Posts about World Traveller Internship 2010
Too many slopes to choose from…
There are quite a few places where you can go skiing around New Zealand, especially in the middle of winter. The main places that people decide upon are in Queenstown and Wanaka. Queenstown, of course, being the adrenaline capital of the world, is where most people roll on down to get a good ski or snowboard, meaning that it can get a bit crowded. This is why I decided to get up on the slopes in Wanaka.
Treble Cone is about a half hour bus ride away from the centre of town, and all together, including the transfer, the ski pass and the gear, it will cost you around NZ$135 for a full day of skiing here. I, needless to say, passed out on the bus ride (we had had a few drinks the night before and I was surviving, once again, on about 3 hours sleep), and was woken up 30 minutes later as the bus jolted to stop. The scenery in front of me was mental.
We had climbed over the clouds and was now looking down on them. The sheet of cloud looked like an extension of the pure white snow that was lying on the mountain side. It was unreal.
After taking a few snaps, we got our ski passes (which you buy at the bottom of the first lift. There are no gondolas here, it’s straight onto the snow off the bus) and clicked our skis on.
Like I said, Queenstown can get a bit crowded, but here, we were able to run up and down the slopes non stop, with not even a hint of a queue at any point. The amount of runs at Treble Cone is more than enough to keep you happy few a few days. People have told me that if you’re staying around for a week or so, then maybe head down to Queenstown, simply because the mountains are bigger and you have more choice, but for the day, Treble Cone is “Sweet As, Bru”.
By the end of the day, if you’ve been skiing a few times, I would recommend going as high a you can in the ski lifts and then taking the hike up to the highest mount on these mountains. The views are out of this world, and the off piste skiing back down to the main slopes is a lot of fun. What you should know about the slopes in NZ is that the grading system is slightly different. The are no Reds, it’s Green, Blue then Black, and the Blue runs can go from nice and easy to steep moguls pretty quickly! What’s really nice about these runs though, is that a lot of them are just guides, and you can make up a lot of it as you go along. Pretty much all of the Blacks are just off piste, and especially at Treble Cone where there aren’t many people are fairly uncarved and deserted. Again, a lot of fun!
Only wiped out a coupled of times (once pretty spectacularly underneath the ski lift) and still only have the one hole in my teeth. A freaking good day!
Climbing on ice
Franz Joseph glacier is travelling at a rate of 1 metre per year. It is one of the only glaciers in the world that is resting at only 300 feet above sea level which gives it the class of a ‘Warm Glacier’ meaning that there is a lot of running water all over it. There are a few things you can opt to do when you are here, you can Hike over it (either a full or half day), you can chopper over it (which is VERY expensive, but can give you the most amazing views over the whole glacier) or you can do some ice climbing.
Having done a fair bit of climbing back at home, I was so excited to get out on the ice. The glacier itself is pretty breathtaking. Standing at the end of the valley that sits in front of it, you look across to the foot of the glacier. It was at this point that our guide told us that what we saw was actually 2 Km away. Brilliant.
The walk there is actually pretty nice – the scenery around a glacier, as you can imagine, is beautiful. And without knowing it, we were actually standing on the glacier within 25 minutes. The bottom of it is covered it debris from the landslides that apparently happen very often, but when they do they are amazing to witness. Wasn’t entirely sure if I would have wanted one to happen when I was halfway up an ice face, amazing or not.
Ice climbing is very different to actual climbing. You can put your feet and hands anywhere you want, as long as you can get them into the ice. But it’s the actual process of doing this, actually getting the picks and the crampons into the ice, that really is the hard part. Especially when the ice you are climbing up hasn’t seen sunlight in a good few hundred years.
The whole experience only cost NZ$250 (£125) and I had an amazing time and saw some incredible things. But there was another cost that I did not set out to spend. On the first climb of the day, my fourth throw of the pick found itself well and truly lodged in the ice. On trying to get it out I found that it wasn’t as easy as all the others. The guide shouted up at me “just give it a good yank!”, so I did, and the thing came out of the ice and straight into my mouth. It didn’t actually hurt that much, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t knocked half a tooth out.
Fantastic.
I still managed to hold on to that stray piece of tooth though. A nice little memento. And who else can say they lost a tooth ice climbing in New Zealand? At least that’s how I’m choosing to look at it.
Matt M
STA UK WTI 2010
5 days in Sydney…
It’s been 7 months since I was last in Sydney, and back then it was in the height of their summer. The picture that I had in my head before I set off two weeks before christmas, was of sitting on the beach on Christmas Day, nursing a barbecue and watch Santa’s surf down Bondi Beach. I was horribly disappointed. Apparently it is the worst Christmas (weather wise) they have had in years, so it was annoying that this was the year that I decided to head over there. It rained a lot and wasn’t even that hot at the best of times.
On my return, in the height of their winter, I was in for a nice surprise. We pulled into the Woodduck Inn, a hostel just off Kings Cross, and headed up to their top deck which over looks the observation tower and Hyde Park. And there was not a cloud in the sky. Not only that, I was stripping off the four layers I had donned in preparation for the cold. The fist guy we met was actually sitting in the sun in shorts and not much else “catching a tan”… in the middle of winter… go figure.
The Woodduck is a fantastic place. The people working there were brilliant, and it was also full of backpackers working for accommodation, some of whom had been there for a good long while (it seems that the inspiration to actually find a job is quite hard when you are living in this place for free and are surrounded by people wanting to have a good time) so we already had a head start in finding the best places to go.
There are obviously the standard things that one goes to see when in Sydney; the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Botanical Gardens (pronounced Booww-taaaanicaal by the Welsh Paul who had been working in the Woodduck for just a week but had settled in straight away) and The Rocks (it has to be said that The Rocks is an entire area of shops, houses and bars, all with a very rustic feel, and all very cosy. There is a pub crawl that you can do which takes you to all the bars in the area, and will take about three days, but it is a little more pricey here that other places you might go. Here, is more of a place to go and get some food. And what food it is!), but for the more backpacker cheep deals, we found The Gaff.
It’s a small bar/restaurant/club/general place all backpackers go after a bag of ‘goon’, and some of the deals you can find in here are amazing. It’s no Ivy, and certainly isn’t Fabric (a restaurant and club in London respectively for those who have no idea what I’m referring to) but the food that comes out is some of the best that I have had on this trip. The Woodduck has a long-standing relationship with them (as with the sister hostel, Boomerang) which means that you get even more money off with them than usual. I had an incredible steak and a drink for AU$6, and on nights out, the amount of free drinks vouchers that fly around is brilliant!
If you find yourself in Sydney for a few days, and are looking for a good night on the town, there is something called the Oz Party Bus, and is exactly what it sounds like. The guys who own the company bought an old bus and gutted it, filling it with speakers and disco lights. They pick you up from certain points around the town and then take you to five bars and clubs around Sydney (ending in The Gaff) and it can get pretty hectic. If you think about what it is like on the underground in rush hour when a train comes to an abrupt stop, add 3 bars with a free drink at each and dancing people. You get the idea.
It is in Sydney that you can get the chance to go and see the Blue Mountains, given their name because from a distance they look ever so slightly blue thanks to the millions of Eucalyptus trees growing on them. Now while these mountains are fairly spectacular, and the ‘Three Sisters’ formation is 
pretty nice, I have to say that it is not the most amazing thing I have seen on the trip so far. The tour itself was perfectly nice, but if you have been all over Australia before this, then you might not be so blown away by these mountains. By all means, go and see them if you want to, but don’t expect anything really special.
Heading up the East Coast now… all the way to Cairns in 13 days… wish us luck!!
Matt M
New Places and Old Faces
Well, it’s less than 24 hours before Matt and I jet off around the world for three months. It goes without saying that we are both enormously excited about going away. For me, this excitement centres around two things: visiting new places, and catching up with some old faces. This trip takes me to not one, not two but THREE continents that I’ve never been to before: Asia, Australia, and North America. I’m therefore really keen to explore these places, meet new people and experience customs and cultures that are totally different to my own. Having studied some of the history of Vietnam, it will be really fascinating to take that history of the pages of text books and experience for myself what the country is like today. In Ho Chi Minh, for example, we visit the Reunification Palace and the infamous Cu Chi tunnels and in Hue to get to see the final resting place of two of the Emperors. I’m also particularly interested in picking up some quirky communist propaganda as souvenirs, sampling some delicious Vietnamese food, and indulging myself with some gorgeous silk clothes.
Australia and New Zealand promise to be similarly fascinating, and it’s here where the itinerary gets really fun. I can’t wait to explore all the gorgeous rainforests, to try my hand at Queensland farming and to go sailing around Whitsunday Islands. Not so sure how I feel about the Crocodile Farm but they do say keep your friends close and your enemies even closer so perhaps it’s best that I learn about them so I know what to do in case one of them gets a little peckish. I’m also relishing the opportunity to try out my new Panasonic Lumix TZ10 camera, purchased with the aid of some tough haggling skills combined with lots of shameless flirting.
Meeting new people is undoubtedly one of the best things about travelling; however it can be a bittersweet thing. I’ve met some of the most amazing people on my travels but the more I travel the more I find that there’s no one place I want to be, as I have friends and family scattered all over the world. At times I feel like I want to pack all these people and take them with me wherever I go, but I’ve also come to realise that all these people belong in their surroundings and there are many benefits to having people in different parts of the world. It means that wherever you go, you always have someone to call upon. With this trip, I’m lucky enough to be going to places where some of my friends are. In Hong Kong, I am hopefully meeting up with a friend I knew from Tanzania, who is out there working as an English teacher. In Argentina I have heard from a friend who I met back in 2005 when I was volunteering in Paraguay, so I’m excited to be able to see him again. As he’s now back in his native Buenos Aires, I’m hoping he’ll be able to show us around and give us some fantastic inside tips. I also know lots of Brazilians that I may possibly get a chance to see during our stay there. Fingers crossed!