With the sun still shining we made the most of the warm evenings with a couple of trips to the moonlight cinema to watch some classics - Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Goonies. A slightly bizarre but great experience sitting in a deckchair eating pizza, drinking beer, and getting distracted by the huge bats flying across the screen whilst possums scurry past looking for pizza crumbs. The purchase of a kick-ass tent that you can actually stand up in (oh, the luxury) meant that we had to try it out, and a trip to North Stradbroke Island "Straddie" just off [View Full Entry]

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Laura bought Andy a full day's sailing lesson for his birthday and early one Saturday he arrived at Manly marina to battle the ocean. Despite tearing the arse out of his shorts getting onto the boat (thankfully for all involved he had taken a spare pair) the morning went quite well as he tacked and jibed around Moreton Bay in glorious sunshine. Stopping for a bit of lunch as the wind dropped the clouds slowly started to get darker in the distance. Setting off back for the marina, the clouds in the distance turned into a full blown thunder storm and [View Full Entry]

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Two weeks into the search for our new house we began to realise that Neighbours creates a slightly false impression of Australian houses - they don't all have pools! Well, generally only the "family" homes do, where "family" seems to equate to a house fit for ten, which is miles from anywhere. However, after pouring over the property listings on the net for what seemed like an eternity we finally found a house in the rather disappointingly named Paddington. We were hoping for somewhere with a much cooler aussie sounding name like Indooroopilly or Toowoomba or even Kangaroo Point (seriously, [View Full Entry]

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So this may be the slightly less exciting sequel (as the title says - we do have to work this time!), but as most of you know we’ve buggered off again. Who’d have thought one little e-mail could lead to a 20,000 mile trip, and a one-way trip at that?! After a very sleepless night deciding whether relocating about as far round the world as you can was a good idea, we started the most hectic two months we have ever had, and hopefully ever will. Leaving an immaculate and fully re-decorated house behind us (and some parents with newly acquired [View Full Entry]

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Fourteen hours overnight on a bus, three and a half hours in a car, one and a half hours in a 4x4 down a very wet and bumpy track, and one and a half hours in a boat......300 Reais. Arriving at an air conditioned lodge with lunch waiting......priceless. We had made it to Brazils' wetland area known as the Pantanal, and were immediately introduced to our guide who was keen for us to join him on that afternoons walk. He advised us that as it was the end of the rainy season the path was still "a bit wet" so we [View Full Entry]

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Leaving the cold behind we flew north to hot and humid Buenos Aires, immediately ditching the jeans for much missed shorts. We first visited BA´s biggest tourist attraction, the Recoleta Cemetary. Despite being possibly the strangest tourist attraction ever, it was really quite fascinating. As you enter you find yourself emersed in a mini city full of narrow streets where the houses are in fact huge mausoleums remembering BA´s elite, and one Sra Eva Peron. Our next trip was to see world famous footy team Boca Juniors play not so famous Colon De Santa Fe. Arriving in La Boca we soon [View Full Entry]

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Santiago marked the start of our mainland South American leg. After our airport pick-up failed to show we grabbed a taxi and headed off in search of our hostel. After stopping at a number of places that clearly were not our hostel, the taxi driver eventually swallowed his pride and we were guided in by passers by. We spent a couple of days exploring Santiago, mostly trying to avoid getting stuck behind the locals, who walk at a pace similar to that of the changing seasons, before booking ourselves on an 11 hour bus ride to Pucon in the Chilean lake [View Full Entry]

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We arrived back in Chile at the town of Puerto Natales, edging ever closer to the bottom of South America. Having survived for the previous 4 months of our trip in a uniform of shorts and t-shirt we were shocked to find that the temperature had plummeted to a point where even Andy had to put on a coat. Puerto Natales is the gateway to the Torres Del Paine national park, which is famous worldwide for its spectacular scenary and trekking. Although we are not really "the strap a bag on my back and leave me for 4 days" type we [View Full Entry]

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We flew through the night from Tahiti to Easter Island and were greeted by some very thorough passport checks as we formally entered Chile (about the only security they do have) and received flower necklaces from our host. By chance we had arrived in time to catch the last few days of the annual Tapati Rapa Nui (Easter Island Festival). That afternoon, after a loooong wait we watched the parade (the 4 o´clock parade in true Polynesian style started at 7). It comprised various floats and lots of singing and dancing by the very scantily clad locals covered in mud. Having [View Full Entry]

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As the plane began its descent into Tahiti we caught a glimpse of what was in store for us as we flew past the neighbouring island of Moorea, with its lush green jagged mountains rising from the surrounding turquoise sea. Once on the ground we were given a native flower which we duly tucked behind our ears, before smugly cutting the queue and going through the EU channel, as it is effectively France. We then had to figure out how to get to our hotel. After a chat with a very helpful and extremely camp information dude who told us that [View Full Entry]

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