Welcome to Asia and its Challenges

On January 16, 2009 we flew to Bangkok, Thailand. We were looking forward to the challenges that a new language brings but we plum forgot about their different alphabet. Not only do we typically struggle to learn the necessary words of a country but we also battle through trying to phonetically pronounce them in any recognizable way. However, Thailand's beautiful ornamental alphabet faced us with another problem. We couldn't read the signs, maps, menus...nothing.

As we biked through Bangkok we encountered traffic of mass quanities. We were encased by trucks, buses, cars, scooters, 3 wheeled bicycles carrying stacks 4 feet high, and animals coming from every direction (even though its suppose to be a one-way). This chaos totally overwelmed us and tested our nerves. Once we made it to our hostel we parked our bikes and made our way through the city by foot, metro, and river taxis. Yes, welcome to Asia. The land of scooters and chaos! Unfortunetely we don't have any pictures of all the scooters and choitic traffic in Bangkok. That's because we had to keep moving so we wouldn't get hit.

Above are some photos of Bangkok. We visited the market and not only saw where they have cock fights but also where they have fish fights. Yes, its quite humorous to see grown men staring at a small fish bowl watching 2 fish go at each other. Money was flying across the table.

In Search of the Tasmanian Devil

After Christmas we took the ferry to Tasmania. After being told "you have to go to Tasmania" 5 different times we decided we better check it out. It is a very beautiful unique island. It has the lush green rolling hills like New Zealand. But most interesting to me were the people. They are very down to earth and will go out of their way to help ANYBODY out. They take pride in their simpler life and state, "we are 10 years behind and we like it that way". While we were there we biked around the northern half of the island. That is where we had gotten jobs in an apple orchard so we needed to stay around that area. We had some great bike rides to Canyons and some beautiful hikes. While free camping we experienced the life of the nocturnal animals. We had kangaroos, wallabies, tasmanian devils and even penguins roaming around our tent at various times. We were literally in a zoo with no bars!

We attended a bicycle race that included Olympians and World Class riders. We met 4 American cyclists. It was so fun to have people to cheer on. We also attended a local Ho Down. What a hoot. They had 2 country bands and various wood chopping competitions. We shared spirits and lies with our new local friends. From here we took the ferry back to Melbourne and flew to Thailand.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

We've been told over and over to go to Tasmania. I remember watching the Tasmanian
Devil on Bugs Bunny but never really thought I'd be going there. Because of this new change of plans we needed to get to Melbourne (1000km south of Sydney) right away. So, we took a bus to Melbourne. We arrived right before Christmas so we spent a few days prior to Christmas biking around the the bay and then spent Christmas at a beach camp ground in Barwon Bay. We were told it would be hopping with campers and beach lovers. We were guaranteed to see santa in a bikini but with temps around 70 degrees, it wasn't going to happen. It turned out to be a quiter Christmas than expected. However, we met some super people and their families camping next to us and we shared Christmas cheer together more than once. It was really nice. We found out the crowd of campers show up on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) which is also a holiday for them and everything is closed. N othing beats being with our own families but this was nice for this year.

The Golden Coast, hot and humid

Now...we only have 45 days in Australia and, being the country is almost as large as the US, we had to make some decisions so we could see as much as we could and meet as many locals as possible. So, we took a train 900km north to Brisbane to start our bicycling adventure south. We biked south along the Gold Coast of Queensland. It was gorgeous like we had heard and very touristy. We camped along the way and Ward tried his hand at fishing. We tried to take side roads as much as possible as sometimes the traffic (trucks) can make biking a little harry (Ward has seriously used 4 of his lives already). The temps were reaching highs of 108 degrees with very high humidity. Not very conducive for biking which really made the ocean water tempting. Remember, this is the Christmas season so it was a little hard to get into the spirit when you are drenched in sweat. Lawn bowling is really popular in Australia and they have special clubs for it with real members. We saw signs of kangaroo and koala crossings and had the opportunity of seeing a koala hanging on a tree on the side of the road. We returned to Sydney where we needed to pick up our Vietnam and China visas. We were fortunate to meet Susan Zbornik (from Decorah and a sister of Jacky's friend). We spent 2 nights with her and learned alot more about the Australian culture as she has lived here for 18 years. Thanks Susan.

Sydney, Australia - the home of the Opera House

We arrived in Sydney on Dec. 3rd. We took a couple of days to assemble the bikes,
make a plan and tour the city. Sydney is absolutely beautiful. We viewed the Opera House, the Harbor Bridge, world famous beaches and tasted some of the quisine. We were able to meetup with Royce Fullerton (from Decorah). It was good to see a familiar face. We also took the time in Sydney to get our visas for Vietnam and China. Since we knew that we would be returning through Sydney we felt we could leave our passports for the necessary time.

Wrapping up New Zealand

We finished up our time in New Zealand by biking up around the Bay of Islands (the northern peninsula). We decided to try to save some money by working at campgrounds in lieu of our nights tariff. We were able to do this at 3 different campgrounds and we were surprised that they only required one hour of work from each of us to cover our costs. Most campgrounds were trying to spruce up their grounds in preparation for Christmas so we had extra work that we could do for pay. We really enjoyed doing this. It made us one of the staff which allowed us to spend more time with the locals and enjoy their company. Sometimes they actually gave us nice cabins to stay in vs our tent. The New Zealand campgrounds are some of the best campgrounds we have seen so far. Before we left New Zealand we had entered a 160km (100 mile bike race. It was the Taupo Lake Challenge which was sponsored by the Rotary and had 10,000 bicyclists. It was GREAT! Then off to Australia.

Whirlwind Tour of New Zealand with Iowan Friends

The pace picks up. When Ben Garrett and his girlfriend, Christina, joined us on November 1st we had 10 days to get as much ground covered as possible. Needless to say a car was required to complete this mission. Unfortunately, the 60-80 degree weather we had experienced the 3 weeks prior was replaced with 30-50 degree weather. Along with these colder temperatures we experienced rain, sleet and snow!

In the North Island we experienced:
* Coromandel Penninsula (we actually sat in the hot water holes this time at Hot
Water Beach...see previous blog posting)
* Taupo Lake (hiked)

We didn't spend alot of time in the North Island because we were trying to get to
the South Island which everyone said was absolutely beautiful.

In the South Island we had a great time:
* Did some hikes in the mountains and had great vistas.
* Ward, Christina and Ben went skydiving at 12,000ft (air temperature at that
elevation was -4 degrees F). They said it was quite an adrenaline rush. They were
free falling for 45 seconds.
* Ward and I drove to Milford Sound and did an overnight cruise through the Fjords
(If you wonder why I didn't go skydiving its because I spent my money on this
instead.) It was incredible!! We kayaked and saw penguins, seals, and dolphins.
Highly recommended. You'll have to read the egroup and see the pictures.
* Christina and Ben bungy jumped off the bridge where the bungy jumping
originated. Too scary for Ward and I. They did it in tandem. Some people
actually got their body dipped into the water head first.
* Christina and Ben went scuba diving.
* We all went mountain biking on single track through the hills.

The North Island has rolling green lush hills with lots of dairy farms. It is much more populated than the South Island. The South Island is known for its picturesque mountains, fjords, and adventurous activities (as well as its "sand flies!"). An egroup will be coming shortly and will explain all the activities, etc we did in more detail. Please let us know if you have had difficulty signing up for the egroup. If so, we will send the email to you directly.