Less than a week to go until my big adventure to New Zealand and Australia! My days are full of organizing, sorting and packing right now, as well as some cleaning up around the house. I've also been doing some research on various hostels. I'm finding customer reviews very helpful in deciding which hostels to check out and which ones to steer clear of! It seems like each hostel has its own unique character and we are excited to get to know some of the great people that run them!
My wonderful sister-in-law Caitlyn is joining me for the first 12 days in New Zealand. We are flying direct from Los Angeles to Auckland on Qantas (a 15 hour flight). Auckland is in the north part of the north island of NZ. We are renting a car in Auckland and will have to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road quickly! (I'll just keep repeating to myself "stay left, stay left!"). We plan to take 4-5 days to explore the north island then take a ferry to the south island for the rest of the time. We are intentionally not planning much as we want to have the freedom to explore at our own pace. It will be turning into Fall there so there should be plenty of availability at the hostels, at least we hope so! I did book a room our first night in Auckland and will probably book our last night in Christchurch. Caitlyn will fly back to Auckland then home to the States and I'll take a flight from Christchurch to Sydney, Australia. I get to spend two nights with a girl I met online (who's become a friend!) and then meet up with my best friend Gloria for a week. We are looking forward to exploring all that Sydney has to offer.
I have some friends I met when I lived in England 10 years ago that I'll be able to meet up with: one is in Dunedin, NZ and the other lives near Manly Beach, Australia. They have both offered to let us stay with them so I'm really excited about that! It sure is nice to have friends worldwide!
I'm going to try to learn how to post pictures on here so I can share my incredible adventure with you while I'm gone! Stay tuned...
Wow, sounds like so much fun! So happy for you to have the opportunity to do all this! Can't wait to see pictures. Enjoy Oz and NZ, they are both so awesome!
ReplyDeleteSo jealous :)
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