Friday 14 March 2008

The Count Down Begins!!

Well my tickets are booked and now fully paid for! Visa is being taken care of and I have my insurance, covered for all the adventure sports I'm going to be doing out there - glacier hiking, white water rafting, scuba diving, kayaking, caving, and maybe a bit of sky diving too (hears mum faint in the background)!
Got myself a nice big backpack...with detatchable bumbag (oh yeah!). We have decided that it would be wise to book some hostels in advance so we are heading back to the very helpful people at austravel soon so that we can book that and our flexi travel passes. It's all looking good!
Our route is as follows:
We are flying out of Edinburgh Airport on Tuesday, 10 June @18.15.
From there we have a connecting flight from Heathrow to Signapore (a rough 20 hour flight or so). There we change and set out on our last leg to Cairns (another 10 hours or so).
Arrive in Cairns on Thursday, 12 June @ 08.20.
We then have 6 weeks of travel down the east coast of Australia, taking in the sights, sounds, smells and, of course, celebrating Amy's 20th Birthday! We are planning on being quite easy going regarding where we stop over and how long we spend in places but we have a rough plan as you can see below.
Cairns - Port Douglas - Daintree rainforest - Mission Beach - The Whitsundays - Hearvey Bay (for a bit of whale watching) - Fraser Island - Brisbane - Byron Bay - Sydney & Blue Mountains
We both have friend and family out there so I think it is going to be awesome to see and spend some time with them! From Sydney we then begin the second and final part of our adventure in New Zealand!
We leave Sydney on Tuesday, 22 July @ 16.20 & arrive in Auckland @ 21.20
Now the 22nd is sorcha's birthday so, I'm going be feeling uber guilty and probably a bit homesick by that time, so advanced warnings you may recieve a tearful phone call! :)
Now the adventure really begins because this is where we will be doing most of our adventure sports! Eeek!!
Auckland - Rotorua (Sky ride, zorbing & sky dive!!!!) -Waitomo (caving) -Taupo (Huka Falls & the hot springs)-Wellington (Lord of the rings tour - Amy is a bit of geek when it comes to this!lol) - Nelson (maybe a bit of kayaking) - Franz Josef (Glacier hiking) - Queenstown (trip to Milford Sound) - Christchurch (relax!!!!!)
An then it's over!
We fly home from Christchurch on Monday, 11 August @ 14.35
Connecting flight from Sydney to Heathrow and then another home to Edinburgh.
Home on Tuesday, 12 August @ 10.10!!!!