Regarding the fancy-pants buses of South America, we booked into a cama from Cordoba to Rosario as we have been assured that they are vastly superior to the semi-cama which in turn is vastly superior to any bus I´d ever been on before Chile and Argentina. But I guess I'm a classy bird with a taste for comfort and so for this trip we booked cama. Unfortunately, despite our seats ability to recline 160 degrees and the nicely polystyrene packed snacks doled out on a silver platter (ok, no platter, but nice snacks), an hour or so into the journey, there [View Full Entry]

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The Andes! Mountains that are definitely deserving of an exclamation mark. We watched these impressive mountains through our window as the driver pressed ever harder on the accelarator, straining the bus as it wound up hairpin bends, our ears popping and passengers giggling nervously to one another, some even closing the curtains to avoid looking down the sheer drop. A chattering group of Chilean women went silent and the lady who was sitting across the aisle from me and had been giving her young male neighbour a barrage of information accompanied by the occasional offer of a sup of Mate to [View Full Entry]

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Comfy, soft spongy chair, 'ah...' I thought twiddling with the reclining button and getting the angle just right. Santiago sped by and I closed my eyes. Six or seven hours of countryside awaited, there would be plenty of time to look out windows. I felt a gentle prod on my shoulder and looked up. The young man dressed impeccably in a freshly ironed uniform handed me a pair of headphones. I smiled, 'gracias...; and closed my eyes. Moments later he was back, placing an unexpected pillow under my neck. Before we had left the city he returned carrying newspapers. 'El Dia?' [View Full Entry]

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Crumbling splendid architecture, fantastically elaborate street art, avenues called things like 'Avenida O'Higgins' and 'Avenida Vicuña Mackenna' a combination of Spanish and Irish, sandwiches and empanadas (pastries containing fillings such as Jamon y Queso - ham and cheese), delicious juicy steaks, purple-red fragrant wine, huge Escudos of beer, friendly locals, bars that spill out onto the street, men spinning around beating rhythms on drums they wear on their backs, packs of wild dogs roaming the streets. Messy, frayed at the edges, faded glamour and yet so strangely beguiling that you have to force yourself to leave. Santiago. We didn't know what [View Full Entry]

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Alack and alas but this is the final blog from Aotearoa or New Zealand depending on what you call it... And due to the Aotearoan's love of Dub music and our happening to be Dubs, the pun was unavoidable, cheesy but unavoidable! Once we left Dunedin, Gertie was pushed to her max as we sped along, trying to get to Methvin on time to meet up with Alaistar, a childhood friend from Donegal, and now a dairy farmer in New Zealand. On the way we applied the brakes at Moraki to look at enormous circular rocks that formed in the coastline [View Full Entry]

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... So sang Paul Brady, and I'll get to the island in a minute, but first to Queenstown, a mecca for outdoorsy types who not satisfied with the lush forests, yellow beaches, thundering surf, clear lakes, abundent wildlife and lofty mountains, wish to throw themselves off a cliff, out of a plane, down a river. Whatever way you wish to challenge your inner sense of self-preservation they can arrange for you to be strapped in and pushed, for a fee of course. Alan and Sean decided to chuck themselves off Nevis, the highest bungee jump in New Zealand and third highest [View Full Entry]

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We sit in a quirky café full of old radios, some as big as side-boards, drinking flat whites, long blacks and hot chocolates and spread the map out on the floor. Like in Mary Poppins, I want to jump into the map, but everyone's too busy pointing at different parts of the island they want to visit. Exhausted someone says 'enough!', the map is folded and we get into the car, too much planning, let's just get on the road. The stereo doesn't work, so Sean takes these luminous yellow speakers out and props them up on his backpack. 'Jaysus, they're [View Full Entry]

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When the clouds parted to reveal snow topped peaks and large alpine mountain ranges out the window of the plane, I was smitten. I'll start at the beginning, when we land in Christchurch. My love affair with New Zealand is still in the early dizzy phase, so sorry if I get oogley-eyed or gush at points, I'll try to keep my emotions in check for all of our sakes. We were zonked and our hostel was great so all we did on our first night was cook dinner in the cosy kitchen and walk about in our socks. The next morning [View Full Entry]

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Fumbling with maps and then suddenly we're on the Harbour Bridge, this is Sydney as I've seen it from countless documentaries, postcards, films. The sun is shining and after weeks of driving through the countryside, avoiding big cities in the campervan, the colour, smells, noise and excitement of the big city is overpowering. We love the city from the very start. Dropping the van off - this one is called Skippy and I'll write about our drive through the floods soon - we get the train back into the city to Central Station and make a phonecall to Alan's relations out [View Full Entry]

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Driving games, everyone plays them and one of ours involved assessing our distance from the main tourist trail or attraction based on the ratio of lorries to campervans - it's a gradual thing - when it's all lorries and warehouses or empty roads you're nowhere near, and you're on the outskirts when there's a couple of campervans per hundred lorries, but when the ratio begins to even up, you're heading to the centre, and when you start massive sightings of tour buses you're smack bang in the middle of the trail, the eye of the storm and there is not a [View Full Entry]

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