Not your imagination. The mining boom has made hotels in Perth hideously expensive. Adding the increase in prices for a cricket invasion might put those prices right out to door and make Brissie more attractive.

Best test - Perth or Brisbane? I've not been to either.
The Perth test, in the middle of the series, may have more atmosphere than the Brisbane test, right at the start of the series - I don't really know.

The best tests are out of your travel period - Boxing Day in Melbourne, and Jane McGrath day in Sydney.

I should catch you in Sydney on your latest itinerary - at present I'm hoping to fly out 14/15 December.

Also consider a few days R&R around Margaret River after Perth. It may be your last chance to see the sun for a while!

thanks, Margo. I'm tempted to book somewhere in Perth on a "free cancellation" basis for the relevant dates, just to have somewhere "in the bank".

From a cricket point of view Brisbane looks least attractive - traditionally England teams have started slowly and I reckon that we are likely to lose that one - and irrationally I think that if we are there, we're BOUND to lose it. That opening ball from Steve Harmison still haunts me, even though it is now 2 series ago.

I've passed the conundrum over to DH at the moment - I'm too busy at work to give it my full attention and as we're sharing the trip 50/50 i reckon we should bear the responsibility of planning it 50/50 too. [or 30/70 anyway].

nice to hear that you might be around when we're in Sydney - sorry to say that the itinerary may not stay like it is though. watch this space.

Yep, definitely not your imagination. Perth accommodation (and everything else) is incredibly expensive even at quiet times, so I can only imagine what it'd be like during a big event. Book as early as you can and don't expect many options with free cancellation.

looking for ashes, england is in a mood

Hi hassel,

that's a bit "gnomic"; care to elucidate?

Anne, I'd like to throw a curve ball -or at least a leg break into your plans.

Your seem to omit Melbourne. That is like visiting Italy and omitting Rome!

OK. Serious now. You should visit Melbourne and we would be delighted to accomodate you.

Google South Melbourne, corner of coventry and Montague Streets. That is where you might be staying. About 20 minutes walk from down town.

I'm not sure how this fits in with your NZ trips, but do consider it.

[email protected] will find us.

And Australia will CRUCIFY England in the Ashes series.


Sorry, but that's how it goes.

Peter - in your dreams!

such a generous offer - you aussies are such nice people.

Melbourne has not been in our plans up to now, [we planning to be home by the time the Melbourne test starts on 26th Dec] but I'll certainly give it some further thought!

DD went there on HER travels - she liked it a lot apart from the weather, which was far too much like home.

Melbourne is interesting - but note that Peter is now hanging about in Venice for a bit!

I'm now flying out to torment the Germans, terrorize the Scots and say g'day to London, on 8th December. Home in time for the Sydney test.

How are your plans progressing?

hi margo,

plans got put on hold for a while 'cos life intervened, but we're trying to finalise things at the moment.

how long are you going to be spending in europe? [you do know that it'll be cold and wet then, don't you? that's why we're going to the antipodes!]

:)

Yes - I do know it'll be cold and wet - and I don't have any suitable clothes! Can you suggest a department store in Frankfurt that will sell me a cheap but suitable warm coat, for which I will have no further need after this trip - unless I'm silly enough to go again!

I'm still concerned about how the mangoes ripen!

I'm back in time for the Sydney test.

And Australia will CRUCIFY England in the Ashes series.>>

mmmm - care to revise that statement, Peter?

anyway, I've come back here in order to report that we now have tickets for the 2nd and 3rd Days of the Brisbane test. Hurray. We were umming and erring about which days if any to book for ages, and while we vacillated the opening day for public booking - 17th July - came and went, so Day 1 was already sold out by the time we made our decision.

not sure about Day 4 - we're going to think about that a bit more, and there appear to be lots of tickets available for that day. [if it takes us that long to beat you!]

right then - now to try to nail down NZ.

<<<< "And Australia will CRUCIFY England in the Ashes series.">>>>>

You'll have to excuse me, and you might recognise me in my garb of sack cloth and ashes (which sadly look like being retained by England).

I'm just ducking out for a piece of humble pie, with a side serve of humiliation.

I think that day three of a test match can be great - by then, the match has some sort of shape to it, maybe there's a run chase starting to happen, the pitch might be breaking up a bit, the choice of playing for a win or a draw may be becoming evident.

Ann, I do hope that you get to see a good match.

Peter - how gracious. pity your team's captain couldn't manage something similar in his recent interview, where he said that they are expecting to win the next three matches and to take the series!

<<Ann, I do hope that you get to see a good match.>>

What you and i think constitutes a good match may be two different things of course!

Please make that a double serve of humble pie.

Pride goeth before a fall - where's that damn parachute.

Congratulations to England for retaining the ashes. Now for Summer in Aus ...

Nicely said, Peter.

I think that it can be said that your team acquitted itself rather better in this last match, and had it not been for the rain, it could have been a close run thing. [where's Monty when you need him?]

but overall, your batsmen have not been up to scratch, with just one making over 100 as against our 4. your bowling has been better than expected [or is that how they appear against our rather fragile batsmen?] and Clark's decision not to bowl Siddell when England was trying to avoid the follow-on was extraordinary.

shame that the Ashes had to be retained with such an anti-climax but we've still got two more matches to re-enforce our supremacy - roll on the summer indeed!

Hi Annhig--dropping in from the Europe forum. I just don't know enough about driving times to be much use to you. Part of me agrees with anyone who said to concentrate your efforts on Australia itself.

All I can do is share what we did in the 15 days we had in NZ.

Our itinerary when we went to NZ was based mostly on cycle times with van shuttles.
--We landed in Auckland, spent the day exploring the city, and flew out to Christchuch the next morning.
--We spent day exploring Christchurch.
--We left the next day to take the TranzAlpine rail to Moana, and we then cycled out to Rapahoe and shuttled down to Punakaiki.
--From Punakaiki, we cycled down Route 6 to Hokitika where we stayed the night.
--We then cycled from Hokitika to the Franz Joseph Glacier Valley. We would like to have taken a helicopter ride from there, but we were fogged in.
--Next, we cycled over the Fox Hills to Wilderness Lodge Lake Moeraki, where we spent two fascinating nights. Lots of glow worms in the trees and rock niches by the side of the road; total darkness at night for fabulous star gazing.
--We cycled over the Haast Pass to Lake Wanaka area, which all of us loved, and we took advantage of seeing area wineries.
--From there, we booked a plane to take us down to Milford Sound for the day. Superb.
--We then cycled just a bit more in the area and shuttled to Queenstown, where my daughter got to bungee (it's actually bungy there) at the original first commercial bungee site, Kawarau Gorge.

Others in a party went on to zipline and canyon swing the in following days. We, however, flew back to Auckland, rented a car, and headed up to Bay of Islands for a couple of days of R&R. I had booked golf dates for my husband around there, and I spent my time chilling out looking at birds.

We booked a helicopter while we were up there to check out all the islands.

If I went back, I'd stay a minimum of three weeks in NZ with the supposition that I still would not see enough. I find driving times there to be akin to driving in Ireland--it takes longer than you think.

I'm sorry I cannot be of any more help! Good luck with travel planning.

AZ - that's really helpful, thank you, albeit you were doing it on 2 wheels and we will [mostly] have 4.

you may be right about it being better to concentrate on Oz, but DH has always wanted to see NZ so it seemed obvious to combine the two, though i appreciate that we may well be falling within 2 stools.

we have 17 nights in NZ overall and i suspect that if we had 27 or even 37 we would still be saying it's not long enough. but we have decided to concentrate on the SI and only spend 3 nights on NI before getting the ferry over.

ideally I'd have liked to go to the Bay of Islands but it's in completely the wrong direction of course and we'd like to see something of the rest of NI while we're there so the plan is to go south, but whether straight south towards Taupo, or south-east towards the coast and Napier, has yet to be decided.

that's the trouble - if I were doing this for someone else, I'm sure that I would be able to look at it and see immediately what we ought to do. trying to work it out for myself, I'm like a rabbit in headlights, not knowing which way to jump!

I agree to head to the South Islands. I'm sure people will be upset when I say that we did not need much time in Auckland. We enjoyed it, we walked forever, we did museums, you name it, but with so many astounding sights to see in NZ, our short time there was about right.

The Bay of Islands served our purposes beautifully--R&R, golf, my birdwatching, plus I am a Captain Cook history fanatic--but if you have been to Pacific Islands, that "feel" is the same. The South Island is something ENTIRELY different. The best way I've tried to explain it to others is that it is like combining the scenery of Ireland, Switzerland, the Pacific Northwest, and Norway, and then putting the combination on steroids.

What we did in NZ that we never do in other locations was make use of helicopters and planes. For example, it is so possible to drive to and descend into the Grand Canyon that I could not fathom hiring a scenic plane or helicopter there.

However, in NZ, so many of the truly outstanding sights are far away and almost inaccessible. Planes and helicopter usage, no matter how expensive, makes sense.

I cannot believe that weather conditions almost made us miss Milford Sound. And I can't believe that for one millisecond, I was thinking of my pocketbook and almost missed doing it.

I wish you dryer weather than what we had. Australia suffered terrible flooding the January we were there, and the West Coast of South Island received much of the same. My fingers were permanently pruned on the bike (and I STILL loved our trip). The rain was so bad that during part of our Franz Josef stay, about eight of us played hooky and said, "Nope, we're going to hang at the hotel and play boardgames." Our hotel was really nice--perfectly suited for a group with a huge living area--so it was not a hardship.

The rain did lead to excitement for me. The guides dropped us in town for a bit because of the downpour, and bird watcher that I am, I headed straight for the West Coast Wildlife Centre. There is a darkened exhibit, and your eyes have to adjust to see the Rowi and Haast tokoeka kiwi. You of course do not touch, but a little kiwi poked his bill through the fencing and touched ME! I kept pointing to my knee afterwards and saying to our traveling groups--"Kissed by a kiwi here. Kissed by a kiwi here."

AZ - thanks for re-enforcing what we've heard so far about SI; everyone has said that we are right to prioritise it. We definitely have Milford sound on our agenda, and a helicopter trip onto the glaciers, weather permitting. hopefully December will bring good weather - otherwise we too will be in the hotel playing monopoly.

BTW, where did you stay in Franz Joseph? i having difficulty finding the right place to stay there.

we are hoping to go to the West coast wild-life centre to see the kiwis - they do nocturnal visits that look interesting. Though we like birds, I can't promise to get THAT excited about one though!

Our place was outside of town: http://www.westwoodlodge.co.nz/

We all agreed the Westwood was one of our favorite stops. You can see the living room on the website and imagine how great it was just playing board games while it poured there.

Our rooms were simple but had a luxury feel to them. We ate breakfast at the lodge but ate dinners in Franz Josef.

And we also loved our stay in the rain forest at the Wilderness Lodge Lake Moeraki:
http://www.wildernesslodge.co.nz/wil.../lake-moeraki/

Our rooms there were comfortable but spartan, fitting for an ecolodge. There was always some walk or kayaking or whatever to do. We were fascinated by the rain forest. And we all reported for afternoon tea, too!

Dear AZ,

i can see why the Westwood would be a nice place to stay, however it's a bit ! outside our budget. [I think I remember looking at it before and discounting it for that very reason].

however, you prompted me to have another look at the accommodation in Franz Joseph, and i found the Alpine motel which will be ideal for us [parking, nice room, a kitchen, and a balcony, AND in town so that we don't have to drive in the evenings - all for under £100 per night, which is about our limit]. Hence the lovely wilderness lodge is way outside out budget - very sadly as it looks fantastic. but also to get the most out of it we'd need to stay at least 2, preferably 3 nights, which i don't think I could fit into our itinerary.

anyway, thanks very much for both these recommendations and your descriptions - really useful, even if we don't end up staying there!

Greetings from the South Island annhig.

Until today, we've had pretty good weather for the past two weeks, but man, the sandflies have been fierce! Don't forget to pack your repellant.

Hi Melnq - greetings to you too!

NZ will be about the 3rd or 4th place in a row where we've been warned to take repellant and each time, no flies! so you can be assured we'll be bringing it as insurance.

where are you now?

That's my theory for carrying snow chains too, if you have them you won't need them. So far, so good, fingers crossed.

That said, I'd forgotten that sandflies are also found in Mt Cook and they were out in force. Loads of them in Fiordland as expected, but they gathered on the screens of our accommodation so thick that I thought for sure they'd come in and eat us alive.

Not to be confused with Aussie black flies, which are incredibly annoying, but don't bite. At least not in WA.

We're currently in our all time favorite B&B in Glenorchy...third stay here and still loving it. Cold but clear weather expected tomorrow, so hoping to take in the Paradise walk and then maybe head to the Routeburn.

lol, Melnq - are we going to need snow chains in December???

seriously, what are the flies likely to be like then?

have a nice walk in Paradise! [care to share its location?]

you shouldn't need snow chains in December - but weather is very fickle!

Sandflies, midges, assorted bitey things - YES!

Snow chains, very unlikely.

They're not just flies. They're sandflies. The females bite. They itch like the devil. They continue to itch long after you've clawed the bites into bleeding ulcers. Don't scratch! Absolutely expect them, especially in summer. Fortunately, not everywhere. They like the taste of my husband more than me, but that's probably because I'm not shy about slathering myself in 100% DEET. Seriously, be prepared.

Paradise - short drive from Glenorchy. I've posted about it before. Google Paradise Trust.

Ann I didn't want to hijack the other thread, but going to Hokitika via the Lewis Pass from Kaikoura looks to be a reasonable drive, ie not too long in a car.

I found this link, you might have already seen it.

http://www.theroadtrip.co.nz/nz-self...nz-self-drive/

thanks, nelsonian. I don't think I had seen that link, so double thanks.

That tour is almost our route so the driving distances and times [though I'd already researched them to some degree] as well as some of the sightseeing tips, are very useful.

I'm just going to comment on insects:

We were bitten alive on the beach on Punakaiki New Year's Eve.

We did not get one bite further south in the rain forest--mainly because it was pouring rain, I'm thinking. :)

thanks, AlessandraZoe - I'm definitely going to be stocking up on insect repellent.

Hello Ann,

Just go with the venues match by match. You will cover almost all happening places in Australia and NZ in this limited time of 3-4 weeks. Besides, you will have your diving craze fulfilled as ODIs are either day or day-night. Have a nice and safe trip! Don't miss out any T20. Its worth watching.

Hi allan.

thanks for chiming in. We actually went to the T20s in Sri Lanka - difficult to top that i think. The noise was incredible.

We are going to the 1st test in Brisbane then making for NZ. we decided that we weren't keen enough to follow the team round the country, but hopefully we'll be able to keep up with the action on the TV! Before the 1st test we're going to Cairns, so that should get diving the GBR ticked off DH's bucket list. And then we'll be home to sunny Cornwall in time for Christmas.

The cricketers have arrived in Sydney - and we're making them feel like home.

We've not had a drop of rain for months and now it's bucketing down - and it's got a lot cooler!

the weather - our secret weapon.

I see that you've picked young Mr Johnson again - the barmies will just love that. and D. Warner - I'm sure they've got a song about him too.

I notice that it's hot in Brisbane at the moment but stormy - let's hope the storms are on the pitch, not over it!

G'day annhig and welcome to Oz.

Mr Johnson is not quite so young any more - so should cope better with the Barmy Army aggro.

Dsvy Warner is said to have turned over a new leaf. If only he'd thumped Kevin Petersen he probably would have got an award, rather than getting into strife.

Fun and games begin soon. I'll miss a good bit of it - for the Boxing Day test I'll be in the wilds of Scotland, with my cricket-hating and tv and internet-free friends.

Back for Sydney, though.

Enjoy Brisbane.

hi margo,

what, no cricket in Scotland? a previous skipper of England [Mike Deness] was scots, so they have a serious cricket pedigree but they did just get beaten by Afghanistan so they've got some reason to keep quiet about it at the moment.

I''ve just sat down to watch the RL Q final between England and France that was played last night. it's a recording of course so I've had to be careful to avoid spoilers.

I hope that you enjoy Scotland despite the lack of cricket coverage on the TV - but you do know don't you that BBC Test match special will be broadcasting every ball on Radio 5 extra [digital] Radio 4 LW/MW?

so all you need is a radio and the ability to stay up all night listening to it!

I hadn't thought of Test Match Special - great suggestion, thanks. Just need a radio and somewhere away from cricket-hating friends!

Expecting even less cricket in Germany and Switzerland, where I'll be for the pre-Christmas tests. Perhaps I can pick up ABC streaming on my tablet (although I thought I heard somewhere that ABC wasn't streaming these tests.) :(

Enjoy the cricket in Brisbane - due to start tomorrow.

I'm loving the result after the first day's play.

And wondering how the press are dealing with it, after most of them vowed never to mention Stuart Broad's name ever again.

Just like Voldemort, eh? He who shall not be named...