Oceania

Travel through Oceania by country:

Australia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

Travel through Oceania by popular city:

Auckland, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Wellington

Travel through Oceania by popular things to do:

Cook Islands, Sydney Opera House

Travel through Oceania with our writers:

In the Corner of the World, Work and Play in Queensland

Photo Of The Day: Dunedin Train Station

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Dunedin, with a population of over 115,000, is New Zealand’s southernmost big city. (No disrespect to smaller Invercargill and other southerly towns.) For visitors to New Zealand, Dunedin feels like the real south of the country.

Flickr user carlcroom‘s photo of Dunedin’s train station offers a little bit of a sense of that South Island end-of-the-road magic. Mostly, though, he simply captures the grandeur of an impressive train station. Dunedin’s, finished in 1906, was built in a Renaissance Revival style.

Upload your favorite images to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Our favorites from the pool are chosen as Photos of the Day.

Quirky Tour Option: The Flying Outback Pub Crawl

by Jessica Festa on

If you’re interested in exploring South Australia‘s Outback in an unusual way, now is your chance. Goin’ Off Safaris is offering a Flying Outback Pub Crawl where visitors will fly around the Outback in a turbo prop plane stopping at local pubs.

The quirky pub crawl leaves out of Adelaide, and takes you through many different areas of the Outback. Along with drinking Cooper’s Ale, you’ll also explore Australia’s first official mosque in Marree, learn about Australia‘s historical Cooper Creek, canoe in Innamincka, take a walking tour of the famous Birdsville and more.

As of now, scheduled pub crawl dates include:

Price per person for the excursion is $3,130, all inclusive. For more information, click here.

New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro Erupts For First Time In Over A Century

by Jessica Festa on

For the first time in over a century, New Zealand‘s Mount Tongariro has erupted. While there have been no reports of deaths or injuries, the eruption has spewed ash everywhere and is prompting a threat warning for the central North Island.

According to news.com.au, the event threw rock and ash from the area of the volcano known as the Te Mari craters. As of now, the situation on Mount Tongariro is unclear.

“For the moment, things are quiet (but that) doesn’t necessarily mean that the eruption is over and done with – it could reactivate at any time so we’re watching pretty closely,” explained GNS Science volcanologist Michael Rosenberg.

The volcanic alert level for Mt Tongariro has risen from one to two. Moreover, the aviation color code has been raised to red. Roads are closed, domestic flights have been disrupted and nearby residents are being advised to stay indoors to avoid falling rock and ash.

If the wind was to blow towards the north, major cities like Waikato, Auckland and the Bay of Plenty could be affected. Luckily, forecasters are predicting mild winds for the upcoming days.

Mount Tongariro’s last eruption was from November 1896 until October 1897, following eruptions in 1869 and 1892.

[Image via Mirko Thiessen]

Backpacker Left Blind After Drinking Cocktails In Bali

by Jessica Festa on

If you’re planning a trip to Indonesia, be careful what you drink. Recently, a 19-year-old backpacker was left with permanent vision damage after consuming 8 to 10 cocktails containing methanol, a substance used as antifreeze, fuel and windscreen de-icer.

According to news.com.au, the cocktails contained a mixture of Arrack, which is produced commercially and illegally in Indonesia. This combines coconut flower rice, sugarcane spirit and fruit juice. Most likely, however, the drink also contained local “moonshine” alcohol tainted with methanol.

When the traveler arrived home to New Zealand, she felt short of breath and had impaired vision. Although she was treated at Christchurch Hospital emergency department for methanol poisoning, her vision continued to deteriorate over the next month.

Dr. Paul Gee and Dr. Elizabeth Martin from the hospital explained it’s not uncommon for methanol side effects – which include nausea, vomiting, anxiety, headache, weakness, blurred vision, seeing spots, photophobia and loss of vision – to take up to 50 hours to show. When consumed, methanol can lead to coma, blindness and death.

Sadly, this isn’t the first case of methanol poisoning in Indonesia. For example, last year a 25-year-old Australian nurse suffered brain damage and kidney failure after drinking Arrack. Moreover, in 2009, 25 tourists were killed after drinking a batch in Bali.

[Image via indi.ca]

Video Of The Day: Kiribati Sinking

by Elizabeth Seward on

“A Sinking Nation” from NPR on Vimeo.

Kiribati (pronounced kirr-i-bas) is an island nation spread across a chunk of the Pacific Ocean as big as Alaska two times over. But for all of the room Kiribati covers in distance, it accumulates virtually no space vertically. The average height of Kiribati land is just six and a half feet above sea level. Composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral, most of the nation’s 100,000 inhabitants cluster in near the nation’s capital, Tarawa. But space is running out. A single storm effortlessly vanishes houses into the sea and unfortunately, this is the fate most scientists and citizens believe belongs to Kiribati: the sea. According to this video produced by NPR, the island nation is especially vulnerable and in danger. Kiribati President Anote Tong has voiced concern over the rising seas, stating that it could ultimately lead to the demise of island countries like Kiribati. These statements have been loosely countered by findings published in the New Scientist magazine stating that the island is actually expanding due to coral debris. However hopeful land accumulation via coral debris may seem to some, the heart of the matter is that the core of Kiribati may soon be washed away and even newly risen land will likely face the same fate in this low-lying nation.