This blog should be another series of photos showing a South American country as a hot bed of football. I know this is a difficult concept to visualise after those shots of an overflowing Estadio Centenario, but at least the games went ahead as planned. A lesson to those planning a Rio footballing experience - give yourself options. Flamengo would surely play a big home at the Maracana, wouldn’t they? Well not necessarily, in a country that has been known to switch a kick off so as not to clash with their version of East Enders. Flamengo switched their game ……. [View Full Entry]

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It was only a short hydrofoil across the River Plate and Monty needed a postcard from the epicentre of Mont world. Colonia was the initial destination, almostly directly across the River Plate. A world away from Buenos Aires, the town was asleep in mid-morning as we arrived. If venues such as Cafe Tortoni were trapped in Edwardian Britain, Colonia was somewhere in the middle of the 17th century - a mix of old colonial buildings established as a smuggling port and a US car museum. However, the cars were displayed on the street as everyday motors in direct competition to the [View Full Entry]

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Don’t cry for me Argentina! In the good times before economic meltdown and the devaluation of the peso, nobody did. The Argentine currency had parity with the US dollar and the residents of the Paris of South America strolled down their boulevards with confidence. A few eyebrows were raised at the prospect of going to Buenos Aires - it was after all not that far back since a small matter of a rather disputed game of football and a more major fall out. The reality was a very pleasant surprise and the locals turned out by and large to more English [View Full Entry]

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................and so to Brisbane. We got the early bus without having booked anywhere and ended up in the City Centre. The hostel was a bit on the “party” side, needed a deposit for just about anything and everything and was really only redeemed by the view of the city from it’s roof top terrace. We struggled with Brisbane - it is a pretty inoffensive sort of place and generally pleasant, but it lacks those must see sights, buildings and attractions. It is probably an easier place to live in rather than visit and there is a resemblance to a city in [View Full Entry]

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There are vivid memories of sitting on top of Indian Head on the east coast of Fraser Island - the sun was shining, sharks were swimming in the sea below, dolphins were also swimming making a mockery that the two give each other a wide berth, the odd turtle floated on by - it was a Monday morning. What would we be doing on a dreary Monday back in the UK? It was one of those iconic moments when you know you made the right decision to head to the other side of the world with a backpack. We probably had [View Full Entry]

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The debate may never end as to the best way to see the East Coast - buy a car, rent a car, rent a campervan, hitch or get the bus. There is no doubt that you own wheels give total flexibility, but the reliability or lack of it with some of the wrecks on offer in Cairns doesn’t make it a lot of financial sense or fun. We played safe and bought a hop on / hop off bus ticket to Sydney - a mere AUD$278 for 3 months. We rolled on south missing out Mission Beach and arrived in Townsville. [View Full Entry]

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An early start to catch a flight to Cairns, via a transit stop in Gove. Gove is an airport, where the gate means the gate - quite literally access to the plane is through the gate in the fence. Baggage collection is not that hitec either, consisting of placing your bag on a trolley. As with most of the disproportionately large airfields in the area, Gove is a relic of WW2 and seeing as the journey to reach it along the mostly unsealed Central Arnhem Road is 430 miles from Katherine the airport makes a handy shortcut. We were looking forward [View Full Entry]

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The happy backpacking family spirit that had been prevalent in the trip from Adelaide evaporated in Alice, as people went their separate ways and we boarded a big "bus" for the journey north to Darwin and Kakadu. There were only a few of the original party left and we guess we were as guilty as everybody else in sticking in our own group. The roads are sealed to Darwin, so the economies of scale make it a no brainer for the companies to put on a big vehicle. The limited sights are also pretty much just off the main highway and [View Full Entry]

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The requirement to hum along to that classic piece of Smokie is not obligatory as you read the blog. Uluru is apparently the most visited single site in Australia and if you are wondering if it's worth the effort to get there, the answer is a big yes! We'd been up at some hour well before dawn again, leaving South Australia behind and crossing into the Territory. There clearly wasn't much distinction between the two, as we rolled on past mile after mile of scrub and desert, which was punctuated by yesterday's road kill and feasting wedge tailed eagles. The distance [View Full Entry]

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A totally different proposition from our previous excursions into the world. Life has come to a crossroads with a redundancy, after 15 years of corporate existence and the next 8 months was the result. I’d had a lot of time “gardening” to hatch a plan. I don’t think we were looking to "find ourselves" or necessarily running away from anything - it was just an opportunity that presented itself and there was a desire to see if we could pull it off. There was no desire to discover a missing tribe (although we did encounter a long lost relation, that we [View Full Entry]

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