Nations Rugby game between the All Blacks (New Zealand) and the Springboks (South Africa) -- and we got to listen to some irate All Blacks fans curse about how their team needed to 'go back to basics' after fumbling some easy catches that ended up losing them the match. Still, it was fun to watch them play!
Henk:
The second day saw us walking around town to find a movie theater. We located one around 13:00PM, but the movie we wanted to see didn't start until 16:00PM. Francesca was hungry, so we grabbed her food in the food court directly under the theater. She picked a combination of noodles, sweet & sour sauce, roasted chicken and a spring roll. Filled her up! We spent some time in the gaming hall that was also part of the giant building. Francesca tried her hand on Pacman and looked good doing so.
Francesca:
We had bought ticket for the 4:00 pm showing of the new John Travolta movie "Pelham 123," a thriller about Travolta's character taking over a subway train for ransom. Pretty interesting movie, with a cool twist! Since we ate so much popcorn at the movies, we didn't really feel too hungry for dinner. Henk grabbed a fruit shake and I got a doughnut to snack on -- and we went back to the hostel since it was already past 9 pm that night.
The next morning we spent walking around the city again. We attempted to recover our 'lost' towels from the Stray office (that our tour guide Lucky had dropped off 2 months ago for us) but as we figured, they were long gone. Instead, I tried the new Kingpin sandwich (with onion rings and BBQ sauce on the chicken!) and Henk had a chicken sandwich with pineapple that I knew he'd like. The rest of the day we spent surfing the Internet with some very cheap $1/hour) time we received as a 'gift' from the Internet cafe after we sadly realized we couldn't transfer a game we had downloaded to our USB. We returned to Curry Box (from our first visit to Auckland) for dinner.
That night we watched 'My Best Friend's Girl,' and made sure we were ready for our departure (a 4 hour flight!) to Australia the next morning. And WOW was the next morning hectic. After the long bus ride to the airport, we were all ready to check in (with our backpacks 'bagged' and everything)-- when we were told we were not 'allowed' to check in since we didn't have visas for Australia. What!! We were under the assumption that we could get visas on arrival. We had researched the subject months before, and that is exactly what we had read! Since we read the same thing for New Zealand, and had no issues, we assumed we'd be fine.
But no! We had to go to another desk and purchase visas before we could check-in for our flight. Thank God we were able to do that without any problem -- that would have been a flight wasted if we had to go back to Auckland! I gave my sister a quick call for her birthday after Henk and I shared a Subway sandwich. We watched Hitchcock's interesting movie 'Rope' on the plane and enjoyed chocolate ice-cream bars the flight attendants handed out. Yum!
Henk:
After landing in Melbourne and getting through security Francesca and I walked over to the information center to find ourselves a hostel. This proved to be much harder than we thought, with the prices being so ridiculously high. We found a few places that looked decent, but needed money to get to the city. At first, we wanted to exchange some of our USD for Australian Dollars, but they wanted to charge $8 commission, which we were not ready to pay. I walked over to the ATM next to it. I put in the card, entered the pin and... the machine froze...
GAH! I asked the lady for help, but she said I had to call ANZ (the bank that owned the ATM). Our phone had died (not out of power, just died), so I called Francesca over to think of a solution. Luckily, two airport cops just happened to walk by, and I asked them for assistance. One of them was very helpful, lending us his phone to call ANZ. I asked ANZ to send someone over to get the card out, but since the machine was free-standing they wouldn't...
GREAT! Then we called the bank in Australia, asking for their help. They said they couldn't find our details in their system, so we had to call the American branch. Luckily, they were (after a lot of hassle (Credit Report and Check...) able to cancel the card temporarily and send us a replacement. The cop was getting impatient, and was worried we were costing him mad money, so we thanked him and looked for a shuttle to town. Francesca had found a hostel called 'Elephant Bakpaka' which was cheap and sounded decent.
The drive took about 40 minutes, and left us pretty close to the hostel. Francesca and I walked over, and found our hostel quickly. Before staying for a week we wanted to see the room and yeah... the walls didn't go all the way to the ceiling, and were less than an inch thin. Basically a glorified cubicle. I knew there was another hostel down the road, so I ran over checking their availability. Luckily, there was space and after moving our bags over we could lay down on a decent bed.
Francesca:
Once we checked into Nomads All Nations Hotel, we were so exhausted from the day that Henk got us some snacks from the 7-11 on the corner and we pretty much passed out in bed with the lights still on... that's how tired we were! We resolved to spend the next day just relaxing, getting over our jetlag (plus I had a really sore throat and slight fever this whole time) and researching for our stay in Melbourne.
This morning we enjoyed some free raisin bread for breakfast, and spent time talking to my brother, Anthony, and my cousin Kyle on Skype. In between these, Henk ran downstairs to the Hot Dog Hut and got us these ginormous (gigantically enormous!) hot-dog on basically a sub sandwich roll for a bun, filled with cheese, mushrooms, and ketchup, and even bacon!
NOW back to planning our time in Melbourne... anyone have any great suggestions? E-mail us ASAP!
Francesca & Henk
After spending some time with the fishes, Henk and I took the bus back to Christchurch and returned to Base for the night. Upon arriving, we asked reception where a great pizza place was in the area. And we got an amazing suggestion!
Just a short walk away was a gourmet pizza bar called Winnie Bagoes. We ordered a special pizza deal, which gave us a large (and they were pretty big!) pizza which we had topped with 1/2 Sweet Satay Chicken (with peanut satay sauce, marinated chicken, sweet chilli sauce and pineapple pieces) and 1/2 Honey Beef (with honey BBQ beef, bacon, pepperoni & chorizo topped with a horseradish aïoli -- but we got garlic aioli instead) AND a large chilli pesto bread as a free side. Everything was reeeeeally tasty -- definitely a must-try if you visit Christchurch!
We relaxed the next day, I called my cousin Kyle (and Auntie Azeema and Uncle Randy!) and Mom through Skype, while Henk ran our heavy laptop bag to the post office to get it shipped to my Mom's house. We brought WAY too much with us, and we were really glad to get rid of a bunch of it, along with some of the things we collected here in New Zealand. Even though it cost us $140 USD! Yuck! But we needed to do it. We had a great lunch at the India Tandoori Palace (the same place we went for dinner when we were last in Christchurch) that was really affordable, and just walked around for a while.
Henk:
The next morning we took a flight from Christchurch back to Auckland, where we have been staying currently for the past three nights in ACB (Base). Our stay in Auckland was very peaceful indeed. Since we had had explored the city during our previous stay in town, we didn't feel the need to do too much. Besides, we knew our next flight was coming up.
Our first day, after arriving from Christchurch floated by without too much happening. Francesca had had a craving for Wendy's square burgers, so we went there for dinner. We didn't want to buy any more groceries, since we knew we couldn't take them with us to Australia. That's why we decided to just eat out for the few meals we had left. Francesca got her burger and I ordered the chicken salad, which proved to be a good choice.
Francesca:
Oh! Henk forgot to mention that we went to the bar next door that night to watch a Tri Nations Rugby game between the All Blacks (New Zealand) and the Springboks (South Africa) -- and we got to listen to some irate All Blacks fans curse about how their team needed to 'go back to basics' after fumbling some easy catches that ended up losing them the match. Still, it was fun to watch them play!
Henk:
The second day saw us walking around town to find a movie theater. We located one around 13:00PM, but the movie we wanted to see didn't start until 16:00PM. Francesca was hungry, so we grabbed her food in the food court directly under the theater. She picked a combination of noodles, sweet & sour sauce, roasted chicken and a spring roll. Filled her up! We spent some time in the gaming hall that was also part of the giant building. Francesca tried her hand on Pacman and looked good doing so.
Francesca:
We had bought ticket for the 4:00 pm showing of the new John Travolta movie "Pelham 123," a thriller about Travolta's character taking over a subway train for ransom. Pretty interesting movie, with a cool twist! Since we ate so much popcorn at the movies, we didn't really feel too hungry for dinner. Henk grabbed a fruit shake and I got a doughnut to snack on -- and we went back to the hostel since it was already past 9 pm that night.
The next morning we spent walking around the city again. We attempted to recover our 'lost' towels from the Stray office (that our tour guide Lucky had dropped off 2 months ago for us) but as we figured, they were long gone. Instead, I tried the new Kingpin sandwich (with onion rings and BBQ sauce on the chicken!) and Henk had a chicken sandwich with pineapple that I knew he'd like. The rest of the day we spent surfing the Internet with some very cheap $1/hour) time we received as a 'gift' from the Internet cafe after we sadly realized we couldn't transfer a game we had downloaded to our USB. We returned to Curry Box (from our first visit to Auckland) for dinner.
That night we watched 'My Best Friend's Girl,' and made sure we were ready for our departure (a 4 hour flight!) to Australia the next morning. And WOW was the next morning hectic. After the long bus ride to the airport, we were all ready to check in (with our backpacks 'bagged' and everything)-- when we were told we were not 'allowed' to check in since we didn't have visas for Australia. What!! We were under the assumption that we could get visas on arrival. We had researched the subject months before, and that is exactly what we had read! Since we read the same thing for New Zealand, and had no issues, we assumed we'd be fine.
But no! We had to go to another desk and purchase visas before we could check-in for our flight. Thank God we were able to do that without any problem -- that would have been a flight wasted if we had to go back to Auckland! I gave my sister a quick call for her birthday after Henk and I shared a Subway sandwich. We watched Hitchcock's interesting movie 'Rope' on the plane and enjoyed chocolate ice-cream bars the flight attendants handed out. Yum!
Henk:
After landing in Melbourne and getting through security Francesca and I walked over to the information center to find ourselves a hostel. This proved to be much harder than we thought, with the prices being so ridiculously high. We found a few places that looked decent, but needed money to get to the city. At first, we wanted to exchange some of our USD for Australian Dollars, but they wanted to charge $8 commission, which we were not ready to pay. I walked over to the ATM next to it. I put in the card, entered the pin and... the machine froze...
GAH! I asked the lady for help, but she said I had to call ANZ (the bank that owned the ATM). Our phone had died (not out of power, just died), so I called Francesca over to think of a solution. Luckily, two airport cops just happened to walk by, and I asked them for assistance. One of them was very helpful, lending us his phone to call ANZ. I asked ANZ to send someone over to get the card out, but since the machine was free-standing they wouldn't...
GREAT! Then we called the bank in Australia, asking for their help. They said they couldn't find our details in their system, so we had to call the American branch. Luckily, they were (after a lot of hassle (Credit Report and Check...) able to cancel the card temporarily and send us a replacement. The cop was getting impatient, and was worried we were costing him mad money, so we thanked him and looked for a shuttle to town. Francesca had found a hostel called 'Elephant Bakpaka' which was cheap and sounded decent.
The drive took about 40 minutes, and left us pretty close to the hostel. Francesca and I walked over, and found our hostel quickly. Before staying for a week we wanted to see the room and yeah... the walls didn't go all the way to the ceiling, and were less than an inch thin. Basically a glorified cubicle. I knew there was another hostel down the road, so I ran over checking their availability. Luckily, there was space and after moving our bags over we could lay down on a decent bed.
Francesca:
Once we checked into Nomads All Nations Hotel, we were so exhausted from the day that Henk got us some snacks from the 7-11 on the corner and we pretty much passed out in bed with the lights still on... that's how tired we were! We resolved to spend the next day just relaxing, getting over our jetlag (plus I had a really sore throat and slight fever this whole time) and researching for our stay in Melbourne.
This morning we enjoyed some free raisin bread for breakfast, and spent time talking to my brother, Anthony, and my cousin Kyle on Skype. In between these, Henk ran downstairs to the Hot Dog Hut and got us these ginormous (gigantically enormous!) hot-dog on basically a sub sandwich roll for a bun, filled with cheese, mushrooms, and ketchup, and even bacon!
NOW back to planning our time in Melbourne... anyone have any great suggestions? E-mail us ASAP!
Francesca & Henk
3 Comments:
Hallo Lieverds
Wat een spannende verhalen.Eerst geen visum en toen dat gedoe met die bank.Nou, ik weet wel,als je geen vloeiend engels spreekt,dan
kun je zo,n reis wel vergeten.
Maar alles kwam weer terecht.Maar jullie redden dat allemaal wel.
Heel veel liefs Oma
Hallo Henk-Jan en Francesca.
Werd het toch nog even spannend om naar Australie te komen, maar het is gelukt. Ik hoop dat jullie daar net zoveel plezier hebben en beleven als in Nw.Zeeland. Wacht met spanning op jullie verhalen uit `down under`
Jans
Johoo!
Ben je nou al weer op pad?
Wat een log man, ik moet hier wel even voor gaan zitten...
Grtz Remco
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