Dec 2, 2015
Beer at 2 in the afternoon, don't mind if we do. #Wellington has all the craft beer you could ever want. @debaie_elizabeth_emilie thank your roomie for the North Island recs! #sandstravel #newzealand (at Golding's Free Dive)
seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from Palestinian Territories
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Ukraine
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from Singapore
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany
seen from Nigeria
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from Thailand
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Thailand
seen from Italy
Beer at 2 in the afternoon, don't mind if we do. #Wellington has all the craft beer you could ever want. @debaie_elizabeth_emilie thank your roomie for the North Island recs! #sandstravel #newzealand (at Golding's Free Dive)
Cloudy Bay and Cloudy Bay. The bottom one took more effort. 🍷🍷🗻🗻 #sandstravel (at Malbourough Sounds New Zealand)
Little #tbt to hanging ten on the Great Ocean Road. It's also Thanksgiving already here in New Zealand...I'm missing the U.S. a whole lot today but so thankful we were able to go on this adventure, and most of all for my funny, patient, up-for-anything, does-all-the-driving travel partner. #sandstravel (at Lorne Beach, Australia)
I am apparently a bona fide super fan. I stopped by a Crumpler store in Sydney (and later Melbourne) because I love their stuff and it’s now not sold in the US anymore. The manager of the Sydney store asked me if I had ever heard of the brand, and I proceeded to, in my witty charming manner, regale her with my obsession; full disclosure I own a LOT of Crumpler camera stuff. When I told her, and mentioned that my first bag was a Wack-o-Phone that I’d bought in 2002, she was a bit surprised having never heard of the bag because it was years before she started working at the store. Yup, I’m an obsessed dork. She decided to reward my browsing and super-fan status by giving me a roll of Crumpler branded toilet paper. I contemplated bringing it with me, but we were in the wrong place. This would have been incredibly useful in Asia, but Australia and New Zealand just didn’t need it. Sadly it got voted off the island in Sydney.
This is a catch up post.
It’s the little things on the road that make you feel better. After almost 2 months of travel, while in the Yarra Valley we were finally able to have some home cooked food. We found some duck burgers at a local butcher, and picked up some produce to whip up a simple home cooked dinner in the apt we stayed in, with some tasty wine we’d found earlier in the day. It was a small little bit of what everyday life usually is in an otherwise take-out/dine-out trip.
On a semi-related note, wine tasting in the Yarra Valley: they don’t really restrict you on what you can taste and seem to be confused when we wanted to split a tasting. We’ll call the Yarra Valley the anti-Willamette Valley, there were almost no tasting fees anywhere, and despite making lots of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were happy for you to taste whatever they had available. Our first stop in Rochford saw us taste across their entire lineup of wines after lunch (a very smart idea as it turned out). The wine was delicious and we bought two bottle. We also tasted 12 different wines. This was a pattern that was repeated the next day when we stopped at Oakridge Cellars, Cold Stream Hills and Yarra Yering (despite the $5 tasting fee there). On our final day we visited Dominique Portet and found an absolutely fabulous sparkling brut rose and chatted a little with the wine maker. I think by the time we’d finished our visit to the wineries we’d tasted around 70 different wines from only 6 vineyards. It was a bit insane, and I’m definitely excited to look for more of this stuff at home
Met a nice local today; had a good chat. #sandstravel #newzealand #centralotago (at Ophir, New Zealand)
Made it to New Zealand and ugh, isn't it disappointing? #lol #laststop #sandstravel #naturalbeauty (at Queenstown, New Zealand)
Today I found out that FernGully exists in real life. Also we saw some waterfalls. #sandstravel #greatoceanroad #otwaynationalpark #australia #getoutside (at Lorne, Victoria)