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Aus + NZ: #stogansabbatical top 10 (Miranda’s list)
It’s hard to believe this epic trip has come to an end. It’s gone by fast – though at times slow – and while our plans haven’t all worked out, it’s been perfectly imperfect – as every great adventure should be. And among all our adventures there have been a few standouts. A top 10 if you will, here goes… 1.Wharariki, New Zealand’s (and likely the world’s) most stunning beach. If I had to live one day from this trip over and over again, it would be this last minute day trip we took from Abel Tasman. From the insane drive over Takaka Hill, to the hippie dippie town on…
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Australian wildlife bingo – now complete!
Friends, we’ve had some serious luck on this trip when it comes to wildlife spotting. We have seen some amazing stuff and taken a few thousand amazing photos (we know, you’re grateful for this blog vs the invitation to sit through an endless slide show on our return!). And since my previous post (wild about wildlife) our luck has continued, so wanted to share a quick update. Lucky break #1: A farm with a resident platypus. We stayed on a farm. A full-on, working farm. And through their fields of cattle lived a platypus, that could sometimes be seen. ‘Sometimes’ seemed like an odd review, since every time we went…
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Wild about wildlife!
Sure, we’re big dog lovers back home, but the other animals in our daily lives don’t have a ton of appeal. We might comment on a pretty blue jay, a particularly daring squirrel or a large family of racoons, but these passing comments are nothing compared to the hours we’ve devoted to talking about, photographing and tracking down wildlife on this trip. In New Zealand we saw lots of birds. Fields of sheep. Amazing sea lions. Dolphins. And these awesome little blue penguins. It was all pretty magical. But, then we got to Australia. And wow. We discovered the one category in which Australia has New Zealand beat: wildlife. These…
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These are the Grampians, my friends. And they are worth climbing, to the end…
I’m not the first one to put my hand up for a hike. Particularly not one marked medium… or hard. But the Grampians, well, they are kind of ‘spesh’, as the Australians say. And so, we traveled to Halls Gap and spent 2 glorious days and nights kicking back, hanging with Kangaroos and taking some seriously amazing walks. The most noteworthy of these walks was the hike we did to the Pinnacle. It’s the most popular of the trails in the area, and with good reason. It’s f-ing stunning. You basically scramble up rock face by following a series of tiny pointed triangles that keep you heading in the right…
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Welcome to the ‘Wet’Sundays
Before embarking on this journey we got a lot of travel advice. A lot. We hired a couple randos on Upwork to map out potential itineraries. We read up on suggested itineraries. And we spoke to numerous people who had traveled to and lived in the parts of the world we were heading to. We got loads of tips! We tinkered endlessly with our itinerary based on people’s suggestions and advice. But among the formidable warehouse of advice we got, there was one thing no one mentioned: that it was wet season in Queensland. Apparently, February through mid-April is NOT the best time to see the Great Barrier Reef. This…
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Ok New Zealand, it’s enough already!
We’re behind on the blog, we’re sorry. But it’s not our fault! Every time we mean to get an update together about all the amazing stuff we’ve been seeing and doing, something even more amazing happens. We wake up every day thinking the day before was surely the peak of amazing, and go to bed every night totally shocked that we’ve seen something equally or even more awesome. Like last night when we were about to go to sleep feeling like we’d had a pretty good day. We’d spent it driving though the southern Alps, which were totally spectacular. After hours of beautiful driving, we stopped for the night in…
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Nothing to ‘wine’ about on this spectacular day!
80% of New Zealand’s wine is produced in Marlborough. We almost bypassed this stop because while I love white wine, Sauvignon Blanc is rarely my pick. And in Canada, NZ wine = Sauv. But thank goodness we didn’t, because a) seems this area produces amazing Rieslings, and b) on my growing list of ‘favorite days’ this turned out to be one more for the top of the list! The base town for the Marlborough region (Blenheim) was pretty Bleh, so we weren’t entirely expecting the day to be so spectacular. A great reminder about judging a book by its cover… and the weather was perfection, which helped get us off…
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For the birds! A birdless tour through Zealandia, a bird sanctuary.
Friends, by now you’ve likely caught on that I hate birds. Perhaps I’m still scarred by the twice we owned birds when I was a kid. Both ended badly. And in my first apartment, our balcony was overrun by pigeons. I was constantly awoken by their cooing sounds. No amount of netting prevented them from nesting there. And I’ll never forget the sight of my roommate shooing one from our living room with a broom. My sister can further attest to a driving moment where we believed we would die – in part, because a bird nearly flew into our windshield, and then because of the laughter that ensued. And…
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To the left, to the left.
“That curb really came out of nowhere” was the unfortunate summary of this morning’s driving attempt. Driving on the left is hard! Here’s a not-so-secret: I struggle with left and right to begin with. Truly. I make an ‘L’ with my hands to confirm which is which, often. I give directions by knocking on the window and feverishly waving ‘that way’ across a driver’s face. Something about directions … left, right, North, south… crosses the wires in my brain. The words go in, the immediate intended action doesn’t always come out. And so here I am, trying very hard to drive on the left, and all things considered it hasn’t…
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Sunshine, Sauvignon and sky high prices
As you read in Jay’s post, we were off to a rocky start. The lack of stamp in my passport was a real blow. If stampless passports are the future, call me old school. These are badges of honour! Documentation of my story! In fact, they are worth waiting in line for – so I’ll be doing that on our way out of New Zealand while Jay takes the fast lane. 2 one-way stamps = a whole one between us, right? But friends, I don’t want you thinking that the day was a loss. Once I got over the customs heartbreak, we checked into our bright, sunny apartment in…
