Having asked one of the English speaking locals on the cruise it seems that the chances of finding an equally multi-lingual dentist in Ushuaia are slim. This is becoming something of a priority now given that it is day 3 on anti-biotics and my face is a tad swollen still. C thinks that we can get by on broken Spanglish and sign language, based in part I guess on the standard of communication one gets anyway when you’re sat in a chair with a mouth full of tongue suppressor and drill. Given that no dentist is going to do anything until [View Full Entry]

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Well what do you know? In the blog for Robe we posted a picture of a signpost that pointed to the South Pole “Just a tantalising 5700km away…”. “One day…” I wrote, little realising that as near as dammit that day was only less than three months away. For a couple that planned to chase the warm summer weather around the world for 8 months we took a wrong turning somewhere. Preparation, or lack of We first learned that it was possible to be a tourist [View Full Entry]

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As I write we’re sat on a ship that has just docked in Ushuaia, Argentina, the most southerly city in the world we are told. The reason we are here is the subject of the next, much lengthier blog. This one is just to fill in the gaps between leaving Australia and our arrival here today. The reasons why there is not much detail are many but basically boil down to... * Being physically and emotionally drained after the last 8 days and the journey to get us to these last 8 days; * There isn’t actually all that much to [View Full Entry]

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Travellers tip - there are many hotels in Sydney and your airport taxi driver does not necessarily know them all. We got him to the right district but the fact that the street name temporarily escaped us sent him into a fit. He 'asked' me to look it up in a street directory in a tone that brooked no argument, fortunately just before the time that we happened on the hotel anyway. Just as well, I was starting to fear for our safety. He pretty much failed the 'courteous and polite' part of his responsibilities as posted in the 'what you [View Full Entry]

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OK, the title's a tad melodramatic and should more accurately read "Crocodile Attack Show". This was the main event at Hartley's Crocodile Farm some 40km north of Cairns and, conveniently ignoring my usual concerns about the ethics of turning wild animals into performing spectacles, an impressive show it was too. One man who has obviously had his fear emotion surgically removed spent some 45 minutes showing us how crocodiles behave when presented with food opportunities. Whilst the food in question was ostensibly some bait on a rope, it was pretty obvious that given half a chance the croc woul [View Full Entry]

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Established in South Australia in 1893 the Stanley Wine Company has always prided itself on the quality and reliability of its products. This philosophy has been instrumental in the Stanley cask becoming an Australian icon. It was pretty much instrumental in making me feel decidedly under the weather today as well. To be fair, the bottle of Merlot that accompanied dinner, preceded as it was by the always risky long island iced tea, have also played significant parts in my recent downfall. Unfortunately the body was denied the extended lie in it so sorely needs because we h [View Full Entry]

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Before this entry gets under way I should warn any arachnophobics reading this that there has been a recent spider encounter. In itself this might be of little concern but one of the pictures came out quite well. If you’re at all nervous about our eight legged friends then watch out for the last picture. Scroll down carefully and you'll know when it's coming before you actually get to it. The weather in the Cairns area has cottoned on to the fact that it is wet season here and the last few days have been overcast and showery. We’re not fooled [View Full Entry]

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When many of the dive tours seem to be conducted by big businesses loading huge big engined catamarans with as many punters as they could, we chose to return to the reef on a comparatively small sailing boat. Besides C and I there were only two other couples on the guest list, giving us an excellent guest to crew ratio of 2:1. Whilst the boat has seen better days it was eminently seaworthy, unlike the chap who had spent the previous night celebrating a little too much, leaving his sea legs ashore and much of his breakfast in the sea. Our [View Full Entry]

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Man cannot exist on reef alone. Today we rented up a Tonka Toy that masqueraded as a car, though not I suspect as tough, and drove up into the highland interior. Our journey was designed to take us round the waterfall circuit at a fraction of the price and with considerable more freedom than any of the tours we had seen advertised. Heading north out of Cairns, we bypassed the Barron Falls on the basis of ‘seen it done it and resisted the temptation to buy the T-shirt’. Our first stop was to be the Davies Falls, though sadly the road [View Full Entry]

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The phrase ‘technical fault’, even before we’ve left the ground, is one of those things one doesn’t like to hear in the same sentence as ‘This aircraft has a…’. It doesn’t rank as highly as, say, ‘brace brace brace’ in the lexicon of aviation terminology one would never wish to hear, but it’s certainly way above ‘This aircraft is good to go’ or, my personal favourite, ‘Welcome to such and such airport, please do not get out of your seats until we are stopped at the terminal’. C seemed to take it quite we [View Full Entry]

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