G'Day Mates:
In an effort to reduce the stress and minor concerns of my family and friends wondering about my little adventures in Australia and New Zealand 'alone' this Fall (Summer in AUS/NZD), I decided to create a blog to keep you up to speed on my whereabouts and activities.
I will try to keep this blog updated every other day with details of my adventures. I will also try my best to upload pictures to share, but I'm not sure how well that will work with my camera (the images may be too large and may take too long to upload).
As many of you know, I have wanted this trip for a very long time and I can't believe that it's almost here. I will be leaving in exactly 25 days from this initial post. I have most of my itinerary planned out. Hopping around in NZD was way cheaper than I expected. One of my flights only cost $33.00 USD. I'm sure I'll be flying on the "ghetto" version of South West! But hey, whatevs... it's getting me from point A, B, C and beyond :) New Zealand Air wasn't too bad either. I think the most that I paid for a ticket was $160.00 USD.
I was able to get an Australian Travel Visa for all of $29.00 and received it today. It is kind of strange that I have to have both a travel visa and passport for Australia; but I only need a passport of NZD... go figure!
Today's blog is provided to let you know my itinerary, so you have an idea of where I'll be for 30 days. With that being said, here goes:
12 NOV 2010 - Travel from San Diego to Los Angeles, CA via Amtrak to catch my flight. I'll be in LA for one day being a tourist.
13 NOV - 14 NOV 2010 - Flying on United Airlines from LAX to Sydney, Australia (15 long hours and I'm not in First Class - ugh!!!). I guess I can't complain since I paid for the flight with 80K miles.
15 NOV 2010 - Arrive in Sydney, Australia (I still can't believe that they are almost 2 days ahead of the US)
15 - 21 NOV 2010 - Sydney, Australia
21-27 NOV 2010 - "Somewhere in Australia" ???? Haven't made up my mind yet. I wanted to travel to Melbourne, then decided to travel to Cairns, Australia based on some information provided by two Australians that I met in San Diego last week!
27 NOV - 01 DEC 2010 - Christchurch, New Zealand
01 - 03 DEC 2010 - Queenstown, New Zealand
03 - 07 DEC 2010 - Milford Sound, New Zealand (I'm so tempted to camp, but not 100% sure yet)
07 -10 DEC 2010 - Auckland, New Zealand
10 - 11 DEC 2010 - Melbourne, Australia
11 DEC 2010 - Melbourne to LAX
11 DEC 2010 - Los Angeles to San Diego, CA
I'm also going to check on switching over my phone to an international phone this weekend, so I will let you know how that works out.
Oh... and I really want to catch up on reading a few good books, please provide some suggestions!
I'll blog again in the next couple weeks.
Sam
