After not sleeping very much on the night bus from Santiago, I arrived bright and early Wednesday morning in Pucón. It´s a small-ish town in a beautiful setting on the edge of Lake Villarrica, overlooked by (still active) Volcano Villarrica, and is one of the main tourist centres in the Chilean Lake District. And boy, is it touristy...loads of cafes, restaurants and bars, all packed, mainly, with Chileans on holiday. It´s one of the main centres for outdoor adventure activities in Chile, and in that way reminded me a bit of Taupo in New Zealand. There are loads of tour and [View Full Entry]

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It was very hard, but I finally managed to drag myself away from the comforts of the hostel in Santiago, and went to Valparaiso. One of the guys from the hostel, Olivier, was planning to go to Valparaiso as well, so we ended up going together. That was really good as not only was he good company, but he also spoke a lot better Spanish than me, as he´s half Spanish. (As an aside, it´s not that I´m not trying to speak Spanish, but I just don´t understand a word anyone is saying to me. I´m convinced they don´t actually speak [View Full Entry]

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I would love to be able to tell you about all the things I´ve done here in Santiago, all the sights I´ve seen, the food I´ve eaten....but seeing as I haven´t actually done anything, I can´t! I got here two days ago, and my time in Chile didn´t exactly start very well. When I´d packed my bags in the hostel back in New Zealand, I´d put my two last Kiwi fruit in my carry on bag, intending to eat them later. However, I promptly forgot about them. So when it came to filling in the customs declaration form, I ticked the [View Full Entry]

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The next part of my plan for my time in New Zealand was to go swimming with dolphins. I´d tried to do this twice before, but failed on both occasions...the first because we didn´t find any dolphins, and the second because although we found dolphins, there was a baby dolphin in the group and you´re not allowed to swim when there´s a baby around. So I was determined that this time I would manage it. Based on my research, the Bay of Plenty is a good place for dolphins so I decided to head to a town there called Tauranga, after [View Full Entry]

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After a sad goodbye to Sean at the airport in Brisbane, I arrived in New Zealand late in the evening on Wednesday. My first stop was Auckland, but I didn't do much there at all except for work out what I was going to do for the rest of the week I'm here. Yes, I know that's not very long at all, but it's better than nothing. Having got a vague plan worked out, I met up with an old friend, Tammy, who moved over here 3 1/2 years ago. We had a great evening catching up, and it was really [View Full Entry]

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For my final week in Oz, Sean, Liam and I went to Cairns. This was a total blow-the-budget trip (for me, anyway)...none of this slumming it in a tent or a backpackers, we had instead booked a holiday apartment in the amusingly named town of Yorkeys Knob, about 15kms north of Cairns. Although, to be fair, it says a lot about our lowered standards of late that the things we were most looking forward to before getting there were having a bed to sleep on (rather than an air mattress) and, for Liam, a TV. And then there was the pool...It [View Full Entry]

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After a few days in Brisbane, staying with Sean's friends Ian and Ashlee in their beautiful house, we were off for a week camping on Straddie (we being me, Sean and Liam). Before leaving we kept checking the weather forecast every day, fearing the worst. This left us none the wiser as, like the BBC forecast, it kept changing every day. So we set off, hoping for a least a few days before the heavens would open on us and wash everything away. As it turned out, although the weather wasn't brilliant, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as we had [View Full Entry]

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After NYE, I flew up to Brisbane to meet up with Sean. He instantly whisked me away for my Christmas present - a night at O'Reilly's Guesthouse, on Green Mountain in the Lamington National Park. We'd been there very briefly last year, and I'd said that I wanted to go back - so we did. The lodge is set at the top of the mountain, in the middle of the rainforest. So technically, it shouldn't have come as a great surprise that it was raining. However, it didn't let up at all the whole time we were there! Nonetheless we did [View Full Entry]

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The whole reason for me being in Sydney at this time was to see the fireworks. I've always thought that New Year's Eve would be better off celebrated in the middle of summer, rather than winter. It's always too cold and miserable outside back home! Happily, when I checked in to the Collaroy Beach hostel, I discovered that they had an organised trip to the fireworks. Every year they bag a spot in one of the few BYO areas close to the fireworks (by sending a couple of their staff to camp overnight from the 30th, to make sure they get [View Full Entry]

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Ah, the Blue Mountains...about two hours west of Sydney, the Blue Mountains are so named because of the blue haze from the eucalyptus trees that often covers them. However, for most of the time I've been here, they've been more like the Grey Mountains. Or perhaps the Wet Mountains. I'm currently in Katoomba, at the YHA. I got here on Wednesday, following an overnight train from Melbourne then a two hour train journey from Sydney. All I wanted to do at this point was collapse in bed, but sadly my my bed wasn't ready yet so I went for a walk [View Full Entry]

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