Tales From Far Off Lands

The Nazca Lines, Peru – the Final Destination!

2010-01-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

The Nazca Lines were created by three peoples – theParacas (900-200 BC), the Nascas (200BC – AD 600) and the Huari settlers fromAyacucho (AD 630). The lines are so baffling because no one knows why they arethere; some say it’s an astronomical calendar, others reckon they formed a running track and it is even thought that they could represent weavingpatterns. However, none of these, nor indeed many other theories about theircreation, stand up by themselves with absolute certainty, which I suppose addsto the mystic of these strange lines and paintings swept across the dry andarid Colorada Desert.

These enigmatic wonders that have baffled the world for anage drew us towards them like magpies to shiny things. It was yet anothertourist site which we felt we must visit; we couldn’t leave Peru without seeingthe Nazca Lines! So, as it would be our last bit of serious tourism we decidedto treat ourselves to a trip with El Huacachinero hostel which involvedspending 4 hours in a taxi, 4 minutes on a viewing platform and, as they arebest seen from the air, 40 minutes in a light aircraft. Anticipating that we’denjoy every moment of the $200 trip, we imagined ourselves deeply contemplatingthe significance of the historic wonders and we boarded the plane, albeitslightly nervous as Andrew tapped the structure remarking: “it sounds like abaked-bean tin”! We settled into our bucket seats, studied our ‘line maps’ of18 numbered sand drawings and as the engine chugged into action we smiled withexcitement!

Unfortunately, we had not reached number 4 of 18 before wewere clutching our stomachs and the colour was rapidly draining from our faces.The plane hit air pocket after air pocket as the pilot turned at right anglesto give the best views of the huge drawings of spiders, spacemen, condors andhands starring up from the desert below. We struggled to take photographs asthe tin can bounced up and down like a rubber ball and at number five my onlythought was how on earth I was going to get through the next thirty-six minutesstuck in a sweltering bean tin with severe nausea! Still it continued, thepilot enthusiastically pointed out all eighteen drawings. He also took thesupposedly kind action of taking us an extra lap so that we could see a birdetching that wasn’t on the map, yay! Like everything though, we knew it had toend and that thought kept us going until it eventually did. The tin can bouncedalong the runway, the windows opened and we screeched to a relieving stop.

During our world tour we’d been stranded on New ZealandGlaciers, suffocated by tourists at more icons than desirable, clostrophobed inThailand's caves and now we could add narrowly avoiding death by stupidly smallplane to our list of misadventures! So, on the runway, I came to a conclusion -“that’s it for me and tourism” I declared to Andrew, “fine by me”, he respondedcontently. So when our taxi driver pointed out the Maria Reiche Museum on thereturn road to Huacachina, asking “you go?” “No!” was our unified and resoluteresponse. She may have spent her life working tirelessly on these ancientenigmas and it’s all very interesting, but we’d literally had as much tourism as we could stomach. So finally, we admitted defeat and gave up tospend the afternoon sitting by the pool, ah heaven!

La Oasis de las Americas – Huacachina, Peru

2009-12-30T12:40:00.000-08:00

Arriving in Huaccachina after a five hour bus ride from Limafelt a bit like stepping out of Doctor Who’s tardis to find ourselves standingin the middle of a surreal tourist settlement, surrounded by trees and somethingwhich resembled the Sahara desert! The tiny village, with a population of justover 100, sits on a murky sulphuric lake said to have healing properties inSouth-Eastern Peru. The village is the creation of a legend which saw a beautifulnative princess having a bath in the dessert, only to be disturbed by a hunterwho frightened her so much that she ran away leaving her bath (the lake) andthe sand dunes (said to be the folds of her cape) behind for tourists keen toenjoy one of two, or possibly both the following opposing activities – a) sand boardingor b) a bit of relaxation away from all the other hectic touristy places inPeru.

A few colonial buildings left over from the town’s earlytwentieth century hay-day line the pedal boat lake, along with the modernpizzerias and bars, which aren’t so pretty. Our aim in Huacachina was to relaxand that we managed quite well by ambling around the lake and reading books bythe pool in El Huacachinero Hotel, the most luxurious place we’ve stayed inSouth America! In fact, we managed to completely avoid overexerting ourselvesapart from on two occasions – one involved a climb to the top of one of the 300meter sand dunes to watch the sunset and the other, participating in one of thefamed dune buggy and sand boarding trips which was wonderful fun and a greatfinal adrenaline blast for our trip!

Feeling suitably relax we headed back to Lima, or ratherattempted to! On our fated departure day we arrived at a very quiet bus stationin the nearby city of Ica to discover that there was a roadblock on the Pan American Highway. There would be no transport to Lima that day. When we askedif we would be able to travel the next day, “quizas” was the received response.“Maybe” is not a word you want to be hearing when you are due to fly home intwo days! Still we headed back to the hotel for the night, crossing absolutelyeverything and hoping that the university students causing the roadblock wouldeither get their demands met or get bored as soon as possible!

The Lost city of the Incas – Machu Picchu, Peru

2009-12-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

Machu Picchu is one of those‘places to see before you die’ and has even been named a new “wonder ofthe world”. Naturally we were intrigued, still although we knew we wanted togo there, our understanding of the site’s significance was minimal. In Peruhowever, we managed to learn a few things, including that Machu Picchu wasbuilt as a royal Hucienda for Inca Yupunqui-Pachacuti during his reign(1438-71) and that Hiram Bingham was the first foreigner of the post-colonialera to come across the site in 1911, guided by a local farmer and his son. Heis accredited with ‘discovering’ Machu Picchu, however we could not help to wonderhow much the farmer may have had to do with the ‘discovery’!

Nevertheless, to Bingham thediscovery is accredited and Peru rail, the company who monopolise rail travelto Machu Picchu, have even named their elite train service ($500 a pop) afterhim! Needless to say $500 was slightly out of our price range but thankfullythey have a “backpacker” service, at a mere $48 each way (tone: tongue incheek). So, we hopped on for a three-hour journey through stunning Peruviancountryside to Aguas Calientes, where we would spend the night in order to getup extra early for Sunrise at Machu Picchu.

We arrived in Aguas Calientes inthe afternoon rain, so arguably we saw the town in its worst light. However itis my opinion that it’s not possible to see Aguas Calientes in a positive light– a town built only to serve tourists. Set in beautiful mountains, they mighthave gone to some effort to blend the tourist trap into its surroundings, butno, they’ve whacked up these horrendous, haphazard buildings with breezeblockfacades and called it a day. We reluctantly spent a whole afternoon and eveningin Aguas Calientes - a crime against nature, beauty and the environment!

Having totally copped-out of thefour day Inca Trail hike we got up at 5 am the following morning and walked upthe steep hill to the ruins, in order to feel at least some sense ofachievement! It was a gruelling couple of hours to say the least but walking upInca steps through the trees was enchanting. We entertained the ridiculousnotion that we’d be stepping into the past visiting Machu Picchu, only to haveour dreams shattered at the top of the hill by a jewellery shop, a buffetrestaurant and an entrance kiosk which would not have looked out of place atDisney World!

Still as for Machu Picchu itself,all the photographs would not substitute seeing it for the first time with ourown eyes. We spent our time at the ruins trying to find quiet spots from whichto contemplate the magnificence of this archaeological feat. This proved to befar more difficult than anticipated in amongst the masses of touristsdiscussing everything from the strength of the Euro to their jobs and I am sadto say that Machu Picchu failed to move us in the way that we wanted it to.Perhaps because of a lack of knowledge or because we are coming to the end ofour trip and running out of steam, but try as we might, we just didn’t get theawe-inspiring feelings that we thought we would from being there. That asidehowever, as the visit to our last big tourist icon goes, it was magnificent anda great place for a bit of people watching –God knows there were plenty of usthere!

Cusco, Peru

2009-12-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

“’It’s amazing how the place changes so quickly”. Andrewsaid as we passed from the rubbley, dusty Cusco outskirts, bustling witheveryday life into the colonial city centre of churches, cathedrals, up-marketrestaurants, hotels, museums, markets and even a McDonalds. We chose to stay ontop of a ridiculously steep hill and at over 3,000 meters that presented problems interms of making it up the hill everyday whilst retaining the ability to breath! Still,from the “Walk on Inn” we had a lovely view of the city and the surroundinggreen hills covered in disorderly orange roofed homes constructed with littleconsideration for neighbouring houses, the builders apparently thinking only ofthe best angle for the sun!

Cusco has a reputation for being the gastronomic centre ofPeru, a title well deserved. So between lovely food (frequently at the Inka Grill!) and Christmas shopping in the markets we managed a little bit of good,honest sightseeing. Our most interesting escapade was a tour of Iglesia LaCompañía de Jesús, A Jesuit church built on top of an Incan Huaca. Wewandered around looking at alters covered in gold leaf and, as we gazed uponpaintings of crucified Christs, all seemed very normal and church-like, upuntil the point that was, when the guide revealed that that the particular the painting we were looking at was of “the Jesus of Earthquakes.” Noweven with my brief stint in Sunday school I knew that there was only supposedto be one Jesus and it soon became apparent that Peru has a dual beliefsystem that combines ancient beliefs with the Catholicism which the Jesuit’sbrought to Peru. So to retain aspects of their traditional religion, the Peruvians maskedtheir Gods with Jesus’s, Mary’s and a whole host of angels. Wethought it showed amazing resilience and ingenuity!

Cusco also has a reputation for being a bit dangerous, ourguidebook, for example, told us that “strangle muggings and rapes arefrequent”; not just that they happen (scary enough) but they are frequent!Fortunately, however, we never felt intimidated in the city, despite venturingout after dark every evening (something which the guidebook warned against). Wedid, however, get the feeling that the police were holding something off asthey stood, guns in holsters, on every corner.

As with alltourist centres there’s a lot of hassle in Cusco – workers wanting you to eatat their restaurants, stay at their hostels or be massaged by their masseuses!Little girls wanting you to take their pictures with baby alpacas, littleboys selling painting, greetings cards and shoeshine, women selling textilesand men selling tours and Ray Bans. You can’t escape it and it all adds to theatmosphere!

Cusco is a beautiful city full of interest, yet ourinitial journey through the outskirts led us to the realisation that it was acity whose most beautiful face was reserved for tourists en-route to MachuPicchu. The local people, who held greatest claim to it are relegated to the halfbuilt houses we’d seen on the way in a few days previous and that left us, as tourists, with someawkward feelings to deal with.

To Tour or not to Tour? That is the Question – Puno to Cusco, Peru

2009-12-21T13:25:00.000-08:00

Taking part in tours whilst travelling is a topic hotlydebated within traveller’s circles and we felt that our journey from Puno toCusco presented the perfect opportunity to reflect on the nature of bus trips.Sites of interest on our ten hour, 228 mile “Inka Express” tour bus includedSan Sebastian museum; a photo stop at the 5,700 meter Andean peak Apu.Chimboya; Wiracocha’s palace, Raqchi and Andahuaillias – “the American SistineChapel”. We have even come up with a list of bus trip pros and cons fortravellers based on our Inka Express experience, here they are!

Pros:

The guide: shares thehistorical and cultural background of sites visited, which greatly enriched ourunderstanding of Peruvian culture. Our guide spoke both Spanish and English andflitted happily between the two.

Bus toilets: that actually workedand got serviced!

A high level of security: whichmeant we weren’t worried about being robbed on a route, an issue for somepeople we’d met.

Seeing things we wouldn’t have hadwe been on a local bus: the Incan town of Raqchi was particularly impressive!

Cons:

Feelings of inadequacy: As weboarded a bus full of people on their two week Peruvian break we suddenly feltextremely self conscious, in ripped jeans, surrounded by people significantlybetter dressed than us!

Molly-coddling! There’s lunch,tea, first aid, a ton of oxygen and, had we not had a place to stay in Cusco,they would have helped us out with that too! Whilst these things are pleasant,we don’t think we would have enjoyed being ‘looked after’ like this for ourwhole trip, as figuring out how to do things for yourself is all part of thetravelling experience.

Cheating? The word travel comesfrom the French ‘travail’ – meaning ‘to suffer’ and over months of travel we’vecome to understand why this is the case! Still, ever since Thomas Cook took hisfirst tour group to Loughborough in 1841, tourists have been able to avoid someof this inherent suffering through handing over the cash! As “backpackers’ wewere haunted by awkward feelings that organised tour = cheating and we foundourselves in a sort of cash for honours type scenario. Somehow it didn’t feelhard enough when the harsh reality of travelling had been removed.

Bleeding: Don’t get us wrong, welike contributing to the local economy, but there were so many opportunities topart with money on the tour that it became comical. At every stop were souvenirsellers and even when we stepped inside the church at San Sebastian the‘donation’ box was forcefully thrust in front of us. At lunch at the, on-route,purpose built restaurant, we were subjected to a really contrived traditionalPeruvian panpipe/guitar performance which consisted of two guys in traditionaldress banging out favourites such as Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’.Afterwards, of course, we were much obliged to give a tip before the menchanged back into their jeans and baseball caps and went home!

So, to tour or not to tour? Thatis the question. We certainly would have had a different experience of Peru ifwe did it all by tour. Still our little Inka Express trip was quite pleasant,it didn’t break the bank or do any permanent damage to our travellingstreet-cred. However, after travelling for nearly 11 months, that little bit ofluxury just may have helped to keep us sane!

Our arrival in Deepest, Darkest Peru! – One night in the city of Puno

2009-12-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

Ten minutes after crossing thePeruvian boarder we were ordered to switch from our spacious, clean bus to aschool bus with slashed seats and a really bad toilet smell! Still, after threehours and a couple of friendly police searches, we emerged in Puno unscathedand aside from the smell, the journey was quite pleasant, providing a fleetinginsight into Peruvian rural living, passing fields full of runaway cows, sheepand pigs tied to stakes and women sowing crops, well-dressed for the fields inbright blues and pinks that contrasted with the lush green and fertileland.

Well what can you say about Puno? First, we’ll tell you whatothers said. Most people we’d met were of the opinion that Puno was not worthbothering with. The most comical account of the city, however, came from aslightly melodramatic Durham lad in Copacabana who’d told us that it was “themost horrible, dangerous place”. When we asked him why he said “they burnt theirmayor last year, dragged him out into the street and burnt him!” And whilst welater found this statement to be true, we were going that way anyway, so wedecided to give the city a try!

Unfortunately, it emerged that they were right and as withBolivia, we were destined for yet another cruel country introduction! Aftergetting off our bus, we were driven to the outskirts of the city to BothyHostel. “I wonder if they buy plots of land or if they just build wherever”Andrew said as we look out of our hostel window at the mismatch of houses andthe dogs, children and women with heavy loads on their backs all running up anddown the hodgepodge steps leading to them. “It sounds stupid even saying this,but it doesn’t look like there’s been any planning at all,” Andrew continues,“look, there’s an adobe house in the middle of all the concrete houses there!”Downtown Puno did not seem so bad and it was clear already that Peru was farmore developed than Bolivia. However on the whole Puno is the sort of place whereseveral thoughts are likely to go through your head, including, ‘what am Idoing here?’ There is nothing fun about this place; it’s not nice to look at;why would anyone come here? It’s like putting Slough on your tourist itinerary,and again, what exactly am I doing here?

Later in the day on returning to our hostel in our firstSouth American tuk-tuk, we were met at our road’s end by the equivalent of twopolice riot vans, in Peru however, this meant pick-up trucks in which thepolice ride alfresco, in full welding masks with guns slung over their backs.Having heard the Peruvian police are not a group of individuals you’d want tobecome too personable with, we mutter our “holas’ and hasten past and as wewaited for the lady in our hostel to open the door we see a young man beingdragged out by the eight strong armed guard. He puts up a good fight kickingout with his legs as they pummel him into the back of the pick-up. “Trust us topick the Bronx area of the city” Andrew says as we stand there wondering whythe lady won’t answer the door!

The next morning we’re up at 5 am for the first bus out. Thedogs have been singing in chorus all night long and when the sun rose it wasthe roosters turn as they ambled amongst the brick and rubble outside our window.On reflection, Puno may not have been the prettiest place in the world howeverit is important to see how life is in many different places in order to get asense of a country!

Bolivia - Last stop Copacabana!

2009-12-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

We had to get out of Bolivia quickly, as the Bolivianelections were going to halt all transport for a couple of days, so we booked a‘backpacker bus’ through our hostel in La Paz and diligently following theGringo Trail of hung-over, bleary eyed backpackers sporting their new tattooswe headed for Copacabana - Bolivia’s gateway to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,500 feet. A Bolivian backpacker bus was anew experience for us and having gotten quite used to the local buses we were taken by surprise when a conductor came onboard and said (in English)“we’ll be stopping for a toilet stop now, so make sure you go because we won’tbe stopping again until we get there”. It felt a bit like being on a schooltrip, but on the plus side we didn’t feel half as worried about our stuffgetting nicked!

As far as town planning is concerned we’d go so far as todescribe Copacabana as Bolivia’s Benidorm. So after throwing our backpacks downat our idyllic hostel with a sea view we headed down to the shoreline to catchthe next boat to Isla de la Sol, the sun island of Lake Titicaca, an island ofimmense spiritual significance and populated by indigenous people. The ricketyboat filled up quickly with all sorts of people, including a businessman fromNew York, a hippy originally from London who’d been living on the island forthe past four years and some likely lads from the Midlands who took greatdelight in taking the Mickey out of said hippy. Early on in the trip the hippy declared himself tobe no other than Bob Dylan and thankfully he managed to keep us entertained onwhat felt like the slowest boat ride ever by playing his guitar with a deadToucan’s beak!

Isla de la Sol was beautiful and beauty of course means a touristprice tag. We dismounted the boat and were met by the residents requests forwhat I can only assume was a “disembarkation fee”. Following this were artisansselling their wares at every turn and little girls pimping their alpacas forphotographs. Perhaps it was because walking around the island was a bit likebeing on a conveyor belt whilst periodically being asked if we wanted to buystuff that we didn’t need, that our island visit was unmemorable. Still it wasover pretty quickly as 55 minutes exactly after getting off the boat, we had toget back on it again; that gave us just enough time to get to the top of theisland and run back down. So having fulfilled our financial purpose we got backon the boat all feeling as stupid as each other!

That night back in Copacabana there was a big storm and itwas great fun to watch the lightening coming down in forks through themountains behind the town. We left for Puno the next day crossing the boarderin a bus full of school kids (we have no idea why). A police check and a bumpyride later we arrived at our first destination in deepest, darkest Peru!

The High Life! La Paz, Bolivia

2009-12-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

While flying into the highest airport in the world we discussed the idea ofhaving a curry at the highest Indian in the world or the idea of riding a bikedown the most dangerous road in the world. It seemed La Paz was full of theseoddities, while they may be odd they also seem to be some of the biggest pullcards for backpackers to Bolivia’s administrative capital and we along with themany folk in our hostel Loki were surrounded by posters advertising suchdaytime activities.

While we didn’t find ourselves riding down the worlds most dangerous road as wecame to the conclusion it’s only dangerous if you fall of the edge and that’snot our idea of fun (missing out on a t-shirt!), we did find ourselves in theworld highest curry house with the opportunity to win a t-shirt saying we’dsurvived the worlds highest vindaloo!!! Again we flopped on that challenge andsettle for a delicious mild vegetarian korma and walked away empty handed.

Our days in La Paz were numbered as Bolivian elections crept up we had to getto Peru before the country was put on stand still, so we had a jam packed fewdays of visiting the highly acclaimed witches market (three ladies sat under atarpaulin) the coca museum, an exhibition about masks and the shoddiest of allour tourist endeavours, the open top bus! This consisted of pre-recordedmessages prompted by a women (possibly asleep), nearly having our heads loppedoff by power cables that came into the top deck and a hideous American touristcovered in sun tan lotion that we’d seen 2 weeks previously. If it hadn’t havebeen for the amusing anecdotes of said American the tour would have been a reallet down, but while he tried his best to take the button pressing message ladyhome with him and insisted on relaying every fact about the city to a couple infront we travelled around La Paz with smiles on our face.

With a few days before the elections and needing to get closer to the border wehopped on a bus full of like-minded travellers heading for Lake Titicaca andthe final frontier into Peru.

Sucre, Bolivia: A Tale of Two Cities

2009-12-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

When you’re travelling in SouthAmerica it helps if you aren’t always looking at the things going on around youthrough Western eyes. It is difficult to do but it allows you to accept yoursituation with greater ease. For us on the occasion of our bus journey fromPotosi to Sucre we had a go at accepting that sometimes buses double up asmarkets; that men travelling with dead lizards with bandaged feet is no causefor concern; and that when the family in front of us decided to spend the wholejourney throwing bread out of the window at stray dogs, we tried not to see itas weird and simply felt contented that they were getting a feed!

It was in La Ciudad Blanca, the official capital of Bolivia,that we discovered that this country is one of contrasts and landscapes,peoples, buildings and atmospheres often differ from one another in wealth,status, colour, manner and tradition. For it was in Sucre that one minute wefound ourselves in a sanitised supermarket with armed security browsing theshelves for olives and ‘Head and Shoulders’ and the next in the beautiful,shaded, colonial Plaza 25 de Mayo where we see a very different Bolivia indeed.One where boys of eight years old in rags come to ask to shine your flip-flops,so desperate are they for money; one where grandfathers in short trousersapproach you with outstretched arms begging for a coin with which to feed theirfamilies; one where fathers make their living from selling juice to privilegedand parched passers by.

On our first visit to the Plaza we met a little boy, whocollects money from different countries and we promised him that we’d take himsome ‘café moneda’ from Britianica. When we returned to find him the followingday he was offering his shoeshine services to the lines of Sucre familiesdonning their Sunday best, perched on benches enjoying the glorious sunshine;each politely turned him away until he reached the end of the line. Heremembers us and excitedly shows off his new coins to his friends and soon, asthe previous day, we are surrounded by people trying to sell us their friendshipbracelet and sweets. We’re like sitting, slightly sunburnt ducks and we leavethe square with empty pockets with a question in our minds as to whether we’vedone the right thing by giving money or just made the situation a whole lotworse.

Later in the day we visit Casa de la Libertad where theDeclaration of Independence was signed. The whitewashed building exudes wealthof a bygone era and on the wall hangs a gold-framed portrait of the liberatorSimon Bolivar. Inside a group of tourists are told the history of the buildingand its significance in the founding of the republic and as we tag along withthe tour I can’t help wonder what Bolivar would have thought of this dividedcity today. It’s another stark contrast to all that we had seen during our timein Sucre and as impressions go, the official tourist trail leaves far less ofan imprint than the reality of life in this UNESCO world cultural heritage cityupon us.

The High and Mighty, Potosi - Bolivia

2009-12-01T05:17:00.000-08:00

Feeling we hadn’t had a proper introduction to Bolivia weeagerly boarded our 6 hour bus for Potosi to get a real look at the penultimatecountry on our world tour.

The journey from the relatively low height of 2500m was a slow winding ascentto a height of just over 4000m and as we passed through adobe built villagesand towns, only a few bulls grazed in the sun baked fields and we see the oddfarmer attempting to turn over his dry soil. As the dust streams through thebus windows we bump along with the other traffic slowly gaining sight ofPotosi. Arriving below the powerful Cerro Rico Mountain we step into a haze ofdown town chaos and our first need was a taxi to somewhere more sane, namelyour hostel La Casona. As we bundled the bags out of the bus our first sight wasa dead dog, half on the pavement and half in the road in a pool of it’s ownblood, both in shock we look around us but no-one seems to notice the dog apartfrom us gringos!

With the dead dog out of sight we settled into our hostel, which was abeautiful colonial building, something we would see more of over the next fewdays. Potosi was founded by the Spanish in 1545 when they found indigenousmining works, these were quickly turned over and exploited to there full potential,when the Spanish felt they had extracted all the silver available they quicklyleft. Now however, the mines are still functioning under a co-operative systemthe local miners have created and this is one of the main draw cards fortourists to come and experience a few hours in the mines.

Getting to Silver Tours early in the morning we met ‘Freddy Silver’, had a cupof coca tea and jumped in his white van to make our way to Cerro Rico. Stoppinghalf way we visit the miners market and pick up several bags of coca leaves,bottles of pop, alcohol, gloves and a stick of dynamite, yes a stick ofdynamite! All paid up, Freddy packs everything in a bag apart from the dynamiteand chucks it in the van, the dynamite sits in between the chain smoking Frenchladies legs but only Me, Ria and a friendly German chap think this is odd,shaking our concerns off we look out the window as the city turns into the‘rich mountain’.

After 20 minutes we are ready to enter the mine but not after Freddy had blownthe dynamite (something he seemed to enjoy more than the rest of the group). Weall head into the mine knowing it would be two hours before we had fresh airand sunlight, with our torches beaming ahead we cautiously dodge the men withcarts full of stone and the odd man running in the opposite direction to makeour way deep into the belly of mountain to see where business takes place. Theair is thick and hard to breath and there’s shouting coming from alldirections, we eventually make it down to where a man who’d been working in themine for five years sits regulating air to his ‘Campeñeros’ who were 60 metresdown preparing the daily explosions, then wading through mud we walked deeperinto the mine to visit a group of five miners who are contently waiting for us todish out the bags of coca, pop and alcohol. We sit and talk with the mengetting to know what they like, where they have travelled and how long theyhave worked in the mine, soon a cap full of alcohol is given to each person, itis now that we learn it’s 96˚ alcohol, we give a little for Pachamama (pour iton the ground) and drink the rest, as my lips feel like they are melting andlooking at Ria I try to compose myself and not look like a fool (I think itworks). The miners don’t blink an eyelid in between munching more coca theypass round more cap fulls of the poison, each time Pachamama gets more from us.

Time is running out and the 12’oclock blasts are coming close, we are sayingour goodbyes when the blasts go off, shaking the ground and all of us with it,no one seems concerned but it’s an unnatural feeling to be hundreds of metresinto a mountain when people are blowing up the insides. Our goodbyes said we make our way out, stopping by the God of the mine Tio,miners worship Him and give offerings each day, the statue is littered withcoca, cigarettes, streamers and all sorts to help bring luck to the miners.

Bythis time we are all short on breath and the thought of fresh air picks thepace up as we make our way out. Bright light and clean air make us smile as weleave and getting back on the bus we head to the comfort of our hostel. It’sonly when we’ve stepped into our room that we sit and think about the men thatnever have that feeling of never having to go back into the mine again.

Guess the sauce

2009-11-27T16:16:00.001-08:00

This was a delightful meal we were served up in Potosi, Bolivia. It tasted as bad as it looked...actually worse. We would like to invite you to play guess the sauce!

We are offering the prize of £0.25 to the person who correctly guesses!
Please leave a comment with your answer. Good Luck.

A Pinch of Salt: Our Salar de Uyuni Tour, Bolivia

2009-11-27T07:56:00.000-08:00

If we had a penny for every time we heard a horror storyabout a Salar de Uyuni tour going wrong, we would have enough money to travelfor another year! Needless to say, we approached the infamous Salt Flats tourwith an equal amount of excitement and anxiety. Still resigned to our fate weand team Frandrew threw our backpacks into our driver Jorge’s jeep and set offfor our three day Chilean/Bolivian crossing. The tour began well with Jorge,who understandably doesn’t speak a word of English, declaring that he likesmusic from the 80’s and 90’s; so we all frantically searched our ipods for ourbest Freddy Mercury and Blondie and we were on our way.

A strange anomaly about these ‘Salt Flat tours’ is that ifyou begin at the Chilean boarder you don’t actually see a Salt Flat until thelast day of the tour. Instead, the first two days are spent crossing theBolivian high plain and the Siloli desert - spectacular nonetheless. On thefirst day alone we pass red, white and green lakes, sandy landscapes that inspiredDali and more flamingos than you could shake a stick at and all this as weclimbed to over 14,000 feet (to give a bit of perspective, we skydived from15,000, freefalling for 1 minute!). We spent the first night at this altitude,at a unnamed hostel near Laguna Colorado where after a dinner of frankfurtersand mash potato (or rather mash potato for the vegetarian among us), we alltried to sleep – difficult when you are struggling to breath, your nose is fullof blood and you feel like you’ve been on the biggest bender ever!

Day two consisted of travellingmore wonderous landscapes whilst head-banging to a soundtrack of BohemianRhapsody and for the vegetarian among us, even less food. Still this time I wasnot complaining for after the meat-eaters had finished their, what they thoughtwas beef at San Juan’s Salt Hotel, they discovered they had been eating thelovely, fluffy and endangered Vicunas which we’d been cooing over all day. Comeon, where would you get beef in the middle of a desert?

Finally we reached the Salt Flats on day three for what we’dall been waiting for – the opportunity to take silly perspective shots! We hada feeling that Jorge may have been suffering from some form of psychosis forsome time now, largely due to the fact that he seemed to be jumping for joy oneminute and looking very angry the next. At first we let his idiosyncrasies slid- we put up with him steering us into doing things his way, we put up with onlybeing allowed to spend half an hour on the actual Salt Flats. We didn’t evencomplain when he pushed Frankie out of the van so fast that she dropped hercamera and he ran over it; outright abuse however was the last straw!

This came on the final day, which we will all remember asthe day when Jorge lost the plot. Jorge didn’t speak English and we didn’texpect him to and so for the entire trip we’d been practicing our Espanol; theAndy’s are actually quite good! Still it appeared that even our best effortsweren’t good enough for Jorge. Our ultimate stop, before a lunch of cold pastaand black chicken, was a salt mine and Jorge was explaining, with much haste,the process of salt extraction from said Salt Flats. “Entiendes?” He asks. “Si,si, si”. Say the Andy’s. “No”. Say Frankie and I. Well with that he looses it, throwinghis fists against the steering wheel, “don’t say you understand if I’ve notfinished” He says (in Spanish). “You British are rubbish at languages, everyother nation in Europe speaks perfecto Espanol, you should never have come toBolivia if you can’t speak the language!” We did our best to defend ourselves (in Spanish) stating that we’d been tryingreally hard, however really we just wanted to tell him where to stick his salt!

The journey to the town of Uyuni after lunch was a silentone and there the Fellowship was broken. Team Frandrew were heading back toChile, whilst we were to stay in Uyuni, a town that I can only describe as acruel introduction to Bolivia! Still we emerge from our 4x4 expeditionrelatively unscathed and as horror stories go, thankfully ours is pretty tame,leaving us with a memory of one of the greatest adventures we’ll ever have!

I fell in love with San Pedro, the Atacama Desert, Chile

2009-11-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

The 11 hour bus journey to San Pedro de Atacama tookus across the northern Andes and into the driest place in the world, (someparts of the Atacama desert have never seen rain!) where we had our firstexperience of high altitude travelling, something which would prove a littlechallenging over the next week.

On our way to the small adobe built town of San Pedro we passed expansive saltpans, llama farms and the enormous volcano Lioancabur with its picture perfectconical shape, all the while feeling slightly loopy from the thin air atheights of up to 4500m above sea level.

We arrived at immigration to make our second visit back into Chile, whilefilling out the necessary forms there was a note about no dairy products, wehad yet to eat our cheese from Cafayate and Andy (of Team Frandrew ) had saidcheese in his bags, thinking he would be able to sneak the odd block of chedderthrough customs he decided not to declare and all of a sudden hell broke loose,words were said (of which we barely understood), cheese was cut open and bluespray was applied to our long travelled lumps of Queso.

Safely through customs without the cheese we checked into Hostal Campo Base forthree nights to explore the Atacama Desert. Some how we ended up doingeverything in one day which took it’s toll on us the day after. First stop wasSand boarding, Ria and I had been keen to have a go since we heard about it inAustralia, so we hopped in the 4x4 and set off for Death Valley to findsuitable dunes with Tareka sand boarding company. It was tough to say theleast, going down was fine but getting back up the dune was a killer and wemanaged around six goes before we were ready to pass out. Next we joinedSebastian in his British military land rover and to the sounds of some goodreggae we set off to Valle de la Luna to watch the sun go down with a bottle ofwarm white wine. Last stop was our midnight astronomy tour, as you can imaginewe were all a bit tired but once we’d spent five minutes looking at thedazzling night sky we were awe struck at how amazing it looked. We ponderedaround various telescopes to look at Cirius, Jupiter, Orions belt and much morebefore retiring for a mug of hot chocolate to listen to comedy genius Alan and thenheaded back a much need bed for the night.

Our other endeavours in San Pedro involved seeking out some great Vegetariancuisine of which there is an abundance, at restaurants such as Casa Peidra andAdobe all the while searching for an ATM with cash in it! We enjoyed our dailywalks among the dusty streets admiring the hoards of tourists settingthemselves up for the three-day Salar de Uyuni tour we (the tourists) were justabout to indure aswell…

Bring me drink! Cafayate

2009-11-23T06:07:00.000-08:00

It was imperative that we got some wine tourism in before we left Argentina, so with team Frandrew and a lady carrying a mattress in tow we alight the cranky old bus, which made Flecha Bus look like the Orient Express, to the wine producing town of Cafayate. Passing through towns nameless to us, full of nameless faces and into farmland with huge cactuses jutting out from hillsides we feel every bump in the road, the driver frequently crossing to the other side to avoid the huge potholes.

Cafayate is a lovely little town of lantern lit streets, low-rise houses and a large green plaza. Unfortunately, on arrival we were met by a man claiming to be from the tourist office who in his desperation for our commission tells us that the hostel we’re heading for “is used by locals for prostitution” to which I replied “oh well that will be interesting” and we kept walking. ‘Rusty K Hostal’ turned out to be great and it was hard to imagine it as a sex den, try as we might! Within a couple of hours we had refuelled in the fly-filled, graffiti covered ‘Casa de los Empanadas’ and soon we were visiting the nearby vineyards by bicycle.

Our first stop was ‘Visija Secreta’, the oldest vineyard in the valley where we sneaked into a tasting and got some free wine! The most beautiful vineyard that any of us had ever seen however, was ‘El Esteco’; the grounds were stunning - vines in bloom in front of a big, old, white colonial building. We did a tour and although I always feel a bit awkward doing wine tasting, rather like a little kid trying to figure out how to hold the big glass, this one was quite relaxed and fun. In fact, we were so taken with El Esteco’s Torrientes wine that for the following two nights we drank it with our dinner at a little restaurant ‘El Bacos’ – hoorah! Up until 1990 ‘El Esteco’ was owned by a local family however it has since been taken over by a multinational company and now the adjoining hotel is a Sheraton. This is sad news for Cafayate according to a tour guide we met: “Cafayate is not for people from Cafayate anymore”, because foreign investment in the area has meant that locals can no longer afford to buy local land. Our last stop of the bicycle tour is a cheese farm, full of goats but oddly no goat’s cheese. We returned to the hostel sweating and sunburnt with two lumps of cheese!

The next day we went on a rock tour, which meant less to me than it should have done because I know nothing of geology, still the rocks were pretty! Minerals give the sedimentary rocks their colour and some have as many as eighteen different shades within them. It was quite a tiring day as there was much to see including the ambiguous ‘Toad’, ‘the Amphitheatre’ and ‘El Diablo’ – apparently the Andy’s sold their souls to the devil when they entered that one; Frankie and I sat outside swatting flies.

We managed to miss the only bus back to Salta, however a taxi was only 3 pesos more than the bus, so we got in with our coca leaf-chewing driver who unfortunately happened to be Cafayate's answer to Colin McCrae. We got back to Salta in half the time it should have taken – ‘alls well that ends well’ as the saying goes!

Salta por Siempe, or maybe not!

2009-11-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

Our journey to Salta meant a 22-hour bus journeytaking us from the depths of North East Argentina to the far West. 22 hours isa long time, on a bus it’s even longer, luckily we’d managed to get some goodseats, which landed us downstairs on the daily Flechabus service and with somebiscuits and a cold breaded chicken breast thrown in we made our way to Salta.

Salta was our meeting point to catch up with our good friends from BuenosAires, Andrew and Frankie; we’d made the stop to “regroup”, checking intohostel Salta por Siempre (Salta for always) and soon we were enjoying a reunionlunch in the main plaza. Apart from the central plaza Salta doesn’t hold muchof interest, other than of course MAAM museum which keeps three of the few Incamummies in the world. The one on display was a girl (The Girl struck byLightning) sacrificed between the 15^th and 16^thcenturies. All the excavated stuff was in amazing condition and it wasexcellent apart from the entrance fee, which was well above the average at 30Pesos (£5!).

To relieve ourselves from the doom of Inca sacrifice we hopped onto the Gondolaand headed up the hill to reach the cities peak much to my sweaty palmsdelights. Upon the hill we had a look at the amphitheatre and tried to getAndrew to do a Jackson 5 dance to no avail. We stopped and took in the view ofSalta city for a few minutes before making our descent back to search for atortoise in the hostel garden.

Other than looking at a dead girl, searching for the mysterious tortoise andFrankie breaking a table in the hostel (much to her denial and a 40 pesofine!), we did very little apart from catch up with our chums and planning ourlast destination in Argentina, the small wine producing town of Cafayate.

Iguaçu – we’ve officially joined the Gringo Trail!

2009-11-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

We’ve probably been on it all along, it’s hard to avoid itunless you’re Bruce Parry, but when we left Buenos Aires on an eighteen hourbus ride to Puerto Iguaçu we really felt it – we’d hit the “Gringo Trail”! Everyonewe meet these days seems either to be going in the same direction as us or coming from where we’re heading. It’s nice in a way because we’re lookingforward to seeing some of the people we’ve met again; still we’re notsure what Michael Palin would make of it!

The town of Puerto Iguaçu is 18km from the famed Iguaçu Falls and is small and rustic, a surprise for Andrew.In many ways the set up reminds me of Siem Reap, Cambodia as all of the poshhotels are out of town on the road to the falls (the Sheraton is even insidethe National Park!) which might explain why no one has bothered to replace thetown’s broken paving slabs. Still we didn't mind rustic because from the town we could stand on the waters edge andsee Brazil and Paraguay from Argentina, now that makes a goodphoto (see right!).

On arrival at the dramatically named “Marco Polo Hostel” we discovered that there would be a fullmoon tour to the falls that night so we booked ourselves on and soon we found ourselves on the side of a main road waving down passing buses when our tour bus got a flat tyre. Typical, we’d missed a once in a lifetimeexperience we thought, but luckily a local bus stopped and took us toone of the most amazing sights we'd ever seen. It sounds really cheesy, butwhen I saw the unbelievable Garanta del Diablo (the Devil's throat!) underneath the moonlight, I almost cried, indeed I would have done were in not for the tensof tourists standing around me!

Unfortunately, trying to catch a waterfall on camera atnight isn’t easily done, moon or no moon (if in doubt see above picture). So the next day we returned to theNational Park on the Argentinean side to see Garanta del Diablo, which was justas stunning in the daytime. We spent the rest of the day walking around thepark in the blazing heat, admiring all the other waterfalls and gettingsunburnt. Iguaçu is just mindblowing; four times wider than Niagara, itreceives water from thirty rivers and all around the park are the mostbeautiful butterflies we’ve ever seen. There are also pumas, jaguars, toucans,lizards and these really weird animals called Coatis who steal tourist’s food!

The next day we crossed the boarder with Brazil to get aview of the amazing panoramas of the falls (read: in reality because Andrewwanted another stamp in his passport!). This really helped us to see how all thewaterfalls that we’d seen the previous day fitted together into a whole becausewe could see the entire falls from a distance!

So that was Iguaçu Falls 18hours from our last destination and 22 hours to the next, we must be mad. Ah, the Gringo trail - baa!

One cobble, Two cobble, Three cobble, Four! Colonia Del Sacramento, Uruguay

2009-11-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

Our journey to Uruguay took us away from the almightyBuenos Aires and into the cobbled streets of Colonia Del Sacramento. We gaveourselves three days to explore the tiny Spanish built town that even has theUNESCO World Heritage stamp to entice tourists on the well worn gringo trail.We quickly set about gaining a map of the old town and then we realised howsmall this place actually was! There are a handful of streets, many no morethan 100 metres long that are entwined with one another, each with varyingdegrees of uneven cobbles that would make Victor Meldrew spit feathers!

Given the size of the town we decided not to spoil it all on our first day sotook it easy and went for a sandwich, this was when we discovered El Drugstorewhich seemed to be the only place not bending over backwards to serve touristsoverpriced cheese rolls. So we decided this was to be our local, it had goodmusic, good food and a car that you could sit in and have dinner, which we managedone night!

The next three days were spent wondering the same cobble streets taking photoafter photo as every corner you turn looks like a picture perfect image (minusthe bum-bag clad, baseball wearing American tourists). Although we felt timecould have been better spent I think it might have been what we needed, wemanaged to catch up on some sleep, something that seemed to be lacking inBuenos Aires and got some much needed research sorted for our nextdestinations. Deciding not to enter further into Uruguay as we’d decided theyhave too many mosquitoes and it’s quite expensive we left to return to BA andhead north to the toilet inducing Iguazu falls.

Last Tango in Buenos Aires!

2009-11-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

There is so much to do in Buenos Aires that the week that we spent in the city wasn’t long enough by a long shot, but we did manage to prioritise a few things most notably the Evita Museum where we learnt that Evita wasn’t actually Madonna but a woman who did a great deal for Argentinean society, none the less she had fantastic dress sense! An opportunity for a bit of thanatourism is something we rarely pass up and so we paid a visit to Recoleta cemetery where Evita is buried. It was a strange take on a graveyard with streets and tombs with shelves of displayed coffins (the empty shelves were actually more disconcerting). We also visited the famous colourful houses of La Boca and I tangoed with a man in the street and the Andy Warhol exhibition at Malba provided insight to North American 80’s culture. Thankfully we also managed to find a couple of good vegetarian restaurants (Krishna’s and Bio – if any veggies are going to BA) - no steak yay!

The people in Buenos Aires are so friendly, we were admittedly a little apprehensive about leaving small town Patagonia for the big scary, crime ridden city but we met no-one but lovely people, even the taxi drivers are nice – one allowed us to practice Spanish with him and another drove us around looking for a vegetarian restaurant and refused to let us pay him! As for our hostel ‘Estoril’ , the staff couldn’t have been nicer and even took us out to the 'La Bomba de Tiempo' drum show at Konex which was amazing.

One of the most rewarding things we did in Buenos Aires was join a tour which really made the city come to life explaining, in the context of Argentinean politics, the history of the city - the disappearances of the 1970’s, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo , the Peron’s, the military sieges, the 2001 economic crash and yet more present day demonstrations. This country has been through a lot and we’ve not begun to appreciate how the rubbish graffiti covering the city walls isn’t actually rubbish graffiti but is all very political. Indeed the political activity of Argentina makes us feel awful about the fact that we’ve never voted!

On the tour we met some lovely people and we spent our time in the city with Tanja and Andy (there’s a lot of them around!) and Frances and the five of us learnt that Buenos Aires is a fiery, passionate city! We joined the stern faced tango dances for lessons and a few Milongas . We also witnessed a protest about the sacking of 150 Kraft employees, a Bolivian cultural parade, drank cheap champagne and got kicked out at closing from every bar and restaurant that we entered!

All in all we had a wonderful time and we’d recommend a trip to Buenos Aires to everyone!

From Wales to Whales - Puerto Madryn

2009-11-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

With Welsh Patagonia behind us we couldn't leave Chubut before seeing some of the Marine life which this part of the world is famed for and so we took a tour of Peninsular Valdes!

We saw Southern Right Whales from the shore....

Some Whales from the boat...

A lonely Sea Lion...

Some really, really ugly Elephant Seals...

A few really, really cute Penguins...

And all in all we had lovely day at the seaside!

Our trip to Welsh Patagonia, Argentina

2009-10-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

In 1865 Michael D. Jones managed to convince 153 (some say 160) Welsh people, including one man from Aberystwyth, to form a ‘little Wales beyond Wales” in Argentina. These individuals were told that in Argentina they would be able to make a better living, that they’d be free to speak Welsh and go to Chapel, so they hopped onboard ancient tea clipper ‘The Mimosa’ and sailed for two months to Puerto Madryn. When they reached the Patagonian coast, the Welsh settlers built caves into the clay cliffs as temporary loggings; these caves have been excavated and on our visit I imagined them setting up home on the waters edge and for some reason I couldn’t help thinking how unimpressed the women must have been with their new digs! Next to the excavation site there is now a museum and a memorial to the original Welsh settlers.

The first Welsh town founded in Patagonia was Rawson, soon followed by Trelew, Gaiman and Dolavon. We visited Trelew and found that, despite its Welsh name, a few Welsh flags and a small museum in the old train station, the town did not have an overtly Welsh feel. Nearby Gaiman, however, was another story with bilingual signs, Welsh chapels, pub and our lovely hostel ‘Yr Hen Ffordd’. We spent a few days wandering around enjoying the original buildings and Welsh tea at ‘Ty Gwyn’s’.

Times were trying in the early settlement days; emigrants were mainly South Walian coal miners and so they had a hard time farming, what’s more, the land that the Argentinean government gave was basically desert; subsequently, the first harvests failed. Eventually, however, they figured out that they could irrigate the land with water from the Chubut River and things improved. With things looking up more Welsh arrived in the 1870’s and to secure the future of the settlement it was decided that expansion was necessary, so settlers crossed Patagonia in search of the more arable lands of the Andean foothills and travelling this route by bus, we felt a real empathy for the Welsh who made the difficult journey through the wasteland. Eventually they reached ‘Cwm Hyfryd’ and in 1891 this beautiful valley full of condors, hares and flamingos was chosen as the site for the new town of Trevelin. Today, the town has it’s own Eisteddfod and here there were more chapels, museums, a school and teashops; it’s a tourist wonderland!

We stayed in Eastern Chubut’s second Welsh town of Esquel mainly due to the fact that it is twinned with my hometown Aberystwyth. Esquel has a Welsh chapel and school where we joined a Welsh lesson one evening, but you have to be a bit active in seeking out Welsh connections in Esquel. In fact, the town’s Welsh heritage is not mentioned in the guidebook and when we went to the tourist information to ask about Welsh attractions, they pointed us to Trevelin! Furthermore, many of the locals we spoke to weren’t aware of the town’s heritage and the people in our hostel had never heard of Aberystwyth; despite that Aberystwyth square was right outside their building!

Nowadays the Welsh are in the minority in Patagonia with around 5,000 Welsh speakers and it seems that they have the same issues concerning loss of language in Patagonia as are present in Wales. Still, it was amazing to see a Welsh culture in a land so far away from home and visiting Esquel really made me think about my own identity. I now have a renewed enthusiasm for improving my Welsh when I return home, as I came to the conclusion that if they are managing it speak Welsh in Patagonia, I can manage it in Wales. Cymru Am Byth!

Ice Cream and Homebrew! El Bolson, Argentina

2009-10-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

El Bolson is a small town hemmed in by the Andes and Cerro Piltriquitron and its reputation as the hippy hangout of Argentina’s Lake District goes before it. However the hippies who arrived in the 60’s and 70’s must have left again in the 80’s or have long since turned into business people selling organic yogurt or microbrews because in terms of eccentricity and alternativeness the town has nothing on Nimbin or Glastonbury. That said it’s a charming, rustic little town of touristy log cabins, unpaved back-roads and cars that prove MOT’s can’t be very stringent in Argentina! It’s also one of the few places that we’ve found vegetarian empanadas and the most delicious ice cream ever is made at Jauja’s where all of El Bolson’s visitors seem to enjoy the afternoons.

We arrived on a Tuesday, in time for the artisan market where we tried out the microbrews and wandered amongst stalls of unusual creations selling everything from musical instruments to funky jewellery, pretty ponchos and flip-flops made from bicycle tires and we concluded that if there are any hippies left in El Bolson, you’re most likely to bump into them on market day! The other thing that locals will advise you to do in El Bolson is the cycle to Lago Puelo which is at the end of a 17 km mainly flat but bumpy main road. The lake was quite beautiful however on an overcast day we couldn’t help to question why we’d just cycled 17km to eat cheese and crackers on a stoney beach in drizzle! Worst still there was only one way back to El Bolson – the way we came!

The town was friendly enough and we felt a long way from danger up until the point when there was a knock on the hostel door – ‘Da, da, daaaaa’! One of the other travellers answered it and the next thing we know the owner of the hostel is telling him off for opening the door to strangers. “El Bolson is a very safe place”. The hostel owner tells us, “but criminals come down from the big city of Bariloche with guns and come to take money!” Needless to say we were all a little shocked both at the mention of guns in sleepy El Bolson and by the fact that he called Bariloche a very big city! Sometimes we get the feeling Argentina may be a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe as tourists, still ignorance is bliss I say!

We stayed at the hostel for the weekend and weekend in Argentina means Asado! An asado is a sort of BBQ cooked over hot coals – the food of choice is of course meat, with gigantic sausages, steak and a sort of black pudding. As usual of course, my vegetarianism presents a problem for the chef, but I need not have worried, there was cheese at hand! That evening everyone at the hostel sat in the garden enjoying the wine, food and exchanging travelling stories by the campfire, now that’s got to be what travelling is all about!

Bariloche - Dipping our toes into Argentina

2009-10-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

Our arrival in Argentina saw us in Bariloche, the lakes district biggest city and with promises of chocolate shops, good food and the impressive Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi we were excited at our first Argentinean destination to say the least.

Driving through the city in a taxi for the first time it felt almost Swiss, log fronted shops, smoking chimneys and the awe inspiring surrounds of the Argentinean Andes, it was only the odd ram-shackled house and some of the oldest cars I’ve ever seen that confirmed we were still in South America.

The weather was cold, much colder than expected and it was clear we’d landed in the ski capital of the country, being clueless tourists we were the only one’s without thick padded jackets! So to fend off the cold we decided to get active and on our second day we hired some bikes and did the Circuit Chico (I thought Chico sounded small!). A 25 kilometre killer of a ride, we made our way up and down lots of hills even being joined by a crazy stray dog for part of the journey, only for my chain came off and I tried to streamline myself to outrun the dribbling fiend. We finished the circuit in about 5 hours and ended with the most stunning view of Lago Huapi and the Andes as a backdrop, if it hadn’t of been for the eight buses, six cars and 15 street vendors it could have been a perfect spot to sit, relax and have a dry cracker or a cereal bar.

Feeling that exercise had been somewhat lacking in recent weeks we decided to get active again the next day and hopped on the number 20 bus to Cerro Campanero where you can get a chair lift to the top of a hill. We felt it more beneficial to walk up though, a lucky choice as the chair lift wasn’t working, so we set off on foot up the 1056m climb to one of the National Geographic’s top ten views in the world. After a lot of huffing and puffing and lots of pit stops we made it to the top and oh my days was it a view! Both of us were amazed, once we’d cooled down we rolled out the pac-a-macs and sat staring at the pristine lakes, snow capped Andean mountains both Argentinean and Chilean and enjoyed a light siesta atop the hill while wild birds circled around us.

Our final day was a quieter one, with the main aim of buying a bus ticket we didn’t have much to do so we set off to do as most of the locals did which was sit in the plaza. Young men sat in one corner competing with each others music beating out of the backs of their cars, some kids had set up a make shift skate ramp in the middle of the road, two older men sat on benches with St Bernards and tied around their necks were barrels for tourists to pop some change in for a photo and an old lady walked around shouting at anyone under the age of twenty. It was this buzz of the place that seemed so South American to me, you could have believed you were in the Alps at some points but then all you had to do was do as the locals do and you’d remember where you were!

The Bathroom Diaries!

2009-10-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

As many people might agree one of the most interesting parts of travelling is all the toilets you meet along the way! We've found this website, The bathroom diaries, which celebrates the better toilets of the world and we thought we'd share it with you!

Needless to say this one in our room in Koh Phi Phi wouldn't hit the mark!

Leavig Chile: Our impressions of our first South American Country

2009-10-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

We left Valdivia, Chile, on a sunshiny day, travelled through the Andees in heavy snows and finally reached a cold but calm Bariloche, Argentina. Our first South American boarder crossing was very formal and apart from when the military guard tried to pronounce my surname, it wasn’t very funny at all, nor was it in the slightest bit remarkable, something I guess we should be thankful for!

Now that our visit to Chile is over it is time to put together our observations of this lovely country, gathered during our visits to Santiago, Talca, Chillan, Pucon and Valdivia. Here are our findings:

1. Women do the housework whilst husbands cheat on their wives as a matter of course. Chilean women aren’t putting up with this any longer and as a result there is a higher divorce rate in Chile now than ever before.

2. There are few travellers in Chile in winter and as a result people stare a lot.

3. Mate is a popular drink that tastes of grass.

4. A Pisco Sour is a popular cocktail with egg white in it.

5. Old buildings are often left to rot and fall.

6. There are tons of harmless stray dogs, but very few cats.

7. Long distance buses are modern and comfortable; local buses are barely welded together.

8. Kids are similar to kids at home in that they sleep in, play computer games and wear their jeans half way down their bums!

9. Unlike at home, kids in Chile wear wide brimmed hats to school. When they are not wearing them they put their hats in wooden vice presses to keep them flat.

10. Chileans are not good with vegetarians (pizza anyone?), but they are great with herbal teas and woolly jumpers.

11. Men kiss each other, fathers hug sons and when in the park, everyone is allowed to kiss everyone!

NB: Most of this we learnt was at Casa Cecilia, Pucon.

Rain stops play - Valdivia, Chile

2009-10-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

When I try and write a post I like to focus on the positive, as with most things. But with Valdivia, I’d like to point out there are no positive that spring to mind so I’ll try and make it short.

So, Valdiva, after leaving the comfort, warmth and charm of Pucon we arrived in Valdivia in the midst of a full day of rain. Having pre-booked our hostel we jumped in a taxi and hobbled together the directions. We sped through the empty, rain soaked streets and being a Sunday everything was closed. We’ve learnt Sundays aren’t the best days to arrive anywhere in South America, the world stops for Sundays over here and this was no exception. We arrived at the hostel, complete with a jail like surrounding fence, we stood in the rain pressing the buzzer when out of the door appeared a malnutritioned 20 something hombre with his jeans so low you could see his pants.

The hostel was empty, cold and he had left the window open in our room so we had our own river running through it. We sat and laughed for while at how we ended up here in a hostel that the Lonely Planet lists as “the most agreeable in hostel living”. Ria started to question the description and the noticeable difference in name, but the malnutirtoned zombie assured us it had just changed it’s name. So, as we made our way back to the bus station to get our escape ticket Ria suggested we ring the number in our guide book, to our surprise the zombie didn’t answer, instead a healthy sounding women answered. Realising we’d been duped again by the consistently outdated Lonely Plant we headed back to the pit, packed our bags, found the zombie festering in a basement and told him we were leaving. An hour later we had checked into the pleasant … and were sat in a coffee shop enjoying a well needed drink. Being a rainy Sunday the options for things to do were limited so we settled with buying a pizza, going back to the hostel and having an early night. As you’d expect we woke to a glorious day that would make any city gleam, never the less we hastley jumped on the bus wishing we’d never got off in the first place.

“Que?!” Learning Spanish in Pucon

2009-10-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Chileans aren’t known for their language skills, in fact quite the opposite, they’re known for speaking incredibly quickly, for saying all their words too close together and for having the most slang-infested language in all of South America. Still, we’d been on the continent for a week already and we were now in dire need of improving our means of communication so it was a case of better substandard than nothing! Underneath a giant volcano seemed to be a good place as any study Spanish and so we decided to head down to Pucon a town that sits beneath Volcan Villarrica, the second most active volcano in Chile, it last erupted in 1984 and could blow again at anytime!

Pucon sits on the black sandy shores of Lago Villarrica, a glacier lake formed by the explosion of the Volcano which towers above the small and touristy but pleasant town producing a constant stream of white smoke from it’s peak. Fortunately, in the town centre a warning system is in place in case of eruption by way of some traffic lights that will go red if disaster is imminent. They also use old war sirens for all kinds of emergencies, which is slightly odd and disconcerting for the foreign traveller!

We chose to do a home stay for the duration of our schooling as we guessed it would throw us in at the deep end, forcing us to communicate “en Espanol” outside of the classroom as well as in and boy were we right! On arrival at our host family’s beautiful home it soon became apparent that English would not be the language of choice, even if we wanted it to be, for they spoke very little of our native tongue! Cecilia, our ‘host mom’, as the American’s like to say, was adorable, when she greeted us she held her arms open and said with a smile “ah nuevo bebes!” and so for the week she was ‘Mama Cecilia’, cooking for us as well as her two biological children DeMarie and Rodrigo and we all chipped in with the chores, Andrew’s favourite was chopping wood for the fire which burned each night in a fireplace made from volcanic rock!

Going back to school was a real challenge, still never could it have been more necessary and we were motivated, which was imperative as our teacher Latino Chica Gloria wouldn’t have had it any other way! It was also quite fun as Andrew and I learnt how it would have been if we’d have actually gone to school together – my findings? Andrew is a tearaway! Still despite his constant efforts for distraction, we managed to learn a great deal within the week and left with a load of resources to compile our own Espanol phrasebooks!

Speaking in Spanish all day was hard going on the brain, so every evening after lessons we walked amongst the log cabins with their smoking chimneys to find our way to ‘Cassis’, a lovely teashop where we shared the most wonderful cake (the cakes in South America are fab!) and each night we retired to our lovely wooden house (most things are made out of wood in Pucon, which seemed a little strange given the fire risk!) exhausted.

There was always something going on around the dinning room table at Casa Cecila and a constant stream of friends came and went taking their places for ‘almuerzo’ or ‘cena’, one evening there was even what appeared to be some sort of moot to discuss the damming of Rio Pucon! The man of the house, Jose was away all week and we had our own ideas on for where he might have got to, but on the weekend, he returned and we got to try all things quintessentially Chilean. Out came the Pisco-sours, the huge meat BBQ (broad beans supplied for Vegetarians) and some strange dried peach desert. After Jose and Cecilia went to bed we sat up with the kids listening to their favourite music, they’ve never heard of Jack Johnson, but they love Manu Chau, The Beatles and Pink Floyd!

All in all it was a fantastic week, we went from saying stupid things like “no de nada Vinto Tinto, de nada Vino Blanco” (red wine not welcome, white wine welcome!) to explaining in Spanish, albeit badly, why we didn’t vote, why no one likes Gordon Brown, why labour is still in power after the Iraq war, why the Queen of England’s son is the prince of Wales and in the end we all agreed that Margaret Thatcher was no good for anyone! We were really sad to leave Pucon and our lovely Chilean family which surprised us as we thought a week in one place could be boring, but it was really nice to stop and see how people really lived in a town far away from our own!

Earthquakes and NCP car parks, Chillán

2009-10-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Another successful bus journey and our third stop in Chile took us to the small city of Chillán. I think they use the term city pretty liberally in Chile as it seemed very small with mostly low-rise buildings, but it does have a cathedral so we’ll let them off.

We only had one day in Chillán as our much-needed Spanish lessons were approaching so our encounter with the twice earthquake ravaged city was a brief one. We had a good look at the Feria De Chillán where they had lots of hats and we were followed by a smelly dog through the market. Then we popped our heads into the grandest of all earthquake proof buildings in the city, the cathedral. I couldn’t help think it looked more like a futuristic NCP car park than a place of worship but there’s a reason for everything and this church is made the withstand the inevitable when you build a city on an enormous fault line.

After we’d had some quiet time in the NCP car park we headed for the famous Mexico Esquella to see the murals painted by Mexican artists David Alfaro Siqueiros and Xavier Guerrero to honour indeginous and Pre-Columbian figures, the school was closed and they were repainting the mural, typical, as a nice lady explained in Spanish we nodded our heads pretending to understand saying “oh, ok, sure no worries your decorating, ok see you!” we were foiled, she sent a lovely English speaking lady out who invited us to see the mural even though they were working on it. We then pondered back through the city admiring the colourful houses and encountered a man trying to sell a deflated balloon before getting dinner and heading back.

So our tour ended about there really, we aimed to spend most of the night planning our route through South America, something we seemed to be endlessly putting off. That night we sat in the three bedroom granny annex of the hosts house, so cold we ended up putting the oven on and leaving the door open for an hour before we noticed we’d been yawning a lot and it smelt of gas in the room.

Needless to say after a heavy dose of gas we both needed a sleep and went to bed thinking about our next week in Pucon!

Moving to the Country - Talca, Chile

2009-09-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

After the relative easiness of travelling in Australia and New Zealand we were feeling slightly apprehensive for all we had heard of South America and we’ve prepared ourselves for a challenge! We left Santiago to explore Southern Chile, managing to buy our turbus tickets to Talca at Santiago's “estacion central” in Spanish was our first victory. However, there were unfortunately few to follow over the next few days as we cobbled together the few words we knew to form broken and unintelligible sentences! Still we were hoping that our language course in Pucon starting the next week would see us right.

After doing South East Asia mainly on buses, we weren’t looking forward to public transport again, but Santiago’s bus station was far more sane and ordered than those we’d seen in Asia - a huge relief and far easier to cope with! The bus itself was a real step-up too – loads of legroom, comfortable seats and Tomb Raider on the television (albeit en Espanol), for a three hour journey! We travel through the Chilian countryside past vineyards and farms (as well as factories) with the Andean Peaks to our left. The roads are well paved and it’s all very orderly, which shouldn’t come as a surprise as, according to the Lonely Planet (LP), Chile is now on it’s way to becoming Latin America’s first first world country.

The Lonely Planet described Talca as having “a thriving university atmosphere and savvy wining and dinning that caters to gringos on the wine trail”. Things were looking good we thought, humm not quite! What we saw of city (more like a town in UK size terms) was dishevelled, paint peeling from the vibrant coloured houses, the streets covered with graffiti and the roads shared by cars, buses and horses pulling heavily loaded carts. Andrew’s face was a picture as I re-read the LP’s description of the town to him - it didn’t really feel like a “thriving university town”!

We quickly left Talca town on the promise of visiting wineries by bicycle, heading for Case Cueca, 4 kms out. This involved getting on the battered local bus complete with a Jesus transfer on the door. The locals couldn’t have looked less pleased to see us as we stood in the aisle, trying not to hit old ladies with our heavy backpacks - that’s it we thought, the holiday’s over, back to the craziness. From the bus stop a 2 km gravel road led to Casa Cueca which is set in beautiful mountainous countryside with cactuses, banana trees, hammocks and they serve the most wonderful vegetarian dinners, which was handy as "el supermerkado" was 4 kms away and getting there involved passing some rather scary dogs protecting their property!

Unfortunately we never got to the wineries, in fact we never actually managed to do anything when we were at Casa Cueca for all the “nearby wineries” were closed for the low season and the only walks the owners could suggest were in a national park 60 km away (we were really feeling not having a car!). So after two nights of relaxing and route planning our feet were itching like crazy, so we got back on the bus and headed to Chillan.

Bigger than Big - Our first stop in South America

2009-09-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

After an eleven hour flight we arrived in Santiago four hours before we left New Zealand. It confused us as well! Going back in time was something I’d always imagined doing but this didn’t seem as exciting, maybe because we weren’t in a Delorean and we didn’t have a crazy man called Doc with us. Anyhow, back in time, we found ourselves in an enormous city called Santiago, Chile.

I’m not sure enormous is descriptive enough for how the city feels, it’s a sprawling mass of the new, the old, the run down, the flashy, the classic, the rough and the grand all rolled into one. Tags and quickly daubed graffiti covers shops shutters, intricate murals adorn the walls of buildings and fly-posters cover anything that’s stands still long enough. The city feels very young but still very old and traditional, with militant guards outside the presidents’ house and glorious statues creating centre pieces for the socially important plazas.

Our introduction to Santiago was arriving on the celebration of independence day, when the majority of city dwellers head for their hometowns making the city a ghostly place to be. For two days we would often be one of very few out after dark, however on the Monday morning it was like a different city, the horns of cars, the sound of people and buses going to and fro carrying people to their next destination was surprisingly refreshing.

We stayed in Don Santiago Hostel, a homely little place in an area called Barrio Brasil, famed for it’s youthful nightlife and good restaurants. Unfortunately we didn’t experience either. Struggling with jet lag meant we were none to youthful and finding a good restaurant proved impossible.

However, it was at Don Santiago we were fortunate enough to meet the lovely Andy and Sarah all the way from Bristol, and on one occasion we went in search of a restaurant but ended up in a Cantonese place with a cockroach on the mirror and an owner more interested in playing solitaire than giving us the menu! The food was pretty good and the company was great, we chatted long into the night about our travels and where Andy and Sarah were heading on theirs, swapping a few helpful tips.

Over the five days we spent in Santiago we managed to see a few big sights, Museo Chileno De Arte Precolombino, Cerro Santa Lucia and Cerro San Cristobal while exploring the rest of the city by foot. As an introduction to this enormous continent it was perfect, it’s a very cosmopoliton, European-esk city allowing us a few days to get our bearings and prepare ourselves for the final leg of our world tour, South America!

Good Bye New Zealand!

2009-09-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

We’ve never done a final country post before but with New Zealand behind us and South America in front, it’s better late than never! From the moment we arrived in Queenstown to our last stop in Kahoe and all the bits in between, we've loved New Zealand, so the country special mention!

The similarities between New Zealand and the U.K. are widely noted however, in many ways they are very different countries. Apart from the obvious contrasts – the landscape, the fact that they call peppers “capsicums”, courgettes – “zucchinis” and sweet potatoes - “kumaras” and the slang (by the end of our trip even we were saying “ey” at the end of every sentence!), there are also deeper contrasts and I’ll try to briefly summarise them!

For a start, in New Zealand, they call us Brits (or I like to think, they call the English!), the “whinging poms” and sadly they may be right. Of course, we do have every right to whinge when things aren’t right, but don’t other countries have far worse deals than us? What seems to help the Kiwi’s in the non-whinging stakes is firstly that they don’t have the same obsession with tabloid newspapers, so there’s not so much scandal. Secondly, it’s a bit like Cornwall, in that world news doesn’t reach New Zealand in the same quantity as it does the U.K. and when it does, no one really talks about it, for example, since being here, we’ve heard very little about Swine Flu and nothing at all about Barack Obama! Of course, it’s important to know about national and global happenings and injustices, but most of us hear about them and do very little in terms of resolving them, in any case whinging is futile! What I will say, however, is they do seem to have the same disturbing obsession with Jordan, Pete and Brangelina and the equivilants of “Now ” and “Heat ” magazines sell like hot cakes!

So the Kiwi’s are an optimistic bunch with a sort of “she’ll be alright” approach to life. They just seem to get on with things, they’ll give you a hand if you need one, they’ll pick you up when your hitching without fearing you’re going to kill them and they’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. They’ll bend the rules to help you out and they’ll speak to you in the street even if you are a stranger and probably offer to take you out to dinner as well!

So that’s the people, now for a word on the hostels which have for the most part been great, with the exception of city hostels, especially in Auckland. During our time in Auckland we tried four different hostels – each was worse than the last! Veranda’s stank of mould and you had to trek through the backyard to get to the kitchen in the house next door just to make a cup of tea! At Lantana Lodge, the owners seemed to have an obsession with hovering and would chuck you out of bed to hover your room every morning. Garden City Lodge, had once been home to the Queen of Tonga – they put us in the shed and last but not least, Bamba Lodge, where the backpackers had been in our dorm for so long that they were now throwing their clothes all over the floor as though it was actually their own bedroom! On the whole, however, the BBH guide has been our saviour!

Then there’s the country itself, wild and beautiful don’t even come close to describing the natural diversity of New Zealand. A land that’s given us the chance to visit the Shire, Middle Earth and Mount Doom and to do things we’d never done before bathing in hot water pools, skiing, tramping, horse riding, glacier walking, sky-diving and even Frisbee golf!

And now to South America! Uncharted territory for us and we can only vaguely imagine what it’s going to be like. There’s a lot to look forward to but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t going to miss New Zealand. Sweet as bro!

P.S. Our route is the black line in the map!

The Kindness of Strangers - Kahoe, The Northland!

2009-09-21T11:09:00.000-07:00

Having become rather fond of country life since being in New Zealand, we were keen to get out of Auckland and get up to the Northland to see a bit more beauty before we departed. However, selling the car on our first day in Auckland left us with a problem, we didn’t have a car! So we hired a cheap ‘Juicy’ rental car and set off. Of the Northland we can tell you of but one place, as so taken were we with it that we ended up staying until we had to return to Auckland for our flight to South America.

Sometimes it’s just the little things that make an experience memorable, like sitting in an orange wooden deck chair, on a veranda, outside a weatherboard house looking out to hilly green fields, terraced like rice paddies, surrounded by animals - three potbellied pigs sunning themselves in the first field, whilst up on the bank cows and donkeys share digs and to my right the turkeys fan their feathers majestically. Behind me, in the garden, is a big old tree with glistening green leaves and from the inside, the calls of a thousand birds singing in union. On the other side of these hills lies Doubtless Bay and secret pathways to waterfalls and swimming holes.

This is Kahoe Farms Hostel , a fifth generation working farm where we felt like Lyndsey and Stefano's invited guests. They greet us on the front lawn along with Henry, the dog and Broccoli, the cat. After showing us around and sharing the farm’s history with us Lyndsey said “you don’t really want to stay in the dorm, do you?” To which Andrew replied, “we never really want to stay in the dorm” and to our surprise Lindsey said they needed to clean out the dorm so we could have the double. We were delighted even before we’d seen the room, which was like something out of a Laura Ashley catalogue, all wood and pastel coloured bed sheets, a mountain of pillows and views of that lovely tree in the garden.

During our time in Kahoe we got to sample Stefano’s famous pizzas and we enjoyed them with Alexis and the Dutch couple Jasper and Mirjjam , who we strangely kept bumping into all over New Zealand! We also managed to tear ourselves away from the deckchairs for long enough to walk up through the farm fields behind the hostel to the ‘camel hump’ from where we could see “Doubtless Bay”, on the other side of the hill and all the little bays with their moorings and surrounding settlements. We sat up there on a big rock from where the hostel was but a white blip on the miles and miles of green rolling hills. I guess all I’m really trying to say is this: it was our favourite place in the whole of New Zealand!

Gimli's Gone, Auckland

2009-09-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

We had one aim in Auckland, to sell the car and so we had giving ourselves one week to offload the beloved Gimli (the car) and sort a few things out for South America. With that in mind we set off to get posters printed and within a few hours of driving around Auckland’s hostels sticking them up on notice boards, we had a chance meeting with some Germans and within an hour they had scared us half to death with the test drive and agreed to buy the car! Firstly, we thought it was too good to be true, but sure enough the next morning we were car-less, with the money in our pocket.

It was in Auckland that we realised we’d commited a cardinal sin, we’d been in New Zealand for two months and not seen a rugby match! We didn’t think the Welsh contingent at home would forgive us for this, so we went to watch Auckland v Manawatu at Eden Park. It was a great match with a real nail biter at the end, Auckland just winning in the last minute or so with an amazing try!

That evening we decided to treat ourselves with a bit of luxury and go to the cinema to watch the much talked about Inglorious Basterds, starring Brad Pitt et al. It was grim, scalping, “shooting Nazi’s”, poking of open wounds and all things you’d expect from Quentin Tarentino, still I don’t think the film does anything in terms of creating global harmony!

A chance meeting with Hahei

2009-09-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

The word Hahei makes me smile. Thinking of the few days we spent there were very near perfect apart from the odd grey cloud in the sky. We had no reason to go there other than it was near the famed Hot Water Beach; this decision however, was one of the best we’d made in New Zealand so far.

Within a few hours we’d met the lovely Ty and Karen, dug a hole on Hot Water Beach and sat pickling in boiling water with them before we even knew their names! That evening we sat chatting long into the night with a new addition to the hostel, Mr Sander Putmans , unbeknown to him we had stayed in the same dorm room as him the night before so our introduction was amusing and he scolded us for waking him at 7am by rustling plastic bags, not until later on did we reveal that we had had a mostly sleepless night from his horn like snoring.

Being so far away from a city the sky at night is a magnificent sight and the stars from Hahei were no exception, we all laid flat on the beach staring up at the sky until we couldn’t feel our toes and it was such a sight we all promised to get up for sunrise the next morning. So, at 6am we sat on a cold beach listening to the silence of the sea and watching a luminous orange sun appear over the horizon, it was magical, so magical that most of Hahei seemed to be there as well and this is how we met John Wallace, a 70 something widower he walks down to the beach every morning at 6.30am and takes a photo of the sunrise, walking with one crutch, the evidence of a severe car accident he had some years back he tells us how fond he is of backpackers and many come to stay in his house when they get caught out by the cold on the beach. We chatted to him for a while, listening to the many tales of worldly travellers that have cooked him dinner, taking him to play golf and all sorts, so encapsulated by his stories we made plans to visit him that evening for some drinks.

We’d heard from some locals that the only bar was opening in the village and it was a special occasion as it had been closed for 3 days, so we planned to visit John for a few drinks and then head to the bar. Well, one photo turned into many and one story turned into a novel so we ended up spending most of the evening huddled around Johns kitchen table hearing about his fascinating life. As the night wore on and John started to slur his words in popped one of the local firemen and after saying our goodbyes to John we headed for the fire station (We thought it was strange too!). This was no normal fire station, inside it were four of the jolliest and probably drunkest firemen I’ve ever met, they had there own bar, cheese and crackers and of course fire engines. We sat at the bar and ordered beer after beer hearing stories from the firemen, one even donning the outfit to assist in serving drinks! That night I was officially accepted into the Hahei fire service for managing to blow the fire truck horns which nearly made my head explode, but I think it was worth it!

So, Hahei, we’d planned to stay for one night only and ended up staying three, truth told, I think we wish we were still there now.

There and back again: A visit to The Shire - Matamata

2009-09-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

On a Saturday afternoon in 1998 Ian Alexander and his family were watching the rugby when New Line Cinemas knocked at the door. New Line wanted to use part of the Alexander’s farmland as the location for Tolkien’s Middle Earth. They’d chosen the area for it’s rolling hills devoid of roads and powerlines and because of its beautiful lake and a 200 year old pine tree standing in a wide open paddock. Of course, being a self-respecting Kiwi, Ian told them to go away until after the rugby had finished, which they did, and soon the lives of the Alexander’s were to be changed forever by a book they’d never heard of. That’s how we came to be in the middle of the beautiful Matamata countryside on a perfect blue-sky Spring day in 2009, surrounded by newborn lambs! Well not quite, there was actually another twist of fate that allowed us to be there....

After Lord of the Rings filming finished, all film sets were supposed to be destroyed, however a bout of bad weather prohibited complete demolition of Hobbiton and the Alexander’s decided to ask New Line Cinema’s if they could keep the remaining set. After much paper work it was decided that the Hobbit holes could remain and so began the exclusive Hobbiton tours. Of course, New Line Cinemas had a number of conditions, including no decoration of the hobbit holes (hence the white facades seen in the photographs) and no costumed staff or staged re-enactments (though visitors are allowed to dress up and re-enact to their hearts content!)

We took a different approach to that of Gandalf’s on account of us being in a minibus, but the road that he arrived on was instantly recognisable, as was the rest of Hobbiton and as we rounded a corner we were confronted with tiny hobbit holes dotted all over the hills, the party green complete with party tree and the lake stretching out beyond them. You could imagine the dragon firework that Merry and Pippin set off at Bilbo’s birthday swooping down across the hills and over the lake. In fact, so easy was it to place yourself into the fictional world that, according to the guide, people often turn up for the tours dressed as Frodo and one group of 60 year olds once came to Hobbiton just spent the whole time dancing on the lawn, fantastic!

We walk around the site and for the whole time I couldn’t wipe the smile of my face as I got a chance to hug the party tree and walk amongst the magical landscape. It’s late afternoon, however, that brings the highlight in walking up to Bag-End and sitting outside Bilbo’s house where he and Gandalf sat smoking pipe weed as the sun went down. As we look down at all the fluffy sheep enjoying their grass dinner, I think to myself that Samwise Gamgee was absolutely right, “some things are worth fighting for!”

A Little Bit Eggy! The smells of Rotorua.

2009-09-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

The north island of New Zealand is famed for it’s volcanic activity, from active Volcanoes, bizarre hot underground springs to bubbling mud pools. So on leaving Taupo we decided to head north to the town of Rotorua, the centre of all things volcanic. The first thing we noticed as we pulled up to our hostel was the smells of rotting eggs in the air. With our faces scrunched trying not to inhale too deeply we headed for the reception and checked in for the next two nights. That night we got chatting to a couple called Jess and Peter and made plans to go out the next day together to do some sightseeing.

The first stop was the buried village , which as you might guess was a village that got buried! In 1886 a nearby volcano named Mount Tarawera erupted and caused New Zealands greatest natural disaster, burying the village of Te Wairoa killing the villagers and destroying the so-called eighth wonder of the world, Pink and White Terraces . It was quite moving as you wondered around the partially reconstructed village with the dramatic backdrop of wrecked peaks from the once conical volcano in the distance.

Driving back towards the town the eggy smell became strong again and we had to wonder why everyone flocks to a town smelling like it does, so to justify our nasal discomfort we travelled out to the enticingly named, Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland to discover the source of the whiff.

Exploring the Thermal Wonderland with our new comrades, we held our noses and giggled like school children as we walked through the mist and steam let off by collapsed volcanic craters. We pondered through looking at the imaginatively titled Champagne Pool, Devils Bath and Artists Palette among many others. Once the smell had become far too much we retreated to the car and had a cheese sandwich before retiring to our hostel for the night.

The next day we said our goodbyes to the lovely Jess and Peter and set off on foot to discover a Maori village called Ohinemutu. We had a walk around taking some moments to sit by Lake Rotorua’s edge to enjoy a small slice of fresher air and began walking back when we met a man called Tyanu who was sat in a Maori meeting place doorway with his dog Missy. He chatted to us for a while and we asked questions about Maori beliefs and traditions, he had a lot to tell us and explained his mindset and what he thought of the wrongs that had been inflicted on Maoris. He had his guitar with him and insisted he play us a Maori love song, just as he was getting ready he turned to us and said, “I’ll take my trousers off”, both of us had a look of horror on our faces which he must have seen so he reassured us by saying, “It’s ok, I’ve got my pants on”. Alarms go off in your head when strangers say things like this to you but for some reason we calmly stood there and watched him bare his skin to reveal the most incredible Maori tattoo, going from above his knee up to the middle of his back, he explained the meaning of the details which were meticulous in explaining his family, his heritage and the origins of his name (which we later found out not to be as simple as Tyne). After he pulled his trousers back up he played us some songs, some in Maori and some in English, which were really good. But time was pressing and we knew we had to leave Rotorua so made our excuses and headed for the car to get to our next destination, which hopefully wouldn’t be so eggy!

A Leap of Faith! Skydiving, Lake Taupo

2009-09-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

“If they said you could do it today, would you do it?” Andrew asked. “Yes, I’d just want to get it over and done with”. I replied. We got in the car, our plan for the day being to at least find out how much it would cost and to see Mount Doom. “Shall we go to Taupo or Mount Doom first?” Andrew asked. “Taupo?” I replied and we smiled knowingly at each other. We seemed to have made a silent pact and so we headed for Taupo, neither of us willing to utter the dreaded word skydive, but knowing in our hearts that we would jump that day, no matter what.

I’d never told anyone I was going to do it, I didn’t want the pressure, but Andrew had precisely because he knew that there’d be no backing out then. The only problem for me, however, was that I’m pressure enough for myself and in reality there was no way I was going to let myself get away with not jumping, especially if Andrew was and even if I was terrified just thinking about it. I’d been terrified since Andrew mentioned it last year and I was convinced I’d be terrified until it was over! For months leading up to that day I’d been worrying about all the things that could go wrong: getting caught up on the plane, hitting the wing on the way out, getting my feet tangled in the parachute, becoming detached from the tandem master, having a heart attack on the way down and last but certainly not least, the parachute not opening!

We arrived at the Freefall skydive centre to be greeted by two lovely ladies who answered all my safety questions with patience and invited us to watch the DvD of some people who’d just landed and as we watch every part of my body was shaking. We walk back to the desk “what’s the verdict?” one of the girls asks, “I think we are going to do it” I reluctantly admit and within ten minutes we’re into our jump suites and harnesses and climbing 15,000 feet into the air. Juddy, my tandem partner was really kind and so I felt comfortable enough to ask him too many questions, such as “am I strapped in properly?” He made fun of my being nervous saying things like “if we do happen to become detached, I just want you to know, I’ll be fine!”

I knew it would soon be time to jump when everyone started to shake hands. I reluctantly let go of Andrew and the next thing I knew my legs were dangling from the plane and we were out, head first and free falling through the sky! I think I screamed and I remember smiling and frowning at the same time at the sheer ridiculousness of the occasion. I could see all around - the countryside and Lake Taupo, I was like a bird (a very terrified bird with pinned cheeks) flying through the sky! Then suddenly we jolted upwards and that’s when the wonderful parachute opened and I burst out laughing. “How was that?” Juddy disturbed the silence with small talk as we floated through the air. “Amazing!” I exclaimed. “Would you do it again?” He asked “Um, maybe” I said (a big maybe!). “So what are you going to do with the rest of your day?” He asked. “I don’t care”. I said. “I’ve just done this!” After doing some loops we land and I’m hugging everyone in sight and I still can’t stop giggling! A grinning Andrew lands shortly after and soon we’re watching our own skydive DvD!

I felt so brave and it was the first time in my life I have been able to say that and really believed it! That day we made a leap of faith and felt alive, and it taught me that sometimes when you think something bad is going to happen, it often doesn’t, even when you feel danger is starring you in the face! The only problem then was, what were we going to do with the rest of the day?!

All Aboard - Picton to Wellington

2009-09-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

Our journey up the west coast ended when we took a right and started going through the valleys until we got to Blenheim, the Marlborough wine regions base for everyman and his dog wishing to indulge in fine wines. This being a whistle stop tour for us we picked one winery to visit, deciding to go for the most exclusive we knew, we chose Cloudy Bay. So we popped by to sample some tipples and had a lovely chat with the cellar door lady, trying a few nice wines and even got to peep into the “cellar” full of oak casks, this time however we did manage to skirt around the subject of buying wines as they were a little pricey for our pockets so instead we left with two of their cheapest postcards.

Heading north the weather worsened and as we approached Picton the idea of going on a three hour ferry crossing didn’t seem to appealing, but somehow we found ourselves at the ferry terminal and before you could say “All Aboard”, we’d paid the fee and had 4 hours to pass before hopping on our voyage. Arriving back at Picton terminal in the darkness with rain battering the car windows we waited patiently to board while a poor chap walked from car to car discussing Dydimo and any possible waterborne activities we might have done!

With all the formalities of passing the ticket inspector a piece of green plastic we boarded the ferry and set about exploring the tiny vessel for some food of which we found the interesting ‘pottle of chips’, “We’ll have one of them, Oh,and what is a pottle?” Ria says, “It’s a cup”, the chef says, “Does that mean you call it a pottle of Tea” Ria replied, “No the pottle is a bigger cup cup”, Chef says tryingly like it makes just a little sense to him as it does us. We received our pottle and went to find somewhere to sit. The rocking of the boat in the heavy seas reminded me of many trips we’d do to France on the worst boat Brittany Ferry’s had going (The Quibron), even the smell of a Ferry seems to be the same worldwide.

We docked in at Wellington harbour at 10.30pm and the weather was now even worse, we’d heard Wellington was windy but it was like a full scale tornado, we drove around in circles trying to locate the Cambridge Hotel, finally checking in at around 11.30pm, we were pooped to say the least and put our heads on down to sleep while chuckling at the mindless graffiti on the mattress supports of the top bunk saying things like “Sorry, I pissed in this bed, Sleep well”.

We awoke to a much drier day and set about visiting Te Papa, the capital cities museum where we learnt a little about The Treaty of Waitangi before setting off into the suburbs to find the well known Weta Caves Company, who worked closely on Lord of the Rings where we got to meet a chap who hadn’t shaved for a one and half years so he can feature in the upcoming Hobbit movies!

We continued out of Wellington city to find a nicer bed for the following night in the small beach side town of Plimmerton where we met a lovely lady from England who runs an amazing place called Maona Lodge, we were treated to the best room in the house and had stunning views of the bay and quickly settled down for a much needed nights sleep.

Refreshed, we drove back to Wellington to find a few Lord of the Rings spots and had a run around in the forest where there would once have been Hobbits and Nazgul’s, after acting out some scenes we jumped back in the car and headed northwards to our next destination of Turangi.

“Cutting the Ice” – Franz Josef Glacier!

2009-09-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding a bit dramatic after the horses post, it’s my turn to write about the Franz Josef Glacier walk which, it just so happens, was also eventful! We were really excited about doing the walk as friends and fellow travellers spoke highly of it, with utterances of “the best thing we’ve done in New Zealand” and the like.

The West Coast of the South Island is always shrouded in rain, something to do with being squashed between the Southern Alps and the sea, so it was no surprise that the morning we planned to do our glacier walk, it was raining. What was a bit worrying, however was that the previous night we’d been lying in our bunks listening to the worst thunderstorm we’d heard in New Zealand! So that morning we were secretly hoping the walk might be cancelled, but apparently they don’t worry about a bit of rain on the West Coast. So off we went to get kitted out in full waterproof clothing at the tour office where they told us that our full-day tour may be cut down to a half day because there were high winds. Feeling a little bit anxious about this last bit of information, we set off.

The enthusiasm of the guides was ridiculous as they tried to rile us up on the way to the glacier, “Yeah, cutting the ice”, the lead guide shouted and with that we were off the bus soon to get our first look at the glacier - a magnificent, hunk of ice in the middle of the valley which is moving all the time. Thankfully our boots held up as we traversed the small river coming from the bottom of the glacier and it was soon time to don our “crampons” and start climbing. First we walked across a landscape of avalanche rock and then we hit the relatively easy to climb ice steps, cut by the guides earlier in the day. After that was up to our guide Zack, to cut a path to the high point and get us back down again.

We decided to go in the third group because we thought that would our easiest option, little did we know they actually put the junior guide in charge of the third group. Neither did we know that we would end up getting lost on top of the glacier with said guide. How this came to be? The weather took a turn for the worst after about three hours of walking, when Zack explained to us that the rain clouds passing above our heads were special ones just for the glacier which were “about to dump a load on us any minute”. Consequently, our lunch stop involved standing in the horizontal rain eating cheese sandwiches whilst trying not to get pushed over by high winds. At lunch Zack turned to me and said “I love it went it’s like this ey? This is a real adventure!” “Yeah”, I replied, really thinking, get me out of here already!

Lunch over, the 11 of us looking soaked and miserable, so when Zack told us the downward route was easy, it was news well received. It was shortly after this that I noticed him looking around blank-faced and heard him utter the word “shit” under his breath - the first hint something was wrong. The rain came down even heavier, holes in the ice began to fill with water and small streams were forming underneath us. As time passed poor Zack was looking more and more lost. “Stay here, I’m just going to scope out a route”. He said and off he went, pick-axe slung over his shoulder, whilst we the group stood, rain dripping from our grumpy faces, discussing the prospect of being lost on an enormous ice cube!

Zack returned, he had not found an alternative route. He did his best to seem unfazed as he turned and admitted “I do know how to get down, it’s just I’m only a junior guide and I have to follow the tracks of the other two groups, but their tracks have been washed away!” Well that was just fantastic, but even more fantastic was his next question “how are you all at walking across bare ice?” Bare ice? How the hell did we know how we were at walking across bare ice? Then one of the girls in the group said “look we are all so desperate to get down, just take us the way you know and we’ll follow you, we’ll slide down on our bums if we have to”. So he showed us how to do the “Franz-Josef shuffle”, a move that would allow us to ascend and descend the crevasses in front of us and soon us girls were hysterical as we tried our best to master the step, whilst not having legs long enough to reach the next one! So we followed Zack with a great degree of trepidation in mind and I clung onto Andrew’s hand for dear life, yelping pathetically every time I managed to narrowly avoid falling on my bum!

We made our way across the bare ice for the next half and hour and then something wonderful happened, out of the distance emerged two figures in red, it was the group one and two guides who’d come back to rescue us! On the way back Zack told us that it was a 7 out of 10 for the worst weather he’d seen on the glacier and that on days like that they don’t normally take people up. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the bus stop and as we sat waiting for our bus Zack keenly reiterated his point - “he was not lost”!

Hip Hip Hooray - Queenstown for Birthday's!!

2009-09-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

After our lap of the South Island we ended up back at our starting point of Queenstown to celebrate Ria and Owen’s birthday’s with a party on the Saturday night (you may now be able to tell how far behind we are with the blog!). Owen had booked four days off from Fergburger to make sure we could celebrate properly and that we did!

It was Friday afternoon when we arrived at the Fryer Street maison and we quickly set about starting the celebrations early with eight of us enjoying a meal at the Golden Elephant where we managed to practice our Thai in the form of “hello”, “thank-you” and “bill please”, much to the waitresses delight and amusement! We managed to stay out until the wee hours in the morning singing Happy Birthday a number of times and frequenting the many bars that Queenstown has to offer. The next afternoon we awoke in a bit of a haze! Slightly weary from the night before, we headed out for a big birthday breakfast and went to play Frisbee Golf in Queenstown park. Then we went for birthday “Fush and Chups” and prepared for the Welsh themed house party by getting the buffet and beers ready. It wasn’t long before the house was full and we were mingling with the other 38 mostly British people there and again stayed up until the wee hours in the morning, probably singing Happy Birthday numerous times, again!

Another late morning and feeling bleary eyed, we dragged ourselves out of bed and forced ourselves out into the light, somehow we found ourselves climbing up the hill on a loop track called One Mile Track. Three hours later we still hadn’t completed the track which was more like 8 mile than 1! We emerged at the other end of Queenstown just before the darkness took over and went to The Cow for an almighty pizza followed by an early night needed by all. The next day we went for a painting session on a water tower just outside Queenstown for a friend of Owen’s who is putting together a snowboard video and then again found ourselves out on the town meeting up with an old college friend Alex Goodlass, we managed to extend a few beers into an all night effort and reached home around three in the morning feeling suitably shattered after the last four days we’d endured.

Next morning Owen returned to work and we returned to the road knowing this was to be our last visit to Queenstown. We drove Northwards to Wanaka to rest our weary heads for the night and plan the journey ahead of us.

Glenorchy and getting back on the Horse!

2009-09-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

Pumped up from watching the bungi’s we reached Glenorchy, a tiny place, surrounded by beautiful mountains and covered in fields. With more horses than people, we knew we’d have to find something to do fast! Whilst at Glenorchy I seemed to have managed to temporarily forget the fear I’d aquired some 13 years previous, when I’d fallen off a horse and lost my memory and that’s how we found ourselves on the Lord of the Rings tour of Paradise!

As a tour suitable for absolute beginners, I knew, or thought I knew, that they wouldn’t expect us to be able to control a horse. So on the way there, I had fun, teasing Andrew who’d never been on a horse before, about how frightened he looked. I wasn’t even that nervous when we arrived and they showed us how to control the horse by pulling on the reigns (something 14 year old me was told you should never do) because I thought that the horse would know where to go and that this would be merely a precaution just in case you DID need to control the horse. There were a couple of beginners in the group, but experienced varied from people who actually owned their own horses and had ridden all their lives to those who had no experience whatsoever (Andrew) to those with a really bad experience (me!).

At first the ride was fun and I was loving going up the hills, enjoying the beautiful scenery and all was well as the guide told us which areas had been used in 'Wolverine' and 'Lord of the Rings' but soon it emerged that my horse, Randall, had a strong mind of his own and perhaps a few issues (it couldn’t possibly have been anything to do with the person on his back!). Even earlier, alarm bells rang somewhat when in the yard, all the other horses were lined up and ready to go, whilst Randall led me over to a wooden post which he proceeded to chew manically. “It has the same affect as nicotine, it releases endorphins”. One of the guides reveals, “I think my horse has an addiction problem”. I said to her, but I soon realised that Randall’s relationship with wood may be a bit like mine with chocolate, so I let it slide and my strategy was to let him get on with it in the hope that if I didn’t upset him he wouldn’t buck me!

Nevertheless, it would seem that difficulties and me were destined to meet and Randall was not helping. When he came to mud, he didn’t want to get his feet dirty and so he would stop dead, it was much the same when we came to water and I’d be trying to kick him on “come on, give him a kick, you won’t hurt him!” the guide was yelling. So I was kicking him and trying to steer him only being really gentle also (remember the strategy). Only non-assertiveness with horses is perhaps not the best strategy and as I began to loose heart, old Randall seemed to be well aware that he had the upper hand over his rider and decided to make my day a little bit harder, it began like this…

First he decided that he was tired and so he dropped to the back of the pack but then he decided he wanted to be in front again and so he proceeded to bite poor Pip, the horse in front of him, as well as Andrew’s horse, Murphy in order to get his own way. Then we were led up a really steep slope in order to get a photo opportunity at the top. “Lean forward and grab on to a bit of mane”. They guides tell us and before I know it Randall has broken out into a bit of a canter just to get up the hill and that’s totally freaked me out, ‘he’s being erratic’, I was thinking. I reckon Randall knew I was scared because he checkily starts feasting on the grass at the top of the hill, again no-one else’s horse is finding it necessary to eat! I’m trying to pull his head up as they’re telling me to, but he’s fighting me with all his might to keep enjoying his third lunch! He knows he’s got a real pushover on his back and I’m trying to do my best impression of the horse whisperer, stroking his mane and saying nice things to little avail.

We have our pictures taken at the top of the hill and I do my best to feign a smile, but I get this awful feeling that something is about to go terribly wrong. Well, what goes up must come down, which was dawning on me when I starred down, in shear panic at the muddy path we were about to tread. Did I mention Randall doesn’t like mud? Well we start down the hill and the next thing I know he starts veering off up the grassy bank to our left. “It’s alright, let him go, there’s another path just there”. The guide says, at which I felt some relief, the only problem was when we got to the diverted route, Randall decided it was not good enough either and so he trots on up to the highest point on the hill and just stands there. Well by this point my left leg was shaking violently and I couldn’t listen to anything the guide was saying to help because the only voice I could hear was the panicking one inside my head. At that moment I was thinking ‘bugger this’ and I jumped off that horse like a whippet. It was probably the only thing I did well that whole day!

The guide looked confused. “I’m sorry” I said. “I fell of a horse when I was a kid and I lost my memory and I just can’t do this”. Well the guide, a lovely girl from Essex, made me feel better about being brave enough to get back on the horse in the first place. I walked until my legs steadied and we had a good chat about horse riding accidents, which didn’t really fill me with confidence for getting back on, but the guide stayed on the ground and I got back up. “I think the horse could sense I was frightened” I tell her. “Do you know, that’s probably spot on there”. She said. “There’s a guy at our stables, who’s a bit of a hippy, and he says that, you know when you hold a sea shell to your ear?” “Yes”. I reply. “Well those are apparently your brain waves and apparently horses can hear them, so if you’re thinking ‘shit I’m scared, shit I’m scared’ then the horse can hear that and he’ll respond to it”. An interesting idea I think, but the bit I don’t understand is why oh why do they have to be so sadistic by frightening an already terrified person by misbehaving?! So that night we headed back to Queenstown where, overwhelmed in my joy for being in one piece, I enjoyed a very large glass of wine. So the moral of the story is, once you’ve fallen off, it’s important to get back on, but no one said it was going to be easy!

Happy Hanukkah Wanaka!

2009-09-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Our next stop was Wanaka where we spent a few days hanging around, mainly on account that unless you’re here for the ski season, there isn’t a great deal to do in Wanaka, apart from visit “Puzzling World”, which sounded like an over-sized hall of mirrors and we didn’t really fancy that, even if it was going to show us how they made Hobbits hobbit-size! The town’s proximity to Treble Cone ski fields makes Wanaka a bit like Queenstown with its uber-cool ‘snow clothes’ shops and it’s up-market “apres-ski” environs. However, Wanaka is also different to Queenstown, there’s no Fergburger for a start and it’s less commercial though it’s not the “small Kiwi town” which the pictures hanging in the pubs show it once was.

Next we headed to Arrowtown for a couple of nights. Arrowtown was how I imagined a small Canadian town would look at the beginning of winter with its pretty Avenue of Trees and it’s Olde worldie bakery, post office and shops. It was a strange little place; a bit like Ironbridge in the U.K. only people actually live there and it has an interesting story to tell (not that Ironbridge doesn’t!). In the late 1800’s many Chinese men moved to Arrowtown to escape political and economic instability in their home country and in the hope of finding their fortune in the surrounding gold fields, the plan being to return home with enough money to set up a small farm. They managed to produce 30% of all New Zealand’s gold but it doesn’t seem that they ever saw much of that because nobody ever made it rich and many died as a result of the conditions in which they lived and those who did return home often could not fit back into Chinese society and so returned to live in New Zealand, many with alcohol and opium addictions (opium was still legal in New Zealand until the early 1900’s). It’s not a very happy story, but it’s an interesting one.

They’ve restored the old Chinese settlement in Arrowtown and so we spent sometime looking around that before heading for the river to see where Arwen carried Frodo to safety, chased by the Nazgul through the Ford of Bruinen. We also walked through the Gladden Fields (I guess you can tell the Lord of the Rings interest is yet to wane!) In the evening we returned to The Poplar Lodge where we met a lovely lady called Deborah who taught me how to do a Pearl stitch and now I know how to do patterns (no Andrew hasn’t taken up Simon’s interests, this is Ria)!

On the way to Glenorchy we visited some Lord of the Rings locations in the form of an unremarkable stretch of trees off route 6 which was once The Great East Road! A bit more excitingly we then went to see the River Anduin and the Pillars of Kings (you could sort of make the location out, but you’re never really sure if you are looking at the right thing!) and the A.J.Hackett’s bungy bridge. It was interesting to see the different ways in which people approach the bungy. For me, it was scary enough just walking near the bridge, fearing that someone was going to grab me and force me to jump, but these people seemed to have gathered lesser and greater degrees of courage in order to attempt it! The first girl we saw do the jump let out the most blood curdling “I’m going to die” scream I’ve ever heard, which was a horrific introduction to bungy-jump watching for me, how inconsiderate! The second girl screamed and then went dead silent and so it appeared as though she may have passed out. The next girl was far less fearful and with her camera in her hand, she jumped and took pictures of herself on the way down, whilst the last guy was apparently fearless for, in his ski gear, he jumped off backwards and did somersaults on the way down! It was all very inspiring to see these people take their life in their hands in this way, so much so that, that afternoon, we decided to try horse riding in Glenorchy!

Takaka to Greymouth

2009-09-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Arriving back at the car after the 3 days was such a relief, our legs were sore and our bellies empty so we set off to the nearest place of any interest, Takaka. Takaka was a strange place, we stayed in a slightly weird hostel called Annie’s Nirvana Lodge, I think we had images of a warm motherly figure baking muffins and fresh bread, but what we got was an eccentric chap called Allan who had the bushiest eyebrows I’ve ever seen. He was great none the less and insisted on keeping the fire loaded up with wood so we warmed ourselves and settled in for the night.

In the morning we departed Takaka to make our way south to Punakaiki, stopping by the Grove Scenic Reserve we explored the hidden crevices surrounded by dense forests and took a look at Pupu Springs said to be the second clearest water spring in the world!

The drive to Punakaiki was long but easy, and we had no problem in finding our nights accommodation at Te Nikau Retreat, getting there just after dark we were greeted by a jolly Welsh lady from the Valleys (you never feel too far from home here!). We were directed to our room which was in a gorgeous 3 floored house, with a roaring coal fire, the only other occupants were none too pleased we’d turned up and quickly set about hiding food and anything else they thought we’d steal. It was then that they shouted someone's name and a lady popped down the stairs, they discussed a few things in German before she ran to the fridge and proceeded to right her name on a dozen eggs in a plastic bag! Ria and I were so amused by this but unperturbed we made ourselves at home despite the whispering coming from our new roommates.

The Germans left early in the morning and we followed shortly making our way south to the Pancake Rocks, a somewhat mysterious formations of limestone layers which have weathered, and a process of stylobedding has apparently made them look like pancakes. They don’t look like pancakes they look like rocks, but it was nice to get some fresh sea air, so off we set to reach our next destination Greymouth!

The name Greymouth says it all really; it’s very, very grey and ultra boring to look at. We had however landed in a true gem at the hostel, The Global Village. It was amazing, the living room looked like an African diplomats waiting room, flags, wooden carving adorned the walls and they had the best selection of music playing all night, they even had a piano and I practised playing Chopsticks! It was such a nice place to be we decided to stay another day without even seeing Greymouth itself. It was our second night and we were relaxing in the diplomats waiting room when about 30 people stormed through the door, these were folk from “The Stray Bus”, a giant orange bus that ferries around travellers and dumps them at selected points of interest. They made themselves at home inevitably making everyone else feel not at home. It was an interesting thing to see and an insight into how we would never want to travel, the idea of sitting on a bus for hours brings back bad memories and to not have the option of stopping where and when you want doesn’t appeal to us. While avoiding the hoards of orange people we did meet a lovely chap from Texas who had lots of interesting things to say and had even been in George Bush’s inaugural parade! Who said Greymouth was boring!

It's all About Nature! Abel Tasman National Park

2009-08-27T03:15:00.000-07:00

When we decided that it was time to do the Abel Tasman Coastal Track we were very excited, we would be away from civilisation for two nights and would cover about 35 km, staying in Department of Conservation huts strategically placed along the way. We left our car at a small place called Marahau and made our way into the national park and it wasn’t long until we were wandering through dripping fern forests overlooking Robinson Crusoe style beaches and crossing waterfalls and crystal clear streams – it was so quiet and serene. The first hut at Anchorage was about 12 km away and we were looking forward to spending the night there, our minds awash with idyllic images of cosy wooden bunks and a roaring bonfire, which by nightfall us weary trampers would be sitting around discussing where we’d been and where we were going next.

Imagine our shock then, when we arrived at said hut to see that the ‘bunks’ aren’t really bunks but two long planks of plywood on stilts one above the other, with gym mats for mattresses! There was no electricity and therefore no lights, the shower was cold and on the beach (it’s winter!) and to top it all off, it smelt like the Museum of Welsh Life and Agriculture at St Fagans! Still, we must have developed a sense of humour about such situations during our travels for when we opened the hut door we just burst out laughing!

We spent the there evening with two German kayakers who looked cold and miserable, a French guy who liked our cookies but did not seem to understand much of what we said, he did however, seem to know when to smile and nod! Then there was Kendell from Missouri (“nobody goes there”) and a hilarious, crazy lady from Herefordshire who seemed to have a knack of winding everyone up by asking obtrusive questions and repeating herself. I’m not quite sure how many times she told us that “the hut at Awaroa (the next hut we were heading to) has a log fire and you can leave the doors to the dorms open and get the heat going all the way through”, but it was a great many! Our favourite people and by far the sanest of the bunch were the couples from Scotland who lent us their gas stove to warm up the pasta we were carrying a vat of for dinner for the two nights! We had a good chat but with the dying of the light we were all in bed by 8 o’ clock!

In the morning we headed North. Our first mission was crossing an estuary and somehow it was worth walking barefoot through the freezing inlets and squelching our way through squidgy, brown sand littered with cockleshells for the sky was cloudless, the air was fresh and the sea was as flat as a pancake. This second day was pretty tough, with a 22 km walk up one hill, then down another, then back up as we ghosted the coast. We stopped for cheese rolls at the ruins of Tonga Quarry where workers had once lived in the middle of the forest during the early 1900s. Kendell from Missouri caught us up and the three of us crossed the next water crossing together. Then it was another pretty brutal 10 km and by the time we reached Awaroa, we were so tired that we were just putting one foot in front of the other as a matter of default. Thankfully, however crazy Hereford was right and at the hut there was indeed a log fire and we left the dorm doors open to get some heat whilst sleeping!

Morning came and the water taxi picked us up and in an hour and a half we were back where we started but not before seeing the coast from the water and some baby seals playing in the waves! Back on dry land and hungry (we couldn’t face the cold pasta last night), we treated ourselves to a Morro Bar (that’s the N.Z. Mars bar) and congratulated ourselves on our feat. Our next stop was Golden Bay where we spent an evening watching films and generally appreciating the fact that we weren’t cold and at that moment we had no idea what we’d be doing the next day!

Nelson - The one ring that binds us all.

2009-08-27T02:58:00.000-07:00

Nelson apparently has the most hours of sunshine anywhere in New Zealand and as we made our approach we were treated to glorious blue skies enticing us into the pint size city. We stopped of at our hostel called Bug, aptly named as the owner has a VW beetle parked in the car park and each room/dorm had a VW name of some sort. Once we’d settled in and met a few of the inhabitants we went for a walk to discover some of Nelson, we didn’t get very far before we heard a big smash and the screeching of tyres, turning around we saw an old lady waving her hands at a speeding car going off down the road. In New Zealand it’s not compulsory to have car insurance which means the occurrence of hit and run accidents is high because people cannot afford to payout for the damage they have caused, this obviously being the chaps issue who sped away after the bump.

That was a lot of excitement for one day so we headed to the supermarket along with a German lad to get some supplies for our evening meal and Ria practised her GCSE level German much to his amusement. That evening we met a lovely girl from Newport, Wales who had done a skydive that afternoon, we chatted long into the night about the jump, how it felt, was she scared etc and even got to watch her video which was hilarious. We headed for bed in a dorm of 7 boys and 1 girl (Ria). It wasn’t until about 3 in the morning that to two blokes stumbled in trying their hardest to be quiet but waking everyone, within 10 minutes they were both sound asleep and we were all wide awake when one of them started snorting like a pig, I honestly thought he was choking on vomit (but I still didn’t move to see if he was) and Ria in the bunk below was laughing, it went on for hours and a fair few laughs were let out throughout the night.

A little bleary eyed from the lack of sleep we headed off into the city to find the farmers market to get some veg where we met a chap from Essex, and then find Jan Hansen’s jewellery shop that made the actual ring for Lord of the Rings, it was amazing to step into the shop that would have once upon a time been a hive of activity making replicas, doubles and triples of the ring to feature in the film. We chatted to the sales lady who seemed all to used to people like us asking the usual questions but she was nice enough to get out the 8-inch replica used for the filming, we took the chance to get a photo and left smiling.

We were headed towards the northern tip of the south island so set off to leave Nelson not before stopping by the brewery responsible for brewing the hobbits ale also featuring in Lord of the Rings, we had a great chat with the brew master and we sampled some lovely brews but settled on some very strong stout and a delicious cider. So off we drove with litres of stout and cider in the distance getting our minds ready for the 3-day hike we were to endure in the Abel Tasman National Park.

The day we went to the seaside!

2009-08-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

We could have been driving through Teletubby land as we travelled North up the East coast. The hills were rolling and perfectly smooth and in the distance, snow-capped mountain peaks loomed large. It’s farmland for most part and cows and sheep of all varieties graze openly on crops. It’s a strange sight to the British eye for it seems as though these animals have bust into the turnip fields and are busy making their way through the veggies meant for market, but in actual fact this is what they do here “it’s good feed and good for the ground, replenishes it”, the Kiwi hitch-hiker that we’d picked up tells us.

As we near Kaikoura, our next stop, the road grips the sea wall, as it twists and turns, tunnels for cars and trains cut into the overhanging cliffs, seaweed glistens in the sun as it bobs up and down in the perfectly still sea and in the distance snow capped mountains defy meteorology, so much snow so closed to the sea! A road sign reads “seals next 4 km” and I get busy trying to spot marine life, there are dolphins and whales here too, but all I see are rocks mistaken for sea creatures!

The door to the only Kaikoura hostel that hadn’t closed for winter was opened by a Lurch like figure. “Hi, we rang a few minutes ago”. I said, “I know”, he replied expressionless, motioning for us to follow him and turning on his heels. Feeling we’d interrupted his hibernation, we wasted no time getting out and about. “Tramping”, over here, does not involve dressing up in strange clothes, but it is what they call walking or hiking and there sure are a lot of tramping trails in New Zealand and the great thing is, they’re mostly free! So we set off for the Peninsula walk for there was promise from the visitor centre that we’d see seals and sure enough there were tones of them just basking in the sun out on the rocks or saluting it with their noses. They paid very little attention to us, obviously more concerned with their afternoon naps. Up near the car park, (yes, they have built a car park in the middle of a seal colony) a seal came in from the water, shuffling along, stopping every now and then to get the best angle of the sun on his face and to rest his poor flippers that dragged his dead weight body. He’s not at all fazed by our presence and plonks himself in one of the parking spaces, as though claiming his territory and shaking out the water from his fur, he makes himself decent for the surface. It was wonderful to see these creatures, which transcend two worlds and seem to fit in gracefully to both in a way that few creatures do!

At the top of the Peninsula we can see out to sea for miles, next we are walking through a field full of cows and cow pats, most of which I manage to walk straight through whilst admiring the views, much to Andrew’s amusement and bemusement! On the other side of the hill, we meet two brothers from Gloucestershire, standing inside some sort of a sheep pen, “we’ve taken refuge from the cows” they call out. There are a lot of cows and I’ve never been too sure of these creatures, but we decide to brave it through, “you’re not seriously going to stay there all day are you?” I ask them and they follow us down the hill like Merry and Pippin of The Shire!

We carry on to the shores the other side of the hill, where I clean the cow pat off my shoe. Well it is amazing what you can find when you think that all you’re dealing with is shit, for in the white stones, I found some Paua, the famous Kiwi endemic species of abalone! It’s a magical beach and the sun is setting behind the mountains and with all traces of cow crap gone, it was a perfect end to a perfect day!

A Little Piece of England!

2009-08-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

The drive from Methven was short and very pleasant, approaching the Canterbury plains we were headed for New Zealand’s “third” city, Christchurch and with a few more promises from the ever failing Rough Guide, we had outlined some interesting things to fit into the short one day stop. We found our hostel called the Country House, the name however was a wee fib on the owners part, as it was slap bang on a busy city junction with a Subway sandwich shop over the road and all the usual conveniences, definitely not “country” but never the less it had a nice kitchen table so we were pleased! Dropping our bags into our room we were overcome by a pungent smell, and we soon realised we had been assigned a room where 5 lads had been living for some time (another downside of dorm sleeping).

Heading away from our smelly bedroom we walked into the city centre to sample some of Christchurch’s best sights. First we went to the Christchurch Art gallery, which had a number of travelling exhibitions showing New Zealand’s finest contemporary artists. We walked around for an hour and after sitting down to discuss the art we concluded again that a lot of contemporary art on the most part is hard to fathom and very exclusive, but the building was nice and they had a good shop so we headed there to look at some pictures that made more sense to us!

Christchurch is named after a college in Oxford University and walking around the city you can see the traditional English influence, punting on the river Avon, Christchurch Cathedral sitting prominently in the city centre and red telephone boxes stand happily on street corners. We headed to the famous Christ’s college, which is the cities most elite private school where we saw boys wearing striped blazers and grey knee-length shorts all looking like they had just stepped out of Harry Potter!

It was getting late and the night was cold so we headed into the cathedral just in time to catch the all boys choir singing in the evening service and prayer. It was magical. Their voices were incredible and it felt like Christmas in there, we sat smiling to the hymns. If any of you are familiar with ‘Home Alone’, I felt, just like Kevin!

Next, we headed back to the not so country “Country House” to settle in for the night, stopping to get some fish and chips, just to push the English thing that little bit further! The nights sleep was displeasing and embarrassing for me, realising that what many women say about men being smelly and dirty was in fact true! The five lads were stinking this little room out to its limits, farting, snoring and groaning themselves to sleep. We tried our hardest to get some rest while biting our tongues to stop us from laughing at how disgusting the room was. Needless to say, we left early the next morning with Ria realising that I don’t smell that bad after all!

In search of Edoras

2009-08-13T01:28:00.000-07:00

I have been a massive Lord of the Rings fan since I was knee-high, on Sunday afternoons, my sister and I would lie on our bellies, in front of the television watching the animated version. Therefore, when I saw the ‘Guidebook to the Lord of the Rings Locations’ in Auckland airport, we had to get it and thus as well as seeing the sites of New Zealand, we are also on a quest for anything that looks vaguely shireling-like. So far we’ve been to visit a tree stump which Merry and Pippin hid from Orcs, an unmarked stretch of river which marked the point which Frodo and Sam crossed and now with heads full of little men and wizards, we were off to find Edoras, capital of Rohan!

Methven was a natural break between Dunedin and Christchurch and the only reason we’d stopped their was our quest for the ring. On a grey day an unsealed gravel road led us to Edoras (unfortunately, most of the roads which take us to the LOTR locations are unsealed!), South of Methven, but the scenery was magnificent and luckily, at Clear Water Lakes, which reflected the surrounding snow-capped mountains, as though an upside-down parallel universe existed beneath the water, the sun came out.

At Mount Potts Cutting we stood above the Rangitata Valley for the magnificent views and rather embarrassingly, we had caught up with the LOTR tour group. I don’t know if someone had asked the ridiculous question which the guide seemed to be answering or if he was just trying to fill airtime, but he seemed to be explaining why the film set was removed after filming finished! Apparently, the Department of Conservation decided that 'it would not be in keeping with the landscape’ and there were also concerns that the set would deteriorate rapidly because of the treacherous weather out this way. Surely, I thought, there must be another reason, i.e. that it was a film set!

Still who am I to mock their quest for Tolkien’s land, I was, after all, there too! Still, although it would have been fantastic to see the kingdom up there on top of Mount Sunday, I was content to use my imagination to project King Theoden onto his thrown and travelling towards the mountain, quite involuntarily, my mind started playing tricks on me, the birds became Sauron’s spies, a brushy scrub became Gimbli’s axe, trees became dark riders and the cows with white faces became Orcs, I could see Aragorn riding over the hillside and a ghostly Sauron appeared in the whispy white clouds in the sky, it was magical!

“That’s it!” I say to Andrew jumping up and down in my seat, “It looks just like Edoras”, I squeal, excited because it’s the most easily recognisable LOTR site we’ve seen to date! We arrive in an isolated, tourist void field hoping to climb the Mount, crossing a couple of streams on foot, before being confronted by a river too fast and wide for us to cross, only to meet a couple from Somerset, who know people that Andrew knows! The boy is the LOTR fan, the girl just looks cold and annoyed, a look which seems to intensify when I mention our guidebook and her boyfriend vows to get hold of a copy!

Although, we didn’t make it up the hill, we decided that perhaps that adds to its mystic and we headed back to our lovely hostel in Methven for a log fire, free Milo and good conversation. Still we keep quiet about our geeky adventure to a place that doesn’t really exist, for some reason people seem to think you’re a bit odd if you mention the Ring too often in New Zealand, as though it might be the only reason you're here!

Dull-edin

2009-08-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Since being in New Zealand we had enjoyed nothing but small towns, remote villages and picturesque mountain hamlets, so we eagerly anticipated the first of our south island cities, and looked forward to exploring all it had to offer.

Arriving in Dunedin we were greeted with a sombre grey sky, hovering over a distinctly industrial setting we suddenly remembered what cities were, they are never the prettiest of places but still they have lots to offer so we continued to our destination for the evening, The Elm Lodge. Up one hill, down the next, up another and down two more were the general directions and we soon found out Dunedin is one super hilly city that not even the bravest vintage car collector would test his prized automobiles handbrake on.

Digging through the guidebook early next morning we discovered Dunedin wasn’t the most interesting of places, highlights being a Cadbury Chocolate factory, a church and “Oh wait”, the world’s steepest street! Enthused by this discovery we set off early to find the famous Baldwin Street and take on the task of walking up and back down it, adding a tick to the list of 1001 things to do before you die! To be fair it was amazing to look at, it was steep, very steep and a walk up it issued the harsh burning one gets in your throat when ill prepared for such a burst of exercise.

Next we headed along the enticing road to the Otago Peninsula, a few feet away from the sea you twist and turn towards the tip of the Peninsula, passing through small fishing villages, seeing rickety old boat houses perched on the waters edge we marvelled in it’s beauty. Reaching the tip of the Peninsula we parked the car setting off on foot to discover the rare Yellow Eyed Penguin and hoping to see a Royal Albatross in flight both of which are said to be unique to this part of New Zealand. After a few minutes of walking around in circles not knowing where to go we asked a wise looking Spanish man who told us it was the wrong time of year to see Penguins! “Bugger”, we said “Not researching the simplest of things is a definite flaw of mine so we left without seeing a Penguin or an Albatross but we did see a rather large seagull flying over head which we imagined to be the illusive Albatross! So, we jumped in the car and set off for the city unfulfilled with our bird spotting mission and settled in for a cosy night at the Elm Lodge.

Visiting our first south island city wasn’t the most exciting, some might even call it a bit dull. Not that we didn’t have big plans, spot the rare Yellow Eyed Penguin, see a Royal Albatross in a majestic flight over the Peninsula, sea Fur Seals play in the crystal clear waters, sample local organic produce, explore the cities oldest buildings and so forth. However, for many reasons these plans didn’t work out and we left with only one achievement but a big one at that, walking up and down the worlds tallest street!

You Shall Not Pass!

2009-08-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

A whistle stop tour of some of the interesting viewpoints along the way, we powered through, excited about reaching the eight wonder of the world, Milford Sound – named after Milford Haven, of all places, home of the John Grono, the European settler who came here in 1812. We’d had four leaflets advising us to carry snow chains, to drive carefully and some advice for drivers unsure of driving in winter conditions to take a guided tour and the big yellow signs warned us of the moderate avalanche risk! Initially the weather was calm and it was hard to see what all the fuss was about, but then it started to snow and soon we were driving hairpin bends through snowy mountains, that we could not see the tops of for fog, and all around us, avalanche paths, leaving a hundred thousand fallen rocks and pyres of snow at the bottom of the mountains. One of the most exciting parts of the journey was going through the Homer Tunnel, roughly cut into the Cleddau Valley (this Welsh explorer was obviously keen to claim!). It took 17 years to build, is 1,200 meters long and inside it’s dark and spooky! A part of me was willing an avalanche, not one that we would be hurt in, but I wanted to see the snow slide from the peaks, I wanted to hear it crack and pound down the hillside, though it was probably a good thing that that was not to be!

It was fortunate that we found the journey so exciting because although we had been looking forward to getting straight out onto the water, it was not to be as the weather had stopped all boat trips and so we were destined only to see the karsts from the shoreline – where we stood snivelling in rain macs with our socks tucked into our trousers – sniff! At first, Milford Sound seemed to be a strange sort of tourist attraction because no one seems to live near it to exploit it. There is a ferry terminal, an airstrip (for the scenic flights), a clinical building containing a pub, a café and a tourist information and some out-of-order petrol pumps (very useful when the nearest town is 120 km away!), but no houses and very few people. However, there was very good reason for the lack of inhabitants, which became apparent the following morning when we were told that, as a result of the heavy snowstorms during the night (which shook us in our beds!) the road out was closed indefinitely, the avalanche risk being so high. So there we were stuck, no boat trip and no escape.

Still we made best use of the time, route planning, making friends with Hannah and Graham, knitting and later in the evening all the snow-hostages (there were 12 of us in total), took to the communal sofas to watch The Fellowship of the Ring, I was in my element and they only needed a little bit of persuading! By bedtime it was still raining (during the day I had read that Milford Sound is second only to the mountains of Tahiti as the wettest place in the world!) and although I knew it was probably snowing up the mountain and my mind knew the road would still be closed in the morning, my heart wouldn’t let me believe it and I fell asleep questioning why we hadn’t checked the weather forecast before we made this 400 km trip from Queenstown!

As predicted, in the morning the green sign on the wall read, ‘Road Closed’, but then there was some exciting news, we were going to be convoyed out, great, I’d always wanted to join the convoy and at 10.30 am we lined up to start our journey along one of the most avalanched, sub-alpine roads in the world! The yellow signs had now been switched to read 'Avalanche risk – high’ and soon we were in Narnia, the tree branches heavy with snow and the brilliant white surroundings stinging our eyes as we emerged from the other side of the Homer tunnel. Still we weren’t our of the snowy woods yet and as we travelled towards Te Anau, we see big piles of snow on each side, cleared from an avalanche of the past few days, which swept over the path we were driving, taking trees with it as it went! In the end, we were just glad they let us out of there at all and although we were disappointed about not getting on the water, we reckon that it’s a good enough story about NOT seeing the Sound!

The tale of Silly Jacob

2009-08-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

Leaving Queenstown was like leaving a security blanket behind. We were with people we knew, a warm house and in a great place, but we’d bought Gimley (the car) to travel in so that’s what we set out to do. On the recommendation of the folk back in Queenstown we headed for Te Anau, the departure point for the mysterious Milford Sound.

The driving was spectacular, rolling hills, sharp mountain ranges and clear blue rivers paved the four hour journey to the small Fiordland hub. We popped into the Sandfly café to have a sarnie (which was horrible) and chose our bed for the night at the Barnyard Backpackers. The place was aptly named because the main section is a beautifully converted barn, within a deer park outside of Te Anau, so as the wind and rain came in we enjoyed the warmth of the log fire and rustic surroundings.

It was out first night in a dorm for some time and there are ups and downs with dorms. Such as, every time someone makes a noise you hear it and likewise every noise you make everyone else hears that too, so being quiet is the aim of the game. But on the plus side, it is a much more sociable atmosphere to be in as people can’t hide away in a bedroom and avoid each other like in a hotel, so you feel a sense of camaraderie as you are all in the same boat, so to speak.

So it was at the Barnyard Backpackers we met Jacob, the Bavarian solo traveller with stories to tell. We first met him in the dorm room as he huddled up over the standalone heater with a flushed look about him, after introducing ourselves he explained why he was in such a state and told us of his misadventure on the Kepler Track. He had set out the day before expecting to do the whole of the famous Kepler Track alone in 1/2 days, not booking into any of the huts along the way beforehand he was turned down when he arrived, so deciding he could make it back to the Backpacker before it got dark, he set off only to get lost when it did get dark. He said he walked for a few hours in pitch black not knowing where to go and eventually gave up and decided he would have to wait until the morning. Worried he would freeze to death if he fell asleep, he decided to stand in one spot for nearly four hours, waiting for sunrise. It eventually came and he eventually made it back to the hostel, very shaken and very weary of what had happened. We were amazed by his story, how crazy he was but how dangerous it could have been (Does the story of Jamie Neale ring any bells?). He continued to say since being in New Zealand he has made a lot of mistakes, one being climbing the Franz Josef glacier wearing nothing but Converse trainers, as he didn’t want to pay for a tour or the cramp on shoes. He took the wrong route on the glacier and found that the ice was melting and giant slabs of ice were falling all around him, needless to say he retreated back to safety!

We spent most of the night playing pool and keeping warm by the fire, enjoying good cups of green tea and amusing conversation. This was a great introduction back into hostel living with stories we’ll never forget!

Queenstown – We’re all over it!

2009-08-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Auckland, New Zealand’s capital about two weeks ago, but we will not see the city until the end of our NZ adventure in two months time, for after spending the night on a bench at Auckland airport, we flew down to the South Island, to see our good friend, Owen!

We descend into Queenstown after travelling the length of the North and South Islands. When the clouds cleared we were confronted with huge snow capped mountains that looked like Christmas puddings covered in brandy sauce. The pilot warns us of oncoming turbulence and of the manoeuvres he’d have to pull to bring us down into the valley, “these are quite usual, so don’t be alarmed”. He said, adding to the sense of excitement that I feel already in landing in a valley, how was he going to do that?! Coming through the valley was like being in one of the fighter planes we’d seen practicing their skills in the Cambrian Mountains back home, dropping a wing to the left a bit, then to the right and bumping all the way down. Before signing off, the pilot thanks us for flying and says “if you’re visiting, have a great time and if you’re coming home, it’s not a bad place to live” and as I look out of the window at the snowy setting, so beautiful it makes my eyes water, I have to agree. He lands and there is an applause in the cabin from relieved passengers, obviously not used to landing so close mountains.

In a torrential rainstorm, we headed for Fryer’s Street, where fortunately there was a wood burning stove and a man capable of lighting it (Owen!) there to greet us and soon any discomfort caused by the rain was discounted as we sat beside the wood burner with cups of tea and Chelsea buns, gazing out of the window at the fantastic, magical mountains.

After drying off and meeting two of Owen’s lovely housemates, Luke and Iain, we headed into town. Centred on Lake Wakatipu, which glows a deep turquoise and is surrounded by little houses, cafes, bakeries and upmarket ski and snowboarding shops, Queenstown is built into the magnificent hills. We walked around dumbstruck in awe of this wonderful little place, where everyone seems to be having a great time and it wasn’t long until we were joining in with the festivities, for soon we found ourselves enjoying a gourmet Fergburger and later in Winnies where I was convinced it may have been 2001 and I was actually in Zeus discotheque!

Our week in Queenstown is a bit of a blur, made up of a walk up Queenstown hill, which was “oh wow” breathtaking, a lot of trips to Patagonia chocolate shop and a wild night out during which I ended up in a DJ booth, behind a bar and playing table tennis (really badly) with a barman! I think I truly ruined Andrew and Owen’s street-cred, and poor Owen has to live here! It’s 11.56! We also couldn’t visit Queenstown without doing some snow and so Owen took us up The Remarkables for a skiing lesson, and although I was as appalling at skiing as I expected to be, (my skiing experience consisted of half an hour on Llangrannog ’s dry ski slope, aged eight, during which I spent most of the time on my bottom), Owen was a great teacher and hopefully we will go again, something I am looking forward to greatly, now I know how to stop!

It must have been all that fresh air which made us decide that, what the hell, we’d buy a car to travel around in, yay, we were raring to go! Only it didn’t end up being as spontaneous as we hope and it took us a good five days to sort it out. So a Nissan Bluebird with 315,000 km on the clock, a Honda Accord, a Honda Civic, two Mitsubishi Gallants, a Nissan Prairie, a Nissan Sentra, and at least six Subaru Legacy’s (all with varying degrees of scarring) later, we found the lovely Gimli, he’s got heated seats, he’s burgundy and he goes like a dream! So, in Gimli we put our trust for a safe journey and we left Queenstown for Te Anau.

Sydney-Siding!

2009-07-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Sydney is one of those cities that you see so much on postcards that you feel you know it before you arrive. It has some really iconic, modern structures - the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and not forgetting Luna Park. These three were of course at the top of our itinerary and it wasn’t hard to fill in time with all the other things the city has to offer.

Unmistakably, however, the gem in Sydney’s crown, had to be my cousin Ruth. Hailing from Ledbury, in rural England, Ruth moved to Sydney last year. Regrettably I hadn’t seen her for nearly 10 years (despite living two streets away from her for a few years in university!). As she said “it takes both of us to be over the other side of the world to meet up”, but I’d like to think it was because we were both having so much fun in Cardiff! Ruth was kind enough to let us stay in her flat for the week which meant no more cold nights under four sleeping bags, not shivering so much in the morning that we couldn’t even stir a cup of tea and we could have a shower everyday!

Of course, we spent the first day seeing the icons of Sydney, we hopped on the afternoon bus with Ruth leading the way. Arriving at Circular Quay, we headed towards the water and without knowing it we turned a corner and there they were, it was as if we’d stumbled across them, these huge, imposing structures leaning over you so high in the sky it was hard not to feel small. We had a walk around the Opera House, discussing High Tea and the noticeable brown hue of the windows. Disappearing into the shadows of the botanical gardens, we watched the sun set over the Harbour Bridge, it all made for a very magical first day in the big smoke.

Over the next few days we ticked off most of the sites on our wish list including the walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte where we spent the day watching surfers and caught a glimpse of dolphins doing a bit of wave surfing as well. We visited two libraries, the famous Rocks, visited the Museum of Contemporary Art to see a hugely insightful exhibition of Photography by Ricky Maylard, walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and nearly got fined $1000 dollars for walking on the cycle path, only to be stopped half way across by security! We went to Luna Park and spent a good few hours wishing we were ten years old again, went to see the hilarious film Brüno, got an insight into the Sydney-siders Monday night trivia scene and of course geeked up on our new fascination, the stars at the Sydney Observatory.

The seven days went quickly and there wasn’t a day where we had nothing to do, in a city that big there’s always something going on and we were spoilt for choice. Whether it was a Sunday market or just strolling around the city with our necks bent looking at the impressive buildings. As the week came to an end we realised this was our last stop in Australia and it was a strange feeling knowing we were leaving soon. Sydney was a great ending for us, we’d been lucky enough to be wined and dined by Ruth and her lovely boyfriend Chris (I think she was practicing her Masterchef skills on us!) and she has been the best guidebook we’ve ever had!

They Found Jamie Neale!

2009-07-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

The blue mountains are called so because of the faint hue that the eucalyptus trees of the forests, give off. They have been in the news recently, because the British traveller Jamie Neale went missing there. Thankfully he was found, but the poor boy is now being accused of faking his own disappearance! People are hilariously fickle and the same people now accusing him of hoaxing it, were probably having kittens when he was missing, following the story in the media, however now he’s okay, they’re looking for the scandal! It’s crazy and sad that people are so cynical, but perhaps it’s a case of a disappearance too many, what with the infamous John Darwin disappearance of 2006!

The Blue Mountains were stunning, with pretty falls and huge expanses of inhospitable bush. Our first stop was Katoomba, the main mountain town. The Lonely Planet told us it would be full of buskers and artists, “everyone seems to be smoking or wearing a beany!” They said. Well, as we’ve come to know, guidebooks are dangerous at the best of times, but when reviews come as subjective as that, you know you’ve got problems and although we saw a couple of people wearing beanies, unfortunately the place didn’t have, the bohemian vibe the book suggested it might. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, with a few quirky shops and cafes, but it still has a Coles and a K-Mart and of course, the beauty of the Blue Mountains has been capitalised upon, especially in Katoomba where the car parks, souvenir shops and “Scenic World” (a sort of forest theme park) detract from the experience of being in such remarkable surroundings.

We slept the night in the aptly named Megalong Valley, at the Old Ford Campground where Andrew struggled to sleep because he kept thinking of poor Jamie Neale out in the bush, convinced he was going to emerge from the woods to knock on the van door! Aside from that, we had a great night, it was just us, so we made a fire and underneath the stars of the cloudless night’s sky we stood gazing, with our newspaper cut out of the Southern Constellations. Times like those are far more amazing than standing on a ledge taking photographs of the same thing as everything else and made visiting the Blue Mountains worthwhile.

In the morning, I ran around pretending to be a crazed kangaroo, singing just because I knew no-one could hear me! Unfortunately, We were soon brought down to earth with a shocker, we had a big semi circular crack at the bottom of the van windscreen! We couldn’t believe it, during the past two months, we’d been so careful to keep our commercial sticker covered van free from scratches and scrapes and now we’d have to replace the windscreen a week before returning it! I don’t know whether we were more upset about this or the fact that we realised that would probably be our last bush camp in Australia, as our next stop was Sydney, it was a sad and nostalgic moment, as we thought of our great cross-country adventure, still we are so grateful to have the memories!

Canberra - The Captital State!

2009-07-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

A few people we’ve met on our travels scrunched their faces at the mention of Canberra, strangely most of them hadn’t been themselves but repeated the words of many by saying Canberra is a purpose built political grey monster. While some of this may be true, yes the buildings are grey and yes it was purpose built to a certain extent (but what city isn’t?). However we felt, being the capital of Australia it would be rude not to stop by and sample some of the ACT culture.

We started the day by having pancakes in the tourist information car park and using their ablutions and facilities to brush our teeth we then moved onto to Parliament House to explore where all the business goes down. Luckily the politicians were at home, supposedly doing work so we had a peek at the Lower House and the Senate, which is pretty much the same as the House of Commons and Lords respectively. We learnt the functions of these places by listening into a school teacher explaining how they worked and sat looking around imagining all the PM’s saying things like “rah rah, here, here and what not!

We took a trip to the top of Parliament house where you can see the linear planning of the area, all the main political buildings are in line with each other and there’s a lawn running down the front of Parliament House which odd to say the least. It was at the top we saw an enormous column of water propelling tens of metres in the air, we later learnt this is a monument to Captain Cook, a six tonne column of water reaching 147m high and giving passers by free showers, I thought Australia had been in drought for the last 15 years!!!

Walking down to Old Parliament house we read up on the Aboriginal Tent embassy, set up in 1972 as a protest towards the denial Aboriginal people received when trying to reclaim their land back. It serves as a testament to the resistance Australia’s Indigenous people withhold, a smouldering fire sits in the line with the front of Old Parliament house and a number of tents sit under the heavy trees with the Aboriginal flag painted on oil drums and pieces of old wood surrounding the area. Unfortunately we don’t get to meet anyone but we walked around Old Parliament house wondering why they may have moved to New Parliament House!

We decide to go into the High Court as we’re nearby and were lucky enough to get a tour of each of the courtrooms finding ourselves intrigued by the legal system in Australia we learn of some high profile cases that came through the court and some that never made it. The day was getting on but we popped into the National Portrait gallery and had half an hour to look at some faces even catching a glimpse of folk legend Ned Kelly’s death mask.

The next day we went to the State Library to have a look at an interesting exhibition which contained Captain Cook’s journal left open at a section where he claimed to have discovered Australia, we utilised the free Internet and got shouted at by a librarian and left after a few hours. Our next destination was the enormous Australian War Memorial, dubbed one of the biggest war memorials in the world. We were warned we may need 2 days to explore and I think we could have spent a week there. The museum is huge, with interactive displays and airplanes hanging from the roofs, we were lucky enough to catch a guided tour with an ex navy chap who, as you would expect was very patriotic and gave us an interesting insight into a handful of 20^th century conflicts. After the tout we made our own way round to a few areas and found ourselves back at the tomb of the unknown solider, it’s an amazing building housing one solitary tomb of an unknown solider brought back from WW1. We must have spent nearly 5 hours there and it felt like we hadn’t seen enough but we had to move on and get to our rest stop for the night as we were moving north to spend a bit of time in the Blue Mountains…

If these walls could talk...

2009-07-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

In the middle of busy Federation Square on a Friday night, in a camper van is no good place to be, but that’s where we found ourselves when we first arrived in Melbourne, a day early for our Couch Surfing debut. We decided to try Couch Surfing because of the difficulties of finding places to park up in the cities and because we were curious as to how the whole concept, of going to stay in the house of someone you have never met, would work! We didn’t have any Couch Surfing references or any ‘friends’ on the Couch Surfing website, so understandably, our host wanted to meet us first, I guess to establish whether we were axe murderers or not! So in the morning we headed over to Small Block café in East Brunswick feeling as though we were going to a job interview.

On the side of Small Block, someone had scrawled ‘Save the Women of East Congo’ and later I took a picture of this, because along with the posters advertising the next socialism meeting, I thought it perfectly symbolised East Brunswick, an area which our host Agata’s boyfriend, Gethram, described as ‘very white’, a phrase coined by Christian Lander, meaning full of latte haunts, boys in skinny jeans and vintage t-shirts, organic food stores and shops selling clothes made from old clothes. It’s populated by people working for NGO’s (Gethram works for an NGO!) and generally is very ‘up the revolution’. That said, it’s a lovely place to be and Agata and Gethram are lovely people, who after talking to us for five minutes or so, decide we couldn’t possibly be killers and hand over the keys to their house and regardless of the fact that Agata tells us she thinks she may have swine flu, we accepted!

With the digs sorted, we headed out exploring. There is much to see and do in Melbourne, too much to get around in the four days we spent in the city, but these are some of the things we did do:

1) Met up with Kamahi, the alter-ego of Constantina Bush, our lovely (and only!) blog follower, at Koori Market at Northcote town hall. He took us to the Koori Heritage Trust, it's a fantastically well put together centre, providing us with lots of insights into the aboriginal heritage of the area. Thanks Kamahi!

2) Visited the amazing State Library, where we saw a great exhibition “Mirrors of the World”, and sat in the grand Dome Reading Room, which looked like something out of Ghost Busters!

3) Met up with a Canadian man called Don, another Couch Surfer, for a drink in Little Creatures Dinning Hall.

4) Visited the Immigration Museum, which tells of all the millions of people worldwide who’ve emigrated to Australia and continue to do so.

5) Went to a very civilised sit-down gig at the East Brunswick Club, where we saw the fantastic ‘Me and the Grown Ups’, supported by Coby Grant and St Hill.

6) Went to the Nova cinema in Brunswick, to see the incredibly sad Samson and Delilah, a film about two young aboriginal people growing up in a world that gives them neither a break nor a chance.

7) Visited Luna Park to see the famous scary face entrance.

8) Named a green cake – “The Green Eyed Monster Cake” at Lentil as Anything in St. Kilda, a café where you pay whatever price you like for the food you eat!

9) Went to Pin Oak Court, which is Ramsey Street to you and me, and saw some people digging up Karl and Susan’s patio – outraged!

10) Went on a really old skool, free tram!

Crazily, there was still more we hadn’t seen, but alas time was not our friend and we had to head on to Canberra. Melbourne was a fantastic city, our favourite in Australia, with a great vibe, reminiscent of London on cold winter days. Trendy kids, in this years latest glad rags walk down the narrow lanes, which are filled with unmarked establishments, giving the city a feel of being smaller than it actually is. However, the best things about Melbourne has to be that the local authorities take an alternative stance on street art and so a lot of the boring streets are brought to life with murals and paste ups and stencils. It’s good to see this open-mindedness, as back home in the U.K, most graffiti seems to be classed as vandalism, unless of course it’s Banksy's, then it’s covered in plastic protectors and sold off for thousands! Down one of Melbourne's lanes covered in colour and amusing pieces, someone had written “If these walls could talk, they’d say thank-you”, and I rather think they would!

Let it rain! Our Great Ocean Road adventure!

2009-07-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

Arriving in Peterborough after a long and wet journey we’d had the great idea of finding some fish and chips to lighten our somewhat sad moods and “warm the old cockles” as they say. We drove through the dark and mysteriously quiet roads and arrived at the town centre, which, was nothing more than two old buildings facing each other, on one side of the road, a licensed grocery store, and on the other what appeared to be a petrol station and a takeaway, we entered the later and ordered our fish and chips choosing to dine in.

When we looked around we quickly realised all wasn’t as it seemed and what we first thought to be a simple petrol station and fish and chip shop, was also a post office, tourist information, pizza delivery, local DVD rental, sweet shop, newsagent, convenience store and estate agent! All run by a grumpy lady and two young girls that couldn’t have been more than 8 years old! So we gobbled up the fish and chips and feeling fat and happy, we set off for the deserted caravan park to settle in for the night.

The next morning we woke up to the wind howling and the rain hammering down as we set off to explore the famous Great Ocean Road. The first stop was The Grotto, we approached the turning but quickly decided to miss it, the rain was so bad we would never have made it without getting soaked right through. Next stop was the famous London bridge that looked strikingly similar to the bridge that collapsed, the rain had stopped, we walked to the cliff top catching a few photos, but before we had a chance to run the rain came down had soaked us, we ran as fast as we could back to the van, catching two boys in the dry laughing at us hysterically! We sat and dried our trousers off the best we could before getting back on the road.

We arrived at Loch Ard Gorge and ran for “The Blowhole” as it was closest and stood to witness the force of the water as it squeezed through the hole, next to “The Thundercave” we stood amazed at the incredible roar when the sea thrashed through the small cave bringing the colour of the surrounding rocks down with it, then we ran, dodging people and puddles to ”The Arch”, the wind was so strong we could barely stand still and stared down at the violent seas pounding through the arch, walls of mist swirled up above the cliff tops as we stood huddled together. We then drove to the most famous of all, the 12 Apostles. We waited for the rain to stop, parked in the enormous car park facing the helicopter tours centre we happily watched Chinese tourists going up for there 10 minute flight to see the rocks, at one point the weather got so bad both helicopters returned and stayed put for around 20 minutes, as we discussed how crazy it seemed to get in a helicopter on a day like this we realised the rain had stopped. Running as fast as we could we reached the platform with a number of soggy international tourists and got our token photos.

Leaving all the tourists behind we headed east for Apollo Bay with the heating on full blast, proud of the days achievements considering the weather was not on our side, we found a hot chocolate and went to a Golf Club car park with a few other happy campers for the night.

The next day was unfortunately the same, wet, windy and very grey but we had lots more to see, so after some pancakes and a hot brew, we set off eastwards towards Anglesea and Torquay. The weather perked up a little as the morning passed and we even wound the window down to smell the fresh air! Driving on the cliff edges, it felt more like the Ocean Road we’d imagined, bends so narrow two trucks couldn’t fit through and all the time you can see the great oceanic expanse right beside you. With some sun shining through the dark clouds we ventured to Bell's Beach where scenes from Point Break were based and the epic Endless Summer had featured, we stood and watched the surfers tackling messy storm waves until our noses turned red and we retreated to the heat of the van. We passed through Anglesea desperately trying to get a photo of a sign to show the Welsh contingent at home but to no avail and then we reached Torquay, with it’s rows of surf shops, a surf museum and relaxed atmosphere it’s not surprising they say it’s the spiritual home of Australian surfing and this was to be our last destination on the Shipwreck Coast as we headed for Melbourne.

Lost in the woods: our Blair Witch Experience!

2009-07-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

We arrived at Troopers Creek rest area late in the day, surrounded by mountains and thick woodland made up of charred, fallen down tree and blackened, bubbly stumps, a result of the 2006 Victoria bush fires which raged here. As darkness fell, spooky noises came from the bushes, we were in the middle of nowhere again and it was all starting to look at bit Blair Witch! However, we made it through the night and in the morning we were well positioned, in the middle of the forest, to explore the Grampians national park.

Well, our explorations did not last long, the day started off well, with us spotting ninety-eight or so kangaroos watching a boxing match between two big feisty males! Then we saw some emus and deer who looked at us shyly but curiously and stood around long enough for us to take their photographs. Out of the remnants of the forest fire bursts new life, the tree stumps sprout tree grasses and even in the wintertime there are new plants growing and even the odd flower. Apparently, it’s beautiful in Spring, the fire’s aftermath having seen new growth of plant species which hadn’t been seen in years. There are also amazing rock formations and mountains, Mount Difficult, which we camped under and Mount Abrupt lived up to their inventive names (the Europeans really pulled out the stops with these re-namings, they obviously took a lot of thought!).

We visited the McKenzie Falls, which weren’t half as thunderous as the guide book would have us believe. “It must be because we’ve had so little rain recently, that’s a shame”. I said to Andrew and as the saying goes, ‘be careful what you wish for’, for by lunchtime we were sat in the van, next to Lake Bellfield, in the pouring rain, trying to keep warm with a tin of condensed pumpkin soup! Huge forks of lightening came down in the rock gap in front of us, thunder rumbled and wind whooshed through the valley, then it started hailing and the bad weather continued for the rest of the day!

Determined not to let rain stop play, we headed for Brambuk Cultural Centre, where we learned of the importance of this land to the traditional owners, the Djab Wurrung and the Jardwidjarli people. Before the arrival of the Europeans in the 19^th Century, this land was called ‘Gariwerd’ and the aboriginal people had names for every rock and mountain in the land. ‘The Grampians’ is the name given by the European explorer who came here, chosen because it reminded him of a range by the same name, back home in his native Scotland. The land is of spiritual significance to the aboriginal people because of the dreaming stories here and 90% of the rock art sites in all of Victoria are here. However, tourists can only access four sites and we couldn’t go to any because we don’t have a 4x4! We had a bad case of wheel envy!

At Brambuk we learned that once the Europeans arrived in Victoria, they displaced the aboriginal people who lived here, placing them in missions, like the Ebenezer Mission, the site of which we visited on the way down. The cultural centre is more candid than many other displays we’ve seen when it comes to dealing with the arrival of the Europeans in Australia and the impact this had on the local people. We really did learn a great deal at the centre.

The sudden burst of bad weather had caused many of the fire charred trees to fall into the road, or at least branches of, and navigating our way through the assault course of wooden hazards, to the next rest stop, was a challenge! Remembering the words in our camper van contract, that any “acts of God” (such as accidents caused by heavy wind, hail and lightening) weren’t covered on the insurance, we tried to find somewhere to park up away from the sixty-foot trees, which surrounded the rest stop. Well, as I said, they surrounded the rest stop, so we weren’t very successful in this, so we found a place with the most stable looking trees to camp under! The rain came down heavy through the night sounding all the more powerful on our fibreglass roof. Creeping slowly through the trees came the wind, sometimes bringing a tree or two with it and swaying the van and passing us by. Neither of us get much sleep that night, wrapped up like yetis, occasionally saying to each other ‘are you awake’, ‘I can’t sleep’ or simply ‘bloody hell’, when we hear a tree fall a little closer than is a comfortable distance, but we lived to tell the tale and better still, so did the van!

Adelaide

2009-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

We got the feeling Adelaide gets a bit of a rough deal and hadn’t heard many positive reports, one being a friend stepped of a bus and within five minutes she’s been robbed of her wallet! But we decided to give it a chance and parked up in the Hackney Caravan Park and got ready for our first South Australian night out. We’d found a night with a good lineup of local SA hip-hop acts, I donned my slippers and we headed out to the Crown and Sceptre to see what the bizzle was in Adelaide. The acts on that night were Social Change, Headstrong Company, Words & DJ Osyris et al (can you tell I’m typing this with the poster stolen from the bar in front of me). A few drinks in to the night we were joined by the hilarious Babs and her lovely boyfriend Jon. Throughout the night we got chatting with a few Adelaide folk and met some lovely people including Poetikool Justice and friends. The music was pretty good, it was great to hear talent coming out of the city and it was clear they had a really strong following. We left in time to remember where we lived not before getting the free CD on the door.

We hadn’t seen any of Adelaide in the night so set off in the Minibago to explore some of the city. We stopped by the Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute which had some incredibly good work up there, ranging from sculpture by Darryl Pfitzner Milika to the vibrant water colours by a wealth of Hermannsburg artists.

Next stop was the markets and we pondered around for a while long enough to meet an Italian man from Covent Garden and get some free popcorn.

Our Adelaide tour was brief, every city we go to has to be a little quicker than we want as it’s so expensive to stay in the van right in the centre but we felt we’d seen enough and given Adelaide the chance to prove it’s a great city with a vibrant music scene and thriving art scene.

What a corker!

2009-07-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

On arrival in quaint Auburn, the Clare Valley wine region, our first stop had to be the local pub, ‘The Rising Sun’. “I hate this bit”. Andrew said and I empathised knowing that the moment we walk through the bar door, everyone was going to turn and stare at us and sure enough, they did. I order a glass of wine, when in Rome and all that, and Andrew had a manly beer and we sat at the bar next to two guys, one of whom strikes up a conversation. His name is Alex, he’s an Angus beef cattle farmer from up the road, he’s 28 and recently married to Marcia. He was supposed to be home over an hour ago to cook Marcia loin chops, but he’s keeping Shep (I think that’s a nickname), a woodcutter, company. Alex had some funny stories and some shocking ones. He was a farmer through and through and he liked to talk about shooting things and blowing things up! Every story began with the words “you’ll laugh at this one, this one’s fucking funny” and he tells us about the time when his cat annoyed him, so he blew his head off with a shot gun, or when he accidentally trapped the neighbours cat in a rabbit trap under his house, or the time when he and his friends were trying to reduce the rabbit population in the area, so they caught a rabbit, wrapped it with explosives (because his brother had recently got his explosives licence) and sent it back down its hole. It would all have worked out fine, he explains, except the rabbit changed it's mind, ran out of the hole and under his Ute. They all had to clear the area quick smart, as pieces of Ute flew off in each direction. He shows us pictures of the big fish he recently caught and all the while he's checking his phone and anxiously watching the door for Marcia’s arrival, finally he gives in and heads off home.

Shortly after, we are joined by another man in his mid-thirties, red faced, deshevelled and wearing a jumper advertising the local ‘Taylors Wines’. Todd, a batchellor, still living in the home he was raised, stikes up a conversation and the beers keep coming. As the barmaid begins to look a bit weiry, he invites us back to his place, so we get in his Ute, full of rubbish and beer bottles, for the 100 meter drive. We pulled up to a charming white farmhouse, with a verander and some old cars and tractors rusting outside. The house is set on 44 acres of land. He tells us that his Dad brought 88 acres in the 1960’s for $8,000 and now sells plots of 500 square meters for $40,000 each!

Inside we sat spinning yarns around an old wooden table in front of a wood burning stove into the small hours. It would seem that Todd was a bit of a non-conformist, he doesn’t like to give money to the government, he tells us and so he swaps his lamb chops from the sheep he rears, with Alex’s beef and swaps veggies with someone else! In the corner is a CB radio, to communicate with friends in the nearby farms and villages. He even tries to radio his friend up the road to show off how it works, needless to say, at 2 am this was not well recieved. As a parting gift, Todd, who is disgusted by my vegeterianism, gives us some ‘whiting’, a fish that he caught and his Dad filleted. He tells us to hang it in a tree to let it thaw and he makes us promise we’ll eat it!

The next day we wake up with sore heads and a plan to visit the Barossa Valley wine region, which we managed quite successfully under the circumstances. We had a good go at playing toffs for a couple of hours, visiting the Wolf Blass winery, just outside Nurioopta and buying some new ‘Green label’ wine from the cellar door, though I think we both felt more comfortable in ‘The Rising Sun’ with Alex, Shep and Todd the night before! Later in the day we headed to Saltrams for more wine tasting and a cheese board, feeling incredibly out of place in our anoraks, we try not to care too much. Finally we circum to our hangovers and returned to the van for a good night sleep, hoping our heads would feel better with a new day. Our next stop was Adelaide, the place where Ann from Neighbours went to pursue her swimming career – it was a long way from Ramsey Street, that’s all we knew about Adelaide.

We’re on the road to nowhere.

2009-07-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

The night before we left for Kings Canyon we stayed at Curtain Springs. Deep in sleep and enjoying the warmth of the four sleeping bags we are now using, we awoke to the fright of our lives when the van door swung open and in stepped a strange silhouette. Ria let out the most deafening and bizarre scream; half asleep and half awake I sat up quietly trying to gather some sense of the situation while Ria continued to scream. The figure made no sign of retreat and seemed only more than happy to get into bed with us until it finally spoke and said in a soft French voice “I am sorry, sorry. I have wrong van, I didn’t mean to scare you”. I was still a bit confused and asked what they wanted, “I am sorry” she replied, “I have wrong van, I am so, so sorry” She repeated. Soon it all made sense and she left disappearing into the darkness and we were left wide-awake with Ria recounting what she thought was the end of the world or some stray bulls charging us. I was left with vivid images of charging bulls quietly opening the van door to stampede us and it was some time before we managed to drift off back into the land of nod.

Waking early for the next days adventure we were eager to find last nights visitor, and sure enough, she staying in an identical van parked at the same angle a few yards away. One could see how a mistake had occurred, no eye contact was made with the invader and she left without even waving goodbye.

We arrived at Kings Canyon keen to walk the 6km circuit climbing over 300m upwards, we set off and quickly assessed the people returning for signs of extreme fatigue but the all seemed to be fine. The first part of the walk was a set of very steep rock steps climbing over 100m and we were a mess once at the stop (we later found out this is known as Hear Attack hill!). Seeing some other walkers catching us we swigged some water and strolled on, the scenery was getting better and better as we climbed, as we passed the thin path creeping along rather a large drop it opened into a huge expanse with rock formations, stacks and crevices. We learnt the history of this stunning place and that Australia used to be under water and then a desert, there were even clear ridge marks left from sand dunes millions of years ago! We descended into the Garden of Eden where there is an abundance of flora and fauna and climbed again to reach the other side of the canyon which took us right around the edge where you can see the lost city and back to descend back into the car park.

Leaving Kings Canyon we knew that was the last of the amazing sites we were to see in the Northern Territory and it felt like we should be staying to learn more of these special places. Our stop for the night was Mount Ebenezer where we met a lovely family who invited us to keep warm around their bonfire. We sat huddled round and listen to their travel stories and we spoke of ours. The stars that night were incredible, we all tilted our heads back in awe at the sight of the Milky Way which was so prominent in the night sky.

Early that morning we set off and waved goodbye to our campfire friends making the journey back south through Coober Pedy and Woomera. Coober Pedy is the Opal capital of the world and as you approach the town it looks like you’ve landed on the moon, it's so unique that its been used in a number of films such as Salute of the Jugger, Opal Dream and Red Planet. Disused mine fields fill the horizon with a million little mounds and lead you into the equally bizarre town known for it’s underground living. The summer heat is so intense and there’s so little vegetation that back in the 1920’s miners started sleeping in their mines as it was cooler, this soon caught on and people began building houses underground. We visited one of the many underground churches and bought a magazine article on stars from the underground bookshop.

Our next stop was Woomera, similar to Coober Pedy, this town is set amid the most arid land imaginable, so barren that the British army made a weapons testing unit there and sites were built to assist space exploration, one being critical in the first moon landing!. We had a brief look around the stark and quiet town making the journey out to see the highly controversial Camp Rapier detention centre that recently closed down, Ria hopped out of the van and in true paparazzi style started taking photos of it and we quickly sped off in the distance with a trail of red dust behind us...

More than just a big rock!

2009-06-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

In the same direction from whence we came, we headed back the Stuart highway to Uluru, making a brief stop at Jim Cotrell’s place, Stuart’s Well, where when we arrived, ten Harley’s pull off towards Alice Springs, that’s the way to do it, we thought! At Stuart’s Well we met Dinky the singing Dingo! Dinky, who is world famous, even with his own Trivial Pursuits question, lay sleeping in a room covered in number plates from every Australian state and newspaper articles on his fame. For our arrival, Jim’s awoken Dinky and he’s pointing at me, “what’s your name”. Jim says. “It’s Ria” “Okay Ria, sit yourself down there”. He points at the piano stool. “I can’t play the piano”, I say nervously. “Well you’re about to learn”. He says. As it happens all he wanted me to do was bang the keys randomly, so I manage that and sure enough this sets Dinky off, howling away. “No, come on” Jim says to Dinky, “I want you up here” pointing to the keys and with that, Dinky jumps up, he’s mindful not to step on my hands, bless him! By this time, I am crying with laughter, as are the crowd of people gathered to watch. I think that was the first and last time I’ll draw a crowd with my piano playing!

Onwards we continued for Curtis Springs, which would be our base for visiting Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Curtis Springs is a cattle station set on a million acres of land (can you imagine, a million acres?!). It opened its gates to tourists in 1956 as a free camping stop, fuel stop and bar and restaurant and in it’s first year saw six tourists, however now even the Emu have got used to having visitors and comes pecking around the vans for food in the morning!

At 4 am the following morning, we brave the cold and hit the road in the darkness to Uluru. The journey was fraught, I was on wildlife watch and we see a few ‘roos running into the bushes, but luckily we don’t meet any on the road. We are third in line waiting for the gates to open to the national park at 6 am and when they finally let us in, we hurry towards the best place to see the sunrise. In front of us emerges a huge, black looming presence, “I think that’s it!” I say to Andrew. “No it isn’t”. He replies, but as we move closer and the mass grows bigger and bigger in statue, grandeur and power, there’s no denying this big black thing has to be Uluru. For sunrise, people get on top of their 4x4’s, some still in their pyjamas clutching cups of warm tea, children are wrapped up warm in blankets, hats and scarfs and all to see the Uluru change colour from a dark brown, to a bright burnished red and all the shades in between. It’s a magnificent sight, it feels special, it feels magical, it feels as though you should respect it.

A visit to the cultural centre was the next stop, where we learned about the significance of the rock and the surrounding lands to the traditional owners, the Anangu people. The rock was only handed back to the Anangu owners in 1985, before that it had been a reserve and a national park land since the 1870's and known as Ayres Rock, renamed after a friend of the explorer William Grosse. After learning a little bit more, we set off to explore Uluru close up. We decided not to climb on the basis that the owners ask you not to, 33 people have died climbing and because the Anangu are under obligation to look after the land and safeguard visitors, when people die, it’s awful for them. It’s also a climb that only the Mala men would complete as part of their initiation. So on account of not being Mala men and because they asked us not to, we didn’t climb. The base walk was fantastic though, really giving a perspective of the scale of this giant 348 meter high rock. During the four hours walk of 10km, we had fun reading the dreaming stories of Uluru and making our the shapes in the stone, sometimes sand dunes, other bits, gigantic slides or ski slopes, other bits, elephant troops and snakes and we even saw what looked like male and female heads! There is also some rock art, some sites were used as areas to teach children the dreaming stories and it felt a wonderful privilege to be there. A shock came, however, when we rounded a corner to see huge numbers of people climbing the rock like ants at the climb point where there is an actual banister and rope guiding people up the hill. We hear a guide saying later that the management are hoping that through education people will stop climbing and that they hope to close the climb in ten years or so. I think they should pull out the banisters and tell people they can’t do it, if that’s what the traditional owners want.

Next we head to Kata Tjuta, or ‘the Olgas’, as they became known after European settlement. The dreaming of Kata Tjuta is so sacred to the Anangu people that we aren’t even able to know the stories of this place and only if you are an initiated Mala man will you ever get to know. However, just to see these sandstone mounds is beautiful and walk into Walpa Gorge and look up at the huge rocks surrounding us.

We end the day with the sunset back at Uluru, where the changes in colour of the rock were truly spectacular and in the last six minutes before the sun actually set it was amazing to see how many colour the rock went, from a burning red and then finally back to the brown of the morning light. Everyone is taking pictures of one another and I feel quite a surreal sense of communion in knowing that we have all travelled thousands of miles from anywhere, to a big rock only previously seen on television or in books, in knowing that we’ve all been waiting to see this for a very long time. While, tomorrow is a new day and will bring another troupe of tourists to create their own unique memories and a million more photographs of a magical rock changing colour.

A Town called Alice

2009-06-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

The arrival in Alice Springs was a relief to put it mildly. The journey was epic, enjoyable but long. My foot was numb from driving and I had a permanent white line in my field of vision.

Alice Springs has an air of mystery about it, it's remote, hot and dry. I remember going to a bar in Yeovil, Somerset called Alice Springs but other than that I has no idea what it might look like. On the journey there we spoke of how small it could be with the iconic western tumbleweed silently drifting through town. When we arrive it couldn't have been any more different. We left the Stuart highway and joined a modern looking road approaching even more modern looking buildings. On closer inspection the town had everything from the Woolworth's supermarket to McDonald's and the incredibly good indigenous art gallery Mbantua.

We set upon searching for a campsite for the night and found The Heavitree Gap Caravan Park which claimed its name from the enormous gap between two giant rocks which the road came through. We took our time to walk around the town and doing the suggested walk listed inside the Lonely Planet guidebook which took us through the old Gaol (which was closed), Courthouse (not open to the public) and a large mural on the side of a supermarket (woooha).

Our next destination was the Telegraph Station (also later known as the Bungalow, an institution for mixed race Aboriginal children) we had heard so much of in Alec Kruger's' "Alone on the Soaks". We were lucky enough to arrive just before a tour started by another chap called Alec Ross. We had a chat with him and he told a few stories of his time there as a child and then showed us, along with some very comical Americans around the station. Once the tour had finished we explored the property ourselves and found the original Alice Spring that gave the nearby town it's name! We also had our first upclose encounter with wild Kangaroos as we went to visit the cemetery nearby!

That night we thought we'd seek out some local talent in the Heavitree Gap Tavern and found the musical delights of Chris Callaghan. The tavern was pretty empty for a Saturday night but we decided to stay for a few drinks and heckled for some songs such as Leonard Cohen's, Hallelujah (which he didn't know). After the music Chris was nice enough to seek us out and apologise for not knowing some of LC's more popular music and promised to learn some for our next visit. We had a chat with him and departed for a good nights sleep to leave Alice the next day.

The next day we were moving on, Alice Springs was only a stopping point (although 400km out the way!) to explore the iconic Uluru so we packed the minibago and wide eyed we made our way to "the rock"...

Are we nearly there yet?

2009-06-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

We had a long journey ahead of us as we headed inland and up to Alice Springs, so we planned to make a few stops on the way, anticipating that the journey was going to take a while. The first place of any note that we came across was Tamworth, the home of country music and a giant golden guitar. Tamworth is supposed to be a good place for a knees up, the only problem being, it was the middle of the week and the town was dead, so we had a drink at the Tudor Hotel and went to bed.

The next day we hit the road at 6 am for the 1034 km journey to Broken Hill, West New South Wales. As we travelled through the outback it soon became apparent that we would have to keep our eyes peeled for kangaroos, who loiter at the side of the road as well as the dead ones lying in the middle of the road. There are also sheep, cows, goats, horses, eagles and emu’s surviving on the little bits of scrub, we even see the odd human now and then! It’s mainly people in 4x4 or other happy campers and everyone waves at each other as you pass. The landscape colours are amazing, it’s so unlike anything we’ve seen before and at night the sky lights up with the glow of a million stars and you can even see the Milky way! Then there is the sunset in front of us and the sunrise behind, which are beautiful because the land is so flat, we can see the horizon whichever way we look. The sun glows a deep orange, the land is red against the blues and whites of the sky and around us, mile upon mile of land, which gets redder and redder as we pass into South Australia, turns grey with dying grasses and trees further on, but then becomes fertile green again as we approach the coastal regions. The Northern Territory is red, red, red, it’s the stuff of the imagined outback, a vast inhospitable land.

We pass through strange little places, like Peterborough and Olary, with houses which look like no-one lives in them. By night there are few lights and by day no signs of life, or people walking in the streets even. In Broken Hill, however, there were far more signs of life and even a McDonald’s! Broken Hill is known as the Silver City, for it’s mining heritage, the miners here had a pretty hard time of it and it’s known for that too. It was here that we went to listen in on a 9 am class at the ‘School of the Air’. All over outback NSW there are farms with children who are not within easy reach of a school and so teachers at the School of the Air teach them using CBT radio’s and through the latest Internet technology, they can interact and the kids get to see the teacher in Broken Hill through a web cam but she can’t see them yet, I think that’s great!

Next stop Silverton, population 50. In the 1880’s Silverton was a prosperous silver mining region. At it’s height there were eleven pubs there, but the silver dried up and people moved on and now it is a near ghost town, with empty buildings from a time when it serviced a population of 3,000 odd. The old school and the chapel stand without children or congregations, the pub still draws a crowd though, especially as Mad Max’s car sits outside it, left over from the filming of Mad Max II. We met Andy, a man who cuts up pennies for tourists in a shed that my Dad would be proud of, complete with wood burning stove. He is the only person in the world with permission to deface Australian Commonwealth property! He tells us to head out 4 km past the town to where they rolled the car in Mad Max II and there we were met with the most amazing Armageddon views, it felt like standing on the edge of the earth!

Turing our watches back as we crossed the boarder into South Australia, we are gutted to learn that we have to throw away all of our fruit and vegetables as we were entering a fruit fly exclusion zone and could be fined $1,000 dollars if we took so much as a potato over the border. As it happens, we actually found a rouge potato at the back of the cupboard later on, phew, thank golly they didn’t stop us! From Port Augusta on the coast of South Australia, we headed up North towards the Northern Territory boarder, past a lot of nowhere and nothingness, through about 250 km of aboriginal, prohibited land, stopping only for fuel on the way. The drive was amazing but there are too many dead animals and for the first time, we even see two huge dead cows lying by the roadside.

The radio signal died somewhere in Central Australia and so to satisfy my need to talk constantly and to keep Andrew awake, I read Alec Kruger’s book ‘Alone in the Soaks’, aloud. It’s about his life as an Aboriginal man in the Northern Territory in the twentieth century and so it was perfect for our arrival in the Red Centre. As we learn more about the Aboriginal people of Australia, it’s hard to understand the discrimination or why it isn’t really discussed in the wider world. As we reached the Northern Territory, the roads become so long that we could see mirages of lakes and hanging rocks in the distance. Signs of life become less familiar too as and passing cars and trucks become scarcer and scarcer. Finally we reach Alice Springs, with 2,500 km on the clock and four days lost to history.

Whale fish, whale fish, whale fish and the whale was in full view!

2009-06-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

After the mountain cold of Nimbin we headed back towards the coast to make our way further south. We passed through Lismore, Grafton and stopped in Coffs Harbour for the night to sleep in a car park by the sea.

That night we heard some people moving around in the car park, curiously we poked out heads through the curtains to see some old men moving chairs round. We assumed they had lost the plot and were playing some odd game with each other, quietly amused we went easily back to sleep. The coastal warmth meant we slept a little longer than normal only to be awoken by an enormous fete right where we were parked. There were stalls selling purple spotted adult romper suits (which we nearly bought), food, hats, plants and lots of nice stuff we could have decorated the van with. We hung around and got chatting to some other people who camped the night, they were a nice bunch from Europe who like us were driving around for a while, we were lucky enough to see the Delta Amps play in the fete, two chaps playing Blues covers from the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker and then some of their own stuff. It gave the whole place a nice vibe and we left happy after chatting up a few locals.

On the nice European peoples advice we headed further south to a place called Port Macquarie. We arrived late, managed to find a beachfront parking spot and settled in for a nights rest. We woke to a glorious sunrise right over the beach, opened the windows to be greeted by the friendly locals doing there morning walks asking us what was for breakfast! Also, on the Europeans advice we searched for the humpback whale watching company called Discovery, during June and July humpback whales migrate from the coast and Port Macquarie is an ideal location to spot them. It was our first time whale watching and it was truly unreal, at first we thought we’d never see a whale but true to the Captains word within 20 mins of speeding out to sea there they were, moving in groups of 3 or four they would pop up for air and blast water high into the sky, dipping down showing their tails, for an animal that size they were incredibly quiet and majestic. Most of the spotting was done from a distance until a few whales we were watching disappeared only to re-appear about 10 metres from the boat. I don’t think either of us have taken so many photos in such a short space of time but none of them can do the experience justice.

Port Macquarie is famous for a few things, two of them being the Koala Hospital and their unique big stone paintings that protect the entrance to the harbour. You can bring your paints and decorate any big stone you like. Well, it would be rude not to dabble in the arts while away so we purchased some paints and set to work. To mark the time we’ve travelled around Australia we wrote “We came, we saw, we campered. Ria and Andrews round the world tour 2009. I managed to squeeze another painting out next to our stone to keep the creativity alive and we left to go to the next on the list, The Koala Hospital. Since being here we’ve seen no wild koalas at all, the Port Macquarie area of NSW has quite a large population of them and they often get injured by cars or bush fires, etc. So a nice couple Jean and Max Starr set up the first koala hospital in Australia. We popped by to watch the feeding time of a few injured koalas, which was a lovely experience. They are so peaceful and gentle, one lady had been hand rearing a baby (called Joeys) and it was so, so small, there were others that were blind, had arthritis, broken limbs etc and it was amazing what the hospital did for them, managing to get most of them back into the wild where possible.

We left the next day turning right towards the outback, starting the 2500km trek to Alice Springs…

The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius!

2009-06-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

In 1973 some students held a festival named Aquarius, in the ghost town of Nimbin. They had such a good time that a few of them decided to stay on and have a go at living alternatively, setting up places like the Rainbow Centre, a centre for alternative technology and permaculture gardens. Nevertheless this alternatively lifestyle does not come without a mysterious side and as a lady we met in Byron Bay told us, Nimbin is full of bunyips (that’s boggie men to us in the UK). “There are these big rocks on the way in and it’s like, wow, something goes down here”. She says and neither she nor the man we met in Byron’s bookshop were very complimentary about the Nimbin “vibe”. For the lady, the place was too “masculine” and became “too heavy” after dark and for the man, the drugs have ruined what was once a picturesque town. However, all these strong opinions were only fueling our curiosity for this strange little Amsterdam in the East Coast Australian hinterland and so we headed off that afternoon over the hills, down the windy country roads towards a little town in the middle of nowhere.

An old bus, once destined for Bondi Beach sits alongside the welcome to Nimbin signpost, it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon, but seems quite happy about that, rather like the people who live here, who stroll around looking alternatively content. It’s a one street town, with only 400 residents, however it’s so jam packed with hippie shops selling the usual old stuff, pipes, oils, embroidered marijuana leaf hats, jewellery, gemstones and other crap made in Asia, and galleries and health food shops and cafes, that it seems much bigger. It’s a bit like a festival, psychedelically decorated with messages about living harmoniously with one another and legalising cannabis.

Cannabis is a big theme in Nimbin, which has a reputation for being a place where it is sold openly on the streets. However that’s not strictly the case, as although it’s clear to anyone that it wouldn’t be too hard to get hold of it here, smoking weed is illegal in Australia and so it has to be sold on a hush, hush basis and as the friendly proprietor at our campsite told us, “there are cameras on the main street, so don’t be alarmed if you approach someone for weed and they pull you into a back alley”. Nimbin is serious in it’s commitment to cannabis though, it even has a Hemp Embassy, which seeks to educate people and fights for the legalisation of marijuana. Here we found too seemingly batty old ladies, daydreaming behind the counter with lots of souvenirs commemorating cannabis generally and the annual Mardi Gras festival.

For a one street town it’s pretty impressive that it has a museum and what a delightful treasure trove of junk it is, containing everything from a mannequin that looks like the one that Phoebe tries to palm off on Rachael and Monica in ‘Friends’, to old crashed out VW camper vans. The museum also had a serious side with messages about consumerism and greed and social inequality, particularly the injustices that aboriginal people have had to endure in Australia since the arrival of the Europeans.

It’s great that places like Nimbin, which challenge societal norms, exist. Still it seems that there maybe trouble in paradise. It’s evident that a police presence looms larger than it has perhaps done previously in Nimbin, the blue light looks down over on the main street and signs around the town remind you that you are on CCTV. In the museum a sign reads that the kids of Nimbin today, don’t buy into the same ethos as their parents did. The seeds of change have perhaps been sown and I get to thinking that perhaps it is hard to maintain an alternative lifestyle over generations. Written on a bin in big white, frustrated, letters are the words “No dealing” and a poster in the community hall window asks ‘Are you happy with your marijuana usage?’

Yet at our campsite the old timers we meet are happy still and get happier and happier as the night goes on and the air grows hazier. Andrew described sitting around with these people, eating our dinner as “like being in a Cheech and Chong sketch, because no one was making any sense!” I just liked it because everyone seemed happy and happy to talk to us. As the old Australian man sitting next to me gets up to go to bed, he briefly forgets his bag and coming back for it, he says “I’d better not leave this big bag of drugs with these youngsters, that could be very dangerous” and he runs off mischievously, to his van in his woolly hat and shorts. It’s all very amusing, they’re loving it and they don’t fit their stereotypes at all.

Later on we go up to the Nimbin Hotel to watch ‘The Tendons’ and ‘The Antibodies’ and being there was like being given the privilege of being sent back to the 1970’s. The disco ball twirls and we are surrounded by all these people with dreadlocks, that looks as though they’d taken an age to grow, headbanging to the God awful music, whilst the lead singer of 'the Antibodies' swings his dreadlocks about his head like a lasso. A friendly local man comes to talk to us about how awful the bands are, in his trilby hat, he looks too modern for Nimbin, but to disrupt the romantic image of the hippie paradise, so do most people in the bar. In his wonderful words “it’s a great place to be, people come here expecting a theme park, but we’re just living our lives”. And it’s true, I guess we do, there’s even a “Nimbin Experience”, psychedelic bus which leaves Byron Bay every day, to prove it. I guess we want to come and see a different way of life, take some pictures of it and then get back on the bus. In many ways, Nimbin seems to be a tourist attraction, with a dark underbelly and the place now sells itself, which surely goes against the original ethos of this hippie commune. So I’m not really sure if the Nimbin which people hold in their minds can be real. Still we’re just glad for the very fact that once upon a time, in a far off land, some people had a dream and made it a reality and even if that place doesn’t really exist anymore, we stood on the land where it once did. Peace out brothers and sisters!

Do you know the way to Byron Bay?

2009-06-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, we arrived in Byron Bay late in the evening after our whistle stop tour of Surfers Paradise, we set to sleep in a lay by a few miles out of the town and I think this place is up there with our worst nights sleep, the highway was right next to our heads, it was really, really cold and the toilet was awful, someone had even scrawled ‘truckers shit stinks’ on the door and I may have to agree with them!

We woke early and had a scolding hot brew to warm us up and set on our way. Our first stop was the Byron Bay lighthouse which was perched upon a cliff edge overlooking the amazing expanse of the South Pacific Ocean, we walked along the headland and managed to get on the most eastern point of Australian mainland! Watched the surfers catching their morning waves and strolling along with the sun getting high in the sky this appeared to be much more of the surfers paradise we expected.

After our morning walk we drove into Byron Bay town, it’s a peaceful place with lots of café’s, small shops selling crafts and organic food and bookshops, which is where we headed next. We had two books needing to off load, on our way to the book exchange we stopped by an art shop to look at the posters in the window to see if anything was happening. It was then that the two men sat outside the shop said “Ahh, what are you reading?”, I replied “A book about Alex James and a Prisoner of War book”. “But have you read THE book”, the chap in steal toe cap boots said, “Sorry” We both replied. “The Bible”, “Oh no, only bits of it in school” we said, “Was there any bit that stuck in your heart?”, “Ummmmm, well I liked the Feeding of the five thousand” Ria said, “I’m not sure any of it stuck in my heart”, I said dismissively. On this, Steel Toes pulled a chair round and Ria sat down and he pointed at a plant pot for me, and I sat in it. He and his friend, who we later learned to be Chris and Yanek spoke of THE book and many aspects that we today are not aware of and how we live in a society full of sin. They spoke and we listened, they were very enthusiastic and were keen for us to recognise THE book as being an important reading to learn of the world, we were both a little dubious and I think they felt it so Steel Toes went and got us a bible to take away and Yanek gave us a book called Eternity to read. It was nice to speak to them and they were clearly passionate about what they believed in, we left after a quick prayer Steel Toes gave and clutching our new books we looked for our original destination.

We found the book shop in the end, exchanged the books (not the newly acquired ones though!) for a book on Irish folk tales and one from the 1960’s called Aboriginal Fables. We then went on search for the infamous Byron Bay cookie Ria had missed out on the night before. We had a lovely big cup of tea and I was converted to the ways of the cookie as this was my first of that variety and I enjoyed it so much that we went and found the factory shop and bought a load as we left!

Byron Bay was a lovely place, it has a real charm and a nice relaxed atmosphere that seems to attract a lot of colourful characters, from Chris and Yanek to the Mary Poppins look-a-like sat in a garden shed dishing out environmental info. So, it was from one alternative place to another as we headed for the mountain hippie mecca of Nimbin.

Rename Blackpool and you’re onto a winner!

2009-06-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

As we made our way to the Gold Coast, we weren’t exactly excited, after all, we had heard, I won’t mince my words, mainly bad reviews! For a start most Australian’s we’d met rolled their eyes and took the mickey out of us as soon as we mentioned the fact that we’d travelled half way around the globe to visit the Gold Coast and often it’s a case of “so where are you heading? Don’t tell me, the Gold Coast?” They’ll tell you themselves, it’s an overdeveloped, high-rise hell, it’s nasty, it’s tacky, it’s Miami!

Also, at the Townsville truck stop we met a German girl who even told us that going to the Gold Coast would be a complete waste of our time because it’s so awful. “Big buildings and drunk people, that’s not what I came to Australia for”. She said and she was quite cool, so I trusted her opinion. She had, after all, been fruit picking in the outback (and got bitten by a spider!) and when we met her, she was doing something really brave, hitchhiking up the Bruce Highway! She had my respect, therefore the Gold Coast didn’t from the off. Still you do meet people who say that the Gold Coast is the best thing since sliced bread, “I loved the Gold Coast”, a Liverpudlian girl working in a Cairns hostel told us, “there is a lot of drinking involved though and it would be rude not to join in”. Then our friend Mathias absolutely loved it too, “this is the first time I’ve been sober since I’ve got to Australia”, he told us and I was starting to appreciate what was maybe dividing these two tribes. Then of course, you meet the people with no strong opinion either way which can be a good thing as we wanted make our own minds up. So we head to our first stop on the Gold Coast, the very promising sounding “Surfer’s Paradise”.

In his book “Down Under”, Bill Bryson talks of Surfer’s, as it is affectionately known, as once a bit of a nowhere place, renamed to allure tourists. So with this thought and the poor reviews, we weren’t shocked when, as we approached the city, we were confronted by skyscrapers which indeed did remind me of Miami. Still we had our minds open and a joy in our hearts in knowing that we were in a camper and so if at any point it all got too much, we could hot wheel it out of there!

Passing the signs for the soon to be opened Hilton, the already existent Marriott and the rows of high street shops, I begin to wonder how this is a place that surfers would call paradise and if there had ever been a time when it was so. However, we did see young men walking around with surfboards under their arms, though we suspected they may have been hired for $30 from one of the many surfboard hire places on Cavill Avenue. Luckily for them, the Lonely Planet says Surfer’s is “a beginners beach”, which makes it all the more curious, the surf in Surfer’s Paradise, isn’t actually that good!

After a lunch of condensed tomato soup in a parking spot on the Esplanade, we walk on the beach which is gorgeous, the sand feels as soft as snow flakes, but as it’s Australia’s winter, it’s a bit nippy and so we soon head to the high street for a look around, As we stroll along the chockablock shop fronts, Andrew turns to me and says “it’s the smell of McDonald’s that seem to make these placed seem worse, I think that may say it all.

The similarity to Blackpool is quite uncanny only the sunshine's even in winter in Surfer’s and the theme is slightly different, with souvenir shops selling buckets and spades, kangaroo teddies, cork rimmed hats, koala covered towels, boxer shorts made from the Australian flag, bumper stickers and there’s not a “kiss me quick” hat in sight. So we have come up with a recommendation for the Blackpool tourist board, they must rename Blackpool, with a trendy name, bugger the casino, this may indeed be their saviour. Suggestions on a postcard please!

So after a quick trip to Woolworth's (still surviving out here, as a supermarket!) for yet more pasta, we hit the road again and on the way out we pass a Hooter’s bar, well now we know we’re in little Florida and the next place we pass through is indeed ‘Miami’! We head on to Coolangatta, another place that we only wanted to visit because of the name, and watch the surfers for a while. Then we cross the New South Wales boarder and I try to figure out the way to Byron Bay, my cookie mecca!

Bisvagas baby!

2009-06-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

Arriving in Brisbane we were hugely excited, this was to be the first big, big city visit since Cairns and was much needed. We found our way through to Newmarket Gardens Campsite and plugged in the Minibago, charged all we could and had a good wash ready for our first night out.

Brisbane is a big city, with loads going on, we had been lucky enough to pick a few bits up on the way to tell us what was going and had underlined all that interested us, like any geeks would. Our first night was a bit of a wash out, we arrived in the city centre not really knowing what we wanted to do, and were refused entry to a cocktail bar on the basis that Ria was wearing flip flops and I was wearing slippers. The upsidedowners don’t seem to like flip flops and many bars have signs saying no entry if wearing thongs (their name for flipper floppers). We ended up finding the most empty bar we could knowing they couldn’t refuse us as we would be there only customers and we were greeted with some amazing blues music from some very old chaps. We stayed there long enough to get the feet tapping until the next act came on, karaoke! This was out call to leave.

The next evening we went out, we had even pre-booked tickets and had purchased some suitable footwear, however I was still wearing my slippers, but we got in no problems and listens to the incredible Tara Simmons and Band, the music was a delight, fresh and pleasant on the ear. The next two bands were pretty crap but not wanting to appear rude, we sat it out and then headed for the previously unseen cocktail bar from the night before. During Tara Simmons, a chap had got on stage and played the tambourine for some audience participation and who did we see in the cocktail bar, the tambourine man! We had a good chat with him and his nice friends, we spoke about all things Australian and all things Welsh after learning his name was Dylan Evans!

Being in a city is great, it has so much to offer, an endless choice of sights (which, in Brisbane are mostly free), we even ended up in the library to geek up on our latest interests. We went to the modern art gallery, botanical gardens and had a go at getting into the parliament building only to be refused (not sure if it was a footwear issue this time).

We had a great few days but we needed to set on our way to move south and stop spending so much money, on the day of leaving we popped into the incredible Brisbane Powerhouse to see the World Press Photo Show which was hugely insightful. I’m sure we could have stayed there for 2 weeks easily but our next stop is Surfers Paradise and with a name like that who can refuse!