Campervan Adventure

And we're off!


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I really did it!

I know my posts have been a bit piecemeal but you take what you can get, hey?

NZ South Island Itinerary

Found this nifty tool in google maps so I decided to do a summary of our trip using it.


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Suggest you click on the larger map link.

More details to follow...

NZ Teaser

I've managed to upload some photos onto my facebook so if you're interested, follow this link.

I am still aiming to blog about our trip but in due time.

I went sky diving!

A Weekend in October

A bit delayed but here's a photo blog of our weekend away in October:
Clockwise from top left:
1) Happy birthday Shivani!
2) WTF? Avocado = Testicle? Gross.
3) Our cozy bedroom
4) The group minus sleepy D
5) The boys fishing but not catching anything

License to Travel

One of the drawbacks of being pinoy is we need a visa to travel most anywhere (other than South East Asia of course and Morocco!). Other than the hassle of providing documentation, I've hardly had any trouble getting a visa (if you exclude the bleeping USA, that is).

My European visa was surprisingly easy to get, given that when I applied I was an unemployed design student. My Australian tourist visa was easy enough to get as well when I first applied for it about 5 years ago.

So imagine my surprise when it took almost FOUR WEEKS to get my visa from NZ. Four freaking weeks. When their average turnaround time is 7 working days. No reason given at all for the delay.

I was ready to call the NZ visa office (or whatever they're called) to follow up and ask what the hold up was. I was also about ready to tell them to forget about it and just cancel all our travel arrangements to NZ(which would've been a pain but doable). I was going to give them until Monday next week before I rang. Thank goodness my passport arrived today stamped with my new NZ visa. A limited one-time entry visa at that.

I'm still excited to travel to NZ for our holiday but given the grief I went through getting a visa, I don't think I'll be travelling back there any time soon. Until I get my oz permanent residency that is.

Btw, out of interest, it doesn't cost Filipinos anything to apply for an NZ tourist visa. Some reciprocal agreement between our governments, I think. Just be prepared to wait if you do apply.

Tassie Trip, Day 4

On our last day in Hobart, we took it pretty easy. We had to check out by 10am and return the car before 11am, so after having breakfast at the apartment, we headed out to put fuel in the car and drop it off.

We had a small problem about lugging our bags while we waiting for our airport pickup (2pm) and luckily, the guy at Thrifty let us leave our bags in their office. Righteous.

We tried to do some shopping but Hobart doesn't have a great selection so we decided to just lounge and read our books at a park nearby.

How random then that we found a giant chessboard.

Of course we had to play

My chess strategy is shit but D was nice enough to let me win.

Aside from food and drinks, these are the only things I bought in Tassie.

Lip balm from Salamanca Market ($5), Le Carre book (50c), Connelly book ($1)

We went down to Salamanca Place to have lunch.

Found this pub that wasn't too touristy or pricey.

I hadn't had coffee served with m&ms before

Lunch was quite yum

This church was our airport pickup

And we were off! We had a really good time in Tasmania.

P.S. I'm so happy to be done with blogging about the trip though.

Tassie Trip, Day 3, Port Arthur

Home stretch! Last 2 posts then I'm done.

What's Port Arthur, you ask? Good question, as I didn't know what it was all about until I went there.

From wikipedia:
"Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction."

Read more about it here. I'm too lazy to write about it.

A picture is worth a thousand words anyway, so here's a few thousand...

Man, I'm so glad I didn't live during those times. Life was tough! And those shackles were way heavy.

The tour price ($28/person) included a ferry tour and a walking tour. They were quite interesting.

I'd definitely recommend this place. Gorgeous sites, great architecture, interesting history. Just allow a whole day for a visit. Our legs were killing us by the time we finished. And we didn't even go to everything.

Tassie Trip, Day 3

This feels like the longest trip, doesn't it? Certainly documenting it is taking longer than the actual trip.

To help you along, why don't you listen to Jack Johnson while browsing through this day's pictures.


Sunday was bright and sunny. Perfect for a road trip. Our main destination was Port Arthur but we stopped at all the touristy and scenic spots along the way.

And, of course, we couldn't pass up a market when we passed one.

I bought a Le Carre book for 50c! Woohoo!

Got suckered into visiting this monument

Oh well, it was a good view and we stumbled onto an antique store because of it.

More importantly, I scored another book for $1.

We stopped at a tourist spot, called the Tessellated Pavement. We had to check it out, especially since we didn't know what tessellated meant.

We found out that this is what tessellated looks like:
Still, don't ask me to define it.

Gorgeous views abound in Tassie and everywhere we stopped was absolutely beautiful.

Have you been wondering who has been taking our couple shots? No one, that's who. I've been so adept at time delay and camera positioning that none of our couple shots have been taken by anyone else. It's all about finding the best stable camera position and running quickly enough to get yourself in the picture.

After a lot of faffing about and photo shoots, we finally made it to Port Arthur.

I have to admit that I didn't do a lot of research on this place. I saw mention of Port Arthur in a couple of tourist brochures and there were pretty pictures so I thought it was worth going to.

We realised when we got there that the place was HUGE and it was going to take the whole afternoon just to get through the place. As it was way past noon and we were starving (all that driving and picture taking is hard work!), we decided to find something quick and edible to eat at the Port Arthur tourist cafe.

This is what we found:

Yes, I know, it doesn't look at all appetising. Fortunately, it tasted better than it looked and I wolfed down my bolognaise pasta. D had a veggie pasta and a (bland) meat pie.

Duly fortified, we were ready to take on Port Arthur...

Tassie Trip, Day 2, Part 3

After the tour, we decided to drive up to Richmond, which was an historic town 30 minutes away from Hobart. While we were there, we saw the "oldest bridge in Australia", the Richmond Gaol and some pretty churches. It was a really pretty town and looked more like Europe than Australia.

A couple of old churches

At the Richmond Gaol
($7/person)

You won't believe the reasons why some women were jailed in those days -- BEING IN A DISORDERLY HOUSE. Thank god I didn't live then, I'd have been in jail for years.

And Donny would've been whipped!

Guess what that is

It's a man trap! How horrid.

For dinner, we decided to go back to Mures to try the food in the Upper Deck (fancier than the takeaway on the Lower Deck).

I forgot to take a picture before I devoured my caesar salad

And then I forgot to take a picture again before I started on my prawns

Then again, we weren't much impressed with their food (nor their service). The lower deck was much better value.

And that concludes Day 2. Are you tired yet? I sure am.

For more pictures (yes, there's heaps more), click on either picture. One's an album from my camera and the other is from D's.