World Tour 2000 - 2002
On the 3rd March somebody had the very good idea of jumping in Rav's 4ltr Ford Monster hire car and caning it down to Melbourne for the Grand Prix, which is exactly what we did. We crashed at a friends of Dingers place and had a huge night out on the day of arrival, next day we had a very nice day in the sunshine at Turn 11 of the circuit nursing very bad hangovers - and no, thankfully, we did not see the crash!!
Back to Syndey on the 5th and heaps of people ringing and viewing Dingo, we thought we had been successful in finding a buyer but they wimped out after a couple of days. We filled our days with sightseeing, visiting the fabulous Syndey Aquarium, climbing the Syndey Harbour Bridge and going to the pub with Rav and the Jones'. The weather was unfortunately a bit pants for the beach.
Luck was on our side on Tuesday 13th as we handed over the keys to Dingo to his new owners in return for a pile of cash....and then we legged it. His new owners were very nice and sweet but a bit naive, as they didn't even ask to drive him. They also have renamed him "Skip". We were glad to finally find a new home for him as his clutch had started to pack up. It was hilarious to watch the two of us trying to disguise the rattle, rattle and clunk, clunk, as we pulled away in first gear!!
On the 15th we hired a small Mazda and drove the 300km down to Canberra to visit Mel and Dave (and their two gorgeous cats Silver and Gizmo). It was great to see them as we had not seen them for about 2 years or more and we spent a day seeing some sites in Canberra and an evening vegging with some videos and junk food. Back to Syndey on the 17th to sort out some flight changes and an evening barbie at Rav's which degenerated into a drunken game of Mexican's. The 18th was our last day in Oz and we spent it recovering, purchasing a huge bag full of Dive Gear and taking some photo's of the city as the sun had finally decided to shine. So that is it, game over man, Australia - been there, seen it, and done some of it......
Touched down in Christchurch in the south island of New Zealand on the 19th, and survived two sniffer dogs and being sent into the contaminated queue due to Gary's British passport (thanks to foot and mouth). The guy standing right behind us in the customs queue was not so lucky as the 'drugs' sniffer dog took a shine to him and he was wisked away to the examination room by some huge guys with guns (he was from Amsterdam!). After a day chilling out we started on the adrelaline tour of the south island with some white water rafting on the Rangitata River which was awesome fun. We then equipped ourselves with a cheap and cheerful rental car and on the 22nd headed off into the mountains to Athurs Pass to do a couple of half day walks. After a brief stop at Punakaiki on the west coast to view the bizarre pancake rock formations, we found ourselves in Franz Josef ready and almost willing to climb the famous glacier. Wearing the crampons and ice axes they gave us we headed off in the torrential rain through streams to reach the glacier face and then climbed a few pre-cut steps and were up on the ice. Our guide, who had thigh muscles the size of tree trunks, then proceeded to frog march us up the vertical ice to ensure we didn't catch hyporthermia. We climbed up and up right into the ice fall where the glacier was basically all crevasses, cutting out our root in the ice as we went. We stopped to eat our soggy sandwiches at the bottom of one crevasse before heading back down the glacier ago in search of an ice cave. After finding two - and Gary taking a nasty tumble in one - we headed back down the valley to dry clothes back at base.
On the 26th we headed further south to gorgeous Autumn-tinged Wanaka, where we indulged in a spot of heli-mountain biking. We met up with our helicopter taxi in a field, strapped a couple of mountain bikes to the bottom of it and got ferried up to the top of Mount Alpha. The cylce down was awesome with only one minor tumble by Sharon right at the start. That evening Gary was on cook duty and decided to cook a sweat and sour pork dish. But unknown to him, he undercooked it, and next day on the way to Queenstown, he started to developed a severe bout of food poisoning that was only cured after a visit to the doctor a few days later. Due to this illness we chilled out in Queenstown until the 30th when Sharon decided she'd had enough and it was time to kill herself - that's right she did a bungy.
In Queenstown there are a few bungy sites, there is a 42m high one from a nice little bridge, there is one on a ledge about 80m high, there is one at 107m high and then there is the big huge f**k off one at 134m high. So we'll pause here for a second whilst you guess which one Sharon did.............if you guessed the 134 metre high, third highest in the world bungy you were right! Gary, well he spectated. Off we set in a bus from Queenstown with about 25 other people in total silence, nobody spoke a word on the bus. They all got geared up and then ferried out to this gondola suspended over 400 feet above a canyon floor. One at a time they got hooked up, jumped out, accelerated to terminal volocity in free fall for about 8 seconds before being bounced back about 80metres to do it all again. Once you stopped bouncing you had to then reach up, UNHOOK your feet which then spun you the right way up in a special harness in order to be winched back into the gondola. Needless to say Sharon says the jumping out was not a problem, the ground rushing up to meet you at 128mph did make her think she was going to die, and amazingly conversation on the bus back to Queenstown was a little more animated.
After the killer jump, we drove down to Te Anau, which is the gateway to Fiordland, and on the 31st March we set off on the 4 day 67 km Keppler Track (one of the Great Walks)..