Sorted

The burglary at the hostel this weekend has cost me about a week in travel time (not to mention a few hundred dollars). The US embassy is closed on Wednesday, so the soonest I will be able to do anything will be Thursday. That means the earliest I'll be able to arrive in Oz will be this Friday or Saturday. Quantas has been great helping me change my flight schedule. So everything seems to be in order for me to start travelling again shortly. The latest word from the police is that about 13 different backpacker hostels in Queenstown were hit on the same night. According the the owners at Black Sheep, this was the first time anything like this has happened in years. I guess I let my guard down too early.

Looking over my schedule now, I will have to skip Cairns and fly directly to Brisbane after Sydney. We'll see if I can cover all the activities I had originally planned to do. Brisbane seems to be a good base of operations, but travel time to the Whitsundays and Byron Bay is a bit long. I find myself already thinking of Switzerland. I booked my tickets last night and I'm ready to go.

I "doctored down" again yesterday. Since I have saved about 1/3 of my pictures from my trip, I felt the need to capture as many photos of Queenstown as possible before moving on. I ended up buying another day pack and digital camera (the third one in two years) before summiting Dan Lomond peak for the second time in three days. Fortunately the weather was still awesome and I had great views from the peak. This time I cheated and took the gondola back down to the city instead of bombing the switchbacks. The other people who I have met during my travels will send me their pictures from Milford Sound and the Routeburn Track. Only the pictures from the glacier walk will be missing.