Different Country, Very Different Climate

Hey everybody,

We've now finished our trip in New Zealand and flew over the Tasman Sea to Australia.

From the plane we saw what I thought was orange sand clouds, which was actually smoke from the forest fires. It's been really dry here in Oz, and in Victoria, where we are now the bushfires are really bad. The smoke was in the sky above Melbourne this weekend, and with it being 37 degrees it was a very strange sight. Hot weather and no blue sky. What was even stranger was that in one hour the temp dropped from 42 to 26 degrees!

But before we got to Oz we still had a couple of weeks in NZ. In my last message I was starting to freak out a bit about the Fly By Wire, but when I did it it wasn't scary at all and just really great fun. I'll just post a pic of that, coz it really hard to explain what it is.

From adventurous Queenstown we moved on to Lake Tekapo. Apart from the lake there isn't much to do around here, but we'd booked two nights and thought we'd just lie by the lake if it was sunny. Next morning we woke up and it was snowing! I couldn't believe it, almost summer and we get snow. But snowball fights are always fun, and so is running around in the snow with bare feet :p

After playing in the snow we left the next morning for Dunedin. We went out and saw the rugby (the haka, Maori dance/sing is the best bit, it's really funny) and then went to a club and didn't get to bed till six the next morning. The Cadbury chocolate factory is in Dunedin, so of course we wanted to see that. No Oompa Loompa's, but we did see and smell the new Easter eggs and saw a chocolate waterfall. We also had a good work out in Dunedin, climbing Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street.

From Dunedin we were off to Kaikoura. Kaikoura is a small town on the east coast and is famous for it marine life. We went whale watching and saw two whales (mostly just a big hump above the water surface, with a spectacular view of the tail before they dive back into the sea). The next day we went swimming with wild dolphins. There were about a hundred dolphins and it was really amazing because they swam right under and beside us. We made stupid noises to keep them entertained and when we were back on the boat we saw them do some really cool jumps.

From Kaikoura we went back to Christchurch where we had a few days before catching our plane to Melbourne. We went on a big shopping expedition in Christchurch to buy Christmas presents and some new flip flops for me, my other ones have died so I had nothing to wear :p

We were at the airport really early, didn't want to almost miss our plane like we did in New York :p So we flew to Melbourne and landed in the heat wave.

We've been spending the past few days with my aunt, uncle and cousin in Melbourne. We've been to the beach and into the city a few times. And tomorrow we start travelling around Victoria for a week and do the great ocean road. We'll be back just in time for Christmas and spent Christmas till New Year here.

My cousin Zoe thinks I’m crazy, so I've been trying to prove her right by dressing up like a Christmas tree. And that picture is now my Christmas card to you all :p
So merry Christmas, and a happy new year!
Fijne kerstdagen en een gelukkig nieuwjaar!

Ciao Ciao,
Laura